Easy Chocolate Truffles

Anyone else love fancy chocolate candies but have a heart attack every time you actually think about buying them because they're so expensive?  It COULD just be me, but I think most DIYers like to save money.  Lucky for us, you can actually custom-make your own truffles for a fraction of the cost it would take to purchase them.  And it's SUPER easy once you know what you're doing! 

First of all, these are the materials you will need: 

• Wax paper
• Shallow bowl or dish
• Pan for simmering water
• Double boiler (or a small bowl that will nestle into the pan you're using to simmer the water)
• Small steel scoop (if you care about keeping the size uniform)
• Food chopper or processor
• 12 oz. chocolate chips (any flavor, but use a high quality chocolate)
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream (use a little less if you're using white chocolate)
• 1 tsp. of your favorite flavored extract
• Your favorite coating (nuts, sprinkles, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, etc.)

A couple of things to keep in mind when working with chocolate.  First, start with a high-quality chocolate base.  All we're really going to be doing is changing the texture and adding some flavor to the chocolate, so start with something that is worthy of the enhancements.  The second important thing to remember is that you want to heat chocolate up very slowly so it stays nice and creamy.  If you overheat chocolate, it starts breaking up and getting crumbly (there's a technical word for this that I can't remember), and then it's basically useless.  So keep the heat low, and be patient and you're good to go! 

The first step is to put a small amount of water in the pan and heat the water until it's simmering (the surface of the water is moving, but it's not hot enough to actually be boiling).  Make sure that when you place the double boiler in the pan, the bottom is not touching the water.  If it does, you'll need to remove some of the water before proceeding to the next step. 

Once the water is simmering, put the chocolate and the heavy whipping cream in the double boiler and place in the pan.  It'll look a little weird, but don't worry!  Stir continuously with a small rubber scraper while the chocolate melts.  Eventually, it will go from looking like a weird, clumpy mess, to becoming smooth like this: 

Once it hits this consistency, you can mix in your extract.  Just to give you some ideas, I've made these with coffee, raspberry, orange, and peppermint extracts so far, and they've all been delicious.

Once you reach this point, remove the double boiler from the pan, and put the chocolate in the refrigerator for approximately 1 to 1.5 hours.  You want the chocolate to set, but not to be hard. 

Once the chocolate sets, remove it from the fridge and you can begin the process of shaping the truffles.  This gets a little messy!

Lay out your wax paper and get your coatings ready to roll your truffles into after you shape them.  I used a few different coatings as shown below including chopped hazelnuts, cocoa powder, and powdered sugar.  The hazelnuts were my favorite, though!  

Use the steel scoop to scoop out a portion of chocolate and then shape the chocolate into a ball with your hands.  Roll the ball into the coating of your choice and place it on the wax paper to harden.  Continue until you're done with all the truffles.  Once I finish coating each of my truffles once, I go back and do a second coating.  I find that this creates a more even coating since a lot of the chocolate will come off on your hands the first go round. 

Let them sit out on the counter for about half an hour until they set, and then you can put them in an airtight container and store in the fridge.  

These are delicious, and look beautiful set out on a platter for any sort of special occasion.  And don't worry, I won't tell anyone how easy they were to make!  :) 

What do you think?  Ready to make your own?