Chocolate Truffles

Every year I bake something for Christmas to give out as gifts to friends. However this year, my oven broke :( so I had to come up with something that didn't involve baking. I decided to try out truffles, I'd been meaning to try making it for the longest time but kept procrastinating becasue most of the recipes I found online were fairly complex. I stumbled across this amazingly super simple recipe on naomi-sugarspice, you can check it out here and decided to try it out solely because it only requires 2 ingredients: chocolate and heavy cream.

Instead of using all semi sweet chocolate as the original recipe called, I substituted half the chocolate with good dark chocolate to add that bitterness and wholeness to the truffle. It came out perfectly! And only took less than 20 minutes to make (not including chilling time) and tasted amazing! Rich and chocolatey, it had the same texture as the chocolate filling (the best bit!) inside a Ferrero Rocher chocolate.

The recipe is super easy to remember as well because everything is a 1/2 cup!

Recipe (makes 20 truffles)

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate (chopped)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Optional for rolling

Cocoa powder
Almonds (Chopped)

Equipment
Heat proof bowl
Whisk
Parchment paper
Baking Tray
Two teaspoons
Cloth

Directions
To make the ganache, place your chocolate int he heat proof bowl and put it aside for later. Heat up the whipping cream over medium heat. Don't boil it just heat it till it's hot. As soon as tiny bubbles start to appear, take it off the heat and pour the hot mixture over the chocolate pieces. Gently whisk it till it's smooth. Don't over whisk the mixture or it will split.


Once it's mixed, cover with a plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge for about 3 hours till firm.

If you want to roll your truffles in cocoa powder or almonds. Place whole almonds in a zip lock bag and use a rolling pin to smash it up.

Get some little bowls and fill one with cocoa and the other almonds for you to roll your truffles in.

Remove your ganache from the fridge and using two teaspoons mold the chocolate into little balls. It won't come out perfectly the first time especially if you live in a humid country like I do, as the ganache tends to melt really quickly. But you can always pop them in the fridge to firm up then reshape them again.

Roll your truffle balls into cocoa or almonds and place them onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Pop them into the fridge to firm up and they are good to go!

I placed the ones that I'm going to give away into tiny little paper cups for easy packaging.

I haad a dreaam...

And a really weird one too!! The night before I was looking up cupcake recipes to bake the next day. I fell asleep unsatisfied and exhausted, and had the strangest dream where I was baking this concoction..it was not really a cupcake or a brownie..kinda a mixture of both, I think it was just my sub-consciousness working in overdrive...but I decided to try it out! HAHA

I went online and found a somewhat similar recipe to what I remembered from my dream and followed it. The strange thing is this recipe didn't have any butter in it, I think that kinda affected the texture of my cakes, which honestly speaking have the strangest texture I have ever come across. However the taste is really good..So...here is the recipe if you are feeling a bit adventurous!

Chocolate cream cheese cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes

Cream cheese topping
230g cream cheese
1 egg
65g (1/3cup) sugar
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used a mixture of chopped dark and semi sweet chocolate)

For the chocolate cake base
1/2 cup flour
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 cup coffee

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line muffin tins with paper cups
2. Beat the cream cheese, egg, sugar together till smooth with no lumps. Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt together.
4. Add the coffee, oil, vinegar and vanilla and stir with a wooden spoon till well blended.
5. Fill muffin tins 1/3 full with the batter and add a layer of cream cheese mixture on top.
   
6. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30
   

So I discovered that it had a really strange chewy texture when it first comes out of the oven but after leaving it in the fridge for a day (covered) the texture improved greatly and the lovely chocolate-y flavour coupled with the cream cheese becomes more prominent. =)

This is the recipe I based it on (they call it black bottom cupcakes...interesting name..)
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Bottom-Cupcakes-I/Detail.aspx

Unfortunately I forgot about my second batch and accidentally left it in the oven for an hour.
The end result:Looks kinda like chocolate cupcakes don't you think? It tasted incredibly awful though =(
I stupidly tried...

Note to self: no more eating burnt cupcakes

Better than a box of chocolates

Nothing beats a big chewy chunky chocolate chip cookie. I get an immediate boost of happiness after biting into a wonderfully soft cookie. This recipe is probably my favourite, I found it some time ago on allrecipes.com and have adapted it according to my own tastes. It's simple and quick to bake, good when you get those late night cookie cravings, as i so often do and so so incredibly tasty.

Mmm mm mm i'm going to have myself some now!

Chunky chocolate chip cookies
Makes about 24 cookies,
- although i still had leftover dough, which i mixed with vanilla ice cream to make a quick and easy choc chip cookie dough ice cream =)
(I figured salmonella was worth the risk for such yummy-ness.)

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
150g Unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cup of chopped up chocolate chips (i used a mixture of both semisweet and dark chocolate)

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl or using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar, beat in the vanilla, and egg until light and creamy. Add flour, baking powder and baking soda until well blended.
3. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough spoonfuls at a time onto the prepared baking sheets (you can use an ice cream scoop to get perfectly round and even shapes) Cookies should be about 2 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Cookies should be still quite soft when you remove them from the oven, if not you run the risk of overbaking them.