Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Hot for Chocolate? Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles

Hot for Chocolate

Now that the weather has cooled down, I found myself in the mood again to make chocolate truffles. I guess you can say I'm looking forward to the holiday season. Every year, I give my friends and family boxes filled with my homemade goodies, and almost always I include chocolate truffles. I started doing this about ten years ago, when I was a poor college student and couldn't afford to buy gifts for everyone. Nowadays, the boxes are a bit bigger and the goodies are even more delectable.

I have to admit, one of my favorite movies of all time is 'Chocolat.' It has the trifecta of having a beautiful French town as a backdrop, luscious images of chocolate and my schoolgirl crush ... Johnny Depp. I remember being so intrigued when Vianne added a little bit of chili pepper to a cup of hot chocolate. Hmmm...I wonder how that would taste. I had to give it a try once I got home. C'est si bon! I never thought you could add anything to chocolate to make it more addictive. Well, I stand corrected.

truffle

So late last night, I got to work on a sinful confection. I dug out one of my favorite chocolate truffle recipes and began infusing flavors like cayenne pepper, cinnamon and honey into it. After enrobing it in semi-sweet chocolate, I sprinkled a little bit more cayenne pepper and cinnamon on top. I decided to call them Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles.

You don't have to be a chocolatier or a pastry chef to make these exotic chocolates. It's incredibly easy to make and you don't even have to temper the coating chocolate. In fact, I learned this simple technique when I was thirteen, waaaay before I went to pastry school.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles

Trust me, if you make these for your friends and family, they'll think you bought them from an uber-chic chocolate shop ;-)

Mexican Hot Chocolate Truffles
makes about 60 truffles
Allergy Note: contains dairy ingredients
truffle filling:
16 oz. semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
4 Tbs. butter
1 oz. honey
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper *
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

coating chocolate:
1 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. vegetable shortening

ground cayenne pepper
ground cinnamon

*For a little kick , start with 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and see if that's enough. If you really want to knock your socks off, add 2 teaspoons or more.

For the truffle filling, place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine heavy cream, butter, honey, cinnamon and cayenne pepper in a saucepan and cook over low heat until it starts to simmer. Remove from heat and pour over the bowl of chocolate chips. Wait for a few minutes for the chocolate to soften. Add almond extract and vanilla extract. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, slowly stir the mixture until it becomes smooth and shiny. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or until the mixture is slightly firm.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or waxed paper. Measure out teaspoonfuls of the truffle filling and drop them onto the cookie sheet. Freeze them for 15 to 20 and then roll them into balls. Freeze them again for 10 to 15 minutes more or until firm.

For the coating chocolate, combine the chocolate chips and vegetable shortening in a bowl and melt over hot water. Stir until smooth. Drop the truffles into the chocolate coating one at a time, quickly coat them and remove with a fork. Gently shake off any extra chocolate and place the truffle onto the cookie sheet. Sprinkle cayenne pepper and cinnamon on top before the chocolate sets up.
You can store the truffles in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

18 comments:

Rachelle S said...

These look amazing!! Beautiful photos also. I love mexican hot cocoa, these sound devine! These would be great for the Holiday goodie platter. :P

RecipeGirl said...

I love these sorts of gourmet chocolates. What a fun experiment. I shall book mark these for holiday baking this year!

Just discovered that you're a fellow San Diego blogger! I'll add you to my SD blog list :)

Food Lover said...

Hello very delicious looking chocolates indeed ha! It looks like a giant chocolate truffle from the picture haha!

Chef E said...

I love chocolate and chilies! -E

Unknown said...

Me too!

Reeni said...

Yum! I love the cinnamon and chiles. These are so easy to make, thanks for sharing.

Couture CupCakery said...

Love it!! This is one of my popular cupcake flavors... I bet the truffle is amazing!!

Nina said...

I'm in the process of making these right now! I'll let you know if I manage to get them to turn out. I divided the recipe in 1/2 and am making 1/2 cayenne, 1/2 coffee truffles. My plan is to make them for Christmas; this is a trial run.

Anonymous said...

I made a fitness goal to run a 5k in three months---you and your truffle recipes are starting to have a serious impact on that. ¬_¬ Fantastic.

Court said...

Sounds great, I think I will have to start off slowly with the spice and work my way up.

Jeanine - The Baking Beauties said...

Oh wow! Just saw these on Foodgawker and had to take a closer look. These look fantastic, and I've always wanted to try chili with chocolate. I think these just got added to my list of things to make (and I thought I was done already..). Thanks! Beautiful pics too, great job!

Katie Barlow said...

wow you make it sound so easy! I tried making truffles and although they turned out yummy mine were not this easy! I didn't even enrobe mine!

test it comm said...

Those look good. I really like the chili and chocolate combo.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful what do you do to get the chocolate coating to look like that please let me know.

Art of Dessert said...

Some of the truffles I dipped using a fork and some I hand dipped. You can get a textured effect using either method. With the fork, you can run the tines back and forth on the top. With the hand, you can lightly tap your fingers on top of the truffles. Hope that helps :-)

Anonymous said...

These sound great. I'm going to try these for a Christmas party I'm going to, where the main entree will be tamales!

Unknown said...

I absolutely love it! Yes, Chocolat is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Johnny Depp is still my hugest crush till this day. When I think about hot spicy chocolate, I think it would make a great and fantastic aphrodisiac. You know, spice up the fire and desire between you and your lover; like in the movie Chocolat. Amazing recipe. Thank you for posting that hun.

Anonymous said...

I made these for the Superbowl party tomorrow and I hope they aren't all gone by then!! This was an awesome and easy recipe. Next time I will use a spoon instead of forks to coat them in chocolate. It also took me more than the written amount to coat the outside with chocolate. Overall!! Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

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