Saturday, August 27, 2011

Daring Bakers Challenge: Candylicious

This month's challenge was just up my ally as I love working with chocolate. I chose to make Devils food truffles, carrot cake truffles, chocolate truffles with hazelnuts and then white chocolate dipped cherries. There were many happy people in my family this month. 

The August 2011 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts, and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!


For the Devils food and Carrot cake truffles I followed my recipe for cake balls, which I got from Bakerella.



The carrot cake ones I topped with some toasted coconut. If you don't know how to toast coconut it's super simple you can either put it in a dry saute pan and turn on medium heat stirring occasionally, make sure to watch it though it burns easily, or you and toast it in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 degrees, either way works well. If you have extra put it in an airtight container and put it in the freezer for next time.


For the cherries I took white candy melts and melted them per package directions then dipped the washed, dried cherries. I then put them on wax paper to dry. They were great. I used Rainer cherries because that was what was in season here when I did them.



These were my favorite. I can't make these again.

Truffles

Servings: Makes +- 30 truffles, recipe easily doubled or halvedFor the best tasting truffles, a high quality chocolate is ideal, especially one that is 62% cacao or higher

1 ¾ cup (9 oz/250 gm) Milk Chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup (4 oz / 120 ml) Double/Heavy Cream (36% - 48% butterfat)


Making the ganache
1. Finely chop or grate the chocolate
2. Place in a heatproof bowl
3. In a saucepan, heat cream until just about to boil (it will start bubbling around the edges of the pot)
4. Pour the cream over the chocolate
5. Gently stir the mixture until all the chocolate has melted and it is smooth
Tip: If you end up with pieces of chocolate that won’t melt, put the bowl over simmering water (but not touching the water) and stir gently until it’s all melted
Tip: Be careful if you do need to heat it over simmering water, if the mixture gets too hot it will split and you’ll end up with gooey chocolate swimming in oil, so don’t overheat the ganache, steam from a gentle simmer is all you need.
6. Stir in your desired flavorings


For rolled truffles
1. Allow the ganache to firm up in a container of choice, preferably deep rather than shallow
2. Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop up room temperature ganache
3. With gloved hands, roll the balls between your palms to round them off
4. Dip in tempered chocolate or roll in various ingredients like cocoa or chopped nuts as desired


Tip: If dipping in chocolate, it’s best to refrigerate the ganache balls before dipping so that they’re firm and don’t melt from the warm chocolate

Tip: For a thicker chocolate shell, dip once in tempered chocolate and allow to set. Then do a second dipping or smear a small amount of chocolate over the truffle and roll in desired ingredients

5. Place on parchment paper until set

Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Your chocolates look so beautiful. I love how you have the cherry stems sticking out from the cherries. I'm also drawn to your candies topped with toasted coconut. They all look so inviting!

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