Stay Cool And Make Truffles

Chocolate truffles are easy to make and don't heat up the kitchen!

Don't get me wrong, I love and always will love baking — it's just that heating up the oven isn't quite as appealing in an 85-degree kitchen without air conditioning.

Good thing there is still a way to stay cool while whipping up some killer sweet treats. Homemade truffles are a great summer dessert alternative because you can use a microwave to heat the heavy cream for the ganache and you can get creative with the use of different flavorings and coatings.

For my recent batch of truffles, I added espresso powder to a dark chocolate ganache and rolled them in three different coatings — toasted walnuts, toasted coconut and dark cocoa powder.

Another option is to coat the truffles in melted chocolate and sprinkle the tops with nuts, candied fruit, colorful sugars, crushed espresso beans or fine sea salt...just about anything works.

The only hard rule is that if you want to add a flavoring the ganache, be certain to use alcohol-based extracts, not water-based, or your chocolate will seize. Flavorful alcohols like Kahlua, Amaretto, Grand Marnier and Kirsch work really well.

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Truffles 
1 pound of chocolate, chopped or in chip form (My favorite is dark chocolate but milk or a combination of dark and milk also works.)
1 cup of heavy cream
alcohol based flavoring or 1 tablespoon espresso powder, optional

Place the chocolate in a mixing bowl.

Heat the cream in the microwave in 30-second intervals until it is simmering, stirring between intervals. Watch the cream closely so that it doesn't boil over. In my microwave the cream was simmering in just 90 seconds.

Pour the simmering cream over the chocolate and whisk until smooth. This is the time if you choose, to add flavorings to the ganache, just make sure the flavoring is alcohol-based. Water and chocolate do not mix! Set the mixture aside to cool until it's firm and scoopable. This takes about 1 hour. You can put the mixture in the fridge to speed the process.

When it's ready, scoop portions of the ganache onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. I used a 1-inch ball scoop for the task. Place the scoops of ganache in the refrigerator on a parchement lined sheetpan to chill for 20 to 30 minutes to firm them up enough so that you can use your hands to roll them into balls.

The scoops of ganache before chilling.

After the chilling, the scoops of ganache were easy to roll into balls.

After rolling the truffles into balls, roll them in the coating of your choice or dip them into melted chocolate.  I chose to roll them dark cocoa powder, chopped toasted walnuts and shredded coconut.

Rolling a truffle in chopped walnuts. You have to work quickly and get the truffle back into the fridge as soon as possible. Once chilled, place the truffles in candy papers and keep them stored in the refrigerator  until you are ready to serve.

Walnutty Chocolate Chip Cookies

I enjoy making fancy decorated cookies but truth be told, there really isn't anything that tastes better than chocolate chip — Especially when they're served warm with a glass of cold milk.

This recipe is my version of the classic Tollhouse recipe with walnuts.

My tweaks to the original are to use dark chocolate chips, heartier doses of vanilla and sea salt and use shortening in addition to unsalted butter. The butter adds flavor and the shortening adds chewiness and softness to the cookie, which is the way I like them. I think you'll like them too.

Here's the recipe:

Walnutty Chocolate Chip Cookies
(makes about 5 dozen 2-inch cookies)

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour
3 cups dark chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, whip together the butter, shortening, sugars and vanilla until light and creamy. Add the eggs and mix until well-combined.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Add this to the butter/egg mixture and mix until well-combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and waltnuts.

The finished cookie dough ready to be scooped.

Use a 1-inch scoop or teaspoon to scoop balls of dough and place them 2-inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until they are golden brown just around the edges. Let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes on the sheetpans before transferring them to a baker's rack to cool completely.

Valentine Treat Preview

I just finished packaging my last batch of cookies for tomorrow's Valentine Sweet Sale at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and am happy to say everything is looking great and I'm anxious to start selling and raising funds for Hunger Ministries. 

Here are a few pictures from a busy week preparing for the sale and a few previews of what will be for sale tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at the church (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland Oregon). I hope to see you there!

I dedicated Thursday and Friday to cookie baking and decorating. These brushed embroidery cookies were the first design I tackled.

I also had to include a heart design. I used a heart cookie cutter to make an impression in the cookies before baking. The first step in decorating these was to paint the heart with pink royal icing.

These cookies demonstrate the three steps to decorating the heart cookies.

Finished cookies that just need to dry before packaging.

Of course I also had to make some French Macarons. I thought cherry would be a good choice for Valentine's Day.

I filled the macarons with a Morello cherry buttercream.

I also made some salted caramel macarons because they are always well received and I thought they would look nice packaged alongside the  cherry macarons.

The final touch in packaging the macarons was a homemade tag and some butcher's twine.

Saturday morning it was truffle packaging time. Here I am filling truffle boxes with Dave who with his wife Cheryl made all of the truffles. Our friends Cindy and Terri also came by to help with the packaging.

Each five-piece box contains three dark and two milk chocolate truffles.

The final touch to the truffle boxes was adding a pretty bow and a paper heart. Terri and Cindy tied all of the ribbons and did a wonderful job. I love the way the boxes turned out and I have my friends to thank. If the bow tying was all up to me, I'd still be struggling — it's definitely not my talent.  But like Terri said today, "many hands make light work." It was a team effort and I'm grateful.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Almond Sea Salt Bark

Dark Chocolate Espresso Almond Sea Salt Bark is simple to make and has a wow factor that's off the chart. I know the title of this treat is extra long but every single component really must be acknowledged because each one is essential in making it taste so good.

The only secret to making it is to use the best ingredients you can buy. My preference is Belgian Callebaut Dark Chocolate, Stumptown Espresso Beans and sea salt and slivered almonds from the bulk bin of my neighborhood grocery store. The bark is also quick to make, taking just about 30 minutes from start to finish and is a great homemade gift for family and friends this holiday season. It is addictive though, so be prepared to share the recipe or get asked to make it on a regular basis.

Here's the recipe:

Dark Chocolate Espresso Almond Sea Salt Bark
1/2 pound dark chocolate, in chip form or roughly chopped
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup espresso beans
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 8 minutes or until browned and fragrant. These go from toasted to burned very quickly so keep an eye on them. Remove them from the oven and set aside.

Put the espresso beans in a plastic bag and lightly crush them with a rolling pin. Set them aside.

Prepare a sheetpan by lining it with a piece of parchment paper. Set it aside.

Measure out 1/3 cup of the chocolate and reserve it for later. Put the remaining chocolate in a double boiler set over low heat. Slowly melt the chocolate keeping and eye on it and stirring occasionally until the mixture is smooth. When the chocolate is completely melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the 1/3 cup of reserved chocolate and keep stirring until it too melts.  This last step might seem strange but it's called "the seeding method" and it's one way to temper the melted chocolate. The tempered chocolate you reserved and add will enhance the crystallization process of the melted chocolate.

After all the chocolate is melted, pour it onto the parchment-lined pan and gently spread it out to 1/4-inch thick using a spatula. Lift and gently tap the pan on the counter to help the chocolate settle into place.

Immediately sprinkle on the toasted slivered almonds, crushed espresso beans and sea salt. Refrigerate the bark uncovered until it completely hardens. Break the bark into rough pieces to serve.

Dark Chocolate Truffles

I used my recent batch of Dark Chocolate Truffles to garnish a cake.

Dark Chocolate Truffles are the answer if you are searching for a homemade treat that is as impressive as it is easy to make.

Truffles are rich, creamy and elegant yet can be made in no time with minimal ingredients and effort. They're just chocolate ganache, cooled, scooped, shaped into balls and rolled in a coating.

The only trick really is to use good quality dark chocolate. My preference is Callebaut Belgian Dark Chocolate. I use the callets which are chocolate bits similar to chocolate chips but without the peak on top. I like to use the callets because it eliminates having to chop the chocolate.

My chocolate choice.

I also like that you can make an assortment of different kinds of truffles by splitting a single batch and just adding different flavorings or liquors to the ganache and rolling them in different coatings like cocoa powder, sprinkles, nuts or coconut.

For a recent batch that I used to decorate a tiered Anniversary Cake, I make the most basic kind — just dark chocolate ganache coated with dark cocoa powder — Simple but soooo goooood!

Here's how I made them:

Place one pound of dark chocolate pieces in a mixing bowl.

Measure out one cup of heavy cream. Heat the cream in the microwave in 30-second intervals until it is simmering, stirring between intervals. Watch the cream closely so that it doesn't boil over. In my microwave the cream was simmering in just 90 seconds.

Pour the simmering cream over the chocolate and whisk until smooth. This is the time if you choose to add flavorings to the ganache, just make sure the flavoring is alcohol based. Water and chocolate do not mix! Liqueurs like Grand Marnier and Ameretto and extracts like peppermint and raspberry are a few of my favorites. Set the mixture aside to cool for 1 hour.

After one hour, scoop portions of the ganache onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. I used a 1-inch ball scoop for the task. Place the scoops of ganache in the refrigerator to chill for 20 to 30 minutes to firm them enough so that using your hands you can roll them into balls.

After rolling the truffles into balls, roll them in the coating of your choice. I chose dark cocoa powder.

Here are the finished truffles that I used to decorate the cake.

A closeup of the finished cake. To keep the truffles secure, I piped buttercream around them.

Chocolate Cake Wrap

This was my first attempt at making a chocolate wrap to put around a cake and I'm pretty pleased with the results.  But I know I'll get better with practice.

In all honesty,  I would have had a much easier time if I would have started smaller and then gained experience before attempting a wrap on such large cake.  But as my family would attest to, that's not my style. When I get excited about a project, I tend to jump right in and go for it.

The reason that a smaller cake would have been better to start with is that the chocolate wrap needs to be long enough to go around the circumference of the cake. A smaller wrap would be much easier to manage.

After adding the frosting, my cake measured 9.5-inches in diameter.  It's very important to measure carefully because you don't want to come up short. The circumference is simply the diameter of the cake multiplied by pi (3.14). By doing this, I got 29.83-inches and proof that it's important to pay attention in geometry class. I added 2 plus inches to the circumference to get 32 since it's better to have a bit of extra wrap so that you don't come up short. Excess chocolate can be easily trimmed off.

I also measured the height of my cake which was 5.25 inches and then added an inch so that I could also trim it fit perfectly. On another note, it's essential that your cake be as level and as straight-sided as possible. This means you might have to do a bit of cake shaving before adding the frosting.

So once I had my level iced-cake and measurements, here how I made the chocolate wrap:

Supplies
A sheet of parchment paper cut to fit the cake with a little extra:  My measurements were 32x6.25-inches, so I used a ruler to mark these on a larger piece of parchment because I needed to leave space at the top where I could grab to lift the template up and get it around the cake. I had to tape two strips of parchment together to make it long enough. Also, tape the template onto a flat surface so that it doesn't shift while you pipe the chocolate.

Melted chocolate:  You can use semi-sweet, milk, or dark chocolate. I used Callebaut dark chocolate and it's important that the chocolate not be tempered or it will set up too fast before you have time to get it around the cake. Just melt the chocolate in the microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring after each until it's thoroughly melted.

Pastry bag or parchment cone for piping: I used a disposable pastry bag and simply clipped a bit off the end for piping. Don't overfill the bag and the chocolate will be easier to control. If you wanted to use a pastry tip for even better control, I would use a #2 tip.

I started off by piping staggered squares and then piped "v" shapes through them for added strength. Be creative with the pattern you choose but be sure it's not too delicate. You need solid connections of chocolate throughout the pattern.

Finishing this took a good 30 minutes so you can see why it's important not to use tempered chocolate. You need the chocolate to set up slowly. Once the wrap is piped you need to be patient and wait until the chocolate is firm but still soft enough to be flexible and bend without breaking. It took another 30 minutes for the chocolate to be ready to go onto the cake. If you are working on a smaller cake and have space in your refrigerator,  you could set the template in it for just a minute or so, watching it carefully,  to speed the firming process.

I quickly found out that picking the template up and getting it onto the cake wasn't a one person job. I could lift the template up and get it into place but I didn't have a third hand to also gently press it to get it to stick onto the cake. My daughter Eleanor came to my rescue and we got the cake wrapped and then put it straight into the refrigerator so the chocolate could completely set up. This takes about 15 minutes. Then you pull the cake out and gently begin pulling off the parchment. In the picture I've pulled off a section of the parchment and you can also see where the chocolate overlaps. After removing all of the parchment you can cut this off. A warm knife does the job nicely.

I also cut off the excess chocolate from the top of the wrap. Cutting it to fit masks any imperfections you might have with the levelness of the cake.

A shell border of frosting around the base and top of the cake looks nice and helps keep the chocolate wrap locked into place.

All done!

Tempered Chocolate Decorations

Before

After

A plain cheesecake can be suddenly transformed into a glamorous beauty with just a random spatteringings of melted chocolate.

It's important though to melt chocolate the right way so that the decorations you create are as pretty as possible - even colored, smooth and snappy. In other words, tempered.

Untempered chocolate is not attractive, and may suffer from a number of problems. It may not set up hard (tempered chocolate snaps when you break it),  look dull and blotchy and/or have fat bloom which means the fat in the chocolate will move to the surface and cause whitish streaks and blotches.

And, what's the point of a chocolate decoration if it does this? Chocolate that is front and center needs to be tempered and this can be done without using a tempering machine or thermometers.

Tempering is simply encouraging the cocoa butter to harden into a specific crystalline pattern so that it maintains its sheen and texture. The best way I've found to do this is by adding a small amount of solid tempered chocolate to the melted chocolate. The technical name for this tempering method is called "seeding."

Simply melt chocolate using a microwave (heat in 30-second intervals, stirring after each) or in a double boiler over simmering not boiling water. If you use a double boiler know that it is essential that not a single drop of water get into your melted chocolate. Water ruins melted chocolate by causing it to seize and go grainy.

Once the chocolate is melted, add a small amount of solid chocolate (1/3 of the melted quantity is the general rule) to it and stir until melted. Now your chocolate is tempered and ready to use to decorate desserts.

To decorate the cheesecake, I melted 6 tablespoons of Callebaut dark chocolate chips in the microwave and added 2 tablespoons of "seed" chocolate for tempering.

Here's how:

Get your dessert ready. I put pieces of foil around the cheesecake to catch chocolate spills.

Put 6 tablespoons of dark chocolate in one bowl and 2 tablespoons of dark chocolate in a second bowl.

Heat the 6 tablespoons in a microwave for 30 seconds and stir.

After another 30 seconds of heating, stir again. It obviously needs another 30 seconds of heating.

The chocolate is now completely melted.

Add the 2 tablespoons of chocolate to the melted chocolate.

Keep stirring until all the chocolate is melted and smooth.

It's almost there. I still see a few bits of solid chocolate.

Done. The chocolate is completely smooth and ready to drizzle on the cheesecake.

Quickly move a spoonful of chocolate back and forth over the cheesecake.

Aesthetically I should have been more careful about the big chocolate blobs that fell onto the cake but I don't think the eaters will mind. I've never heard anyone complain about too much chocolate. In the picture you can see that  thin chocolate lines have already set up. The thicker lines will take a bit longer.

Done. Using the "seeding" method to temper the chocolate makes for an even colored, smooth and snappy chocolate decoration.

Chocolate Espresso Cake With Green Tea Buttercream

Two thoughtful gifts from family and friends led me to create this pretty Chocolate Espresso Cake with Green Tea Buttercream.

To celebrate the completion of my kitchen remodel, my sister Ursula gave me a pouch of Matcha green tea powder and my friends Cheryl, Cindy, Martha, Leah and Mary who volunteer with me at the Wednesday Community Meal, gave me "Martha Stewart's Wedding Cake Book" which I literally cannot put down, the cakes are so beautiful.

Matcha Green Tea Powder from my sister Ursula. She found the tea locally and it is from a company called Tagashira Tea Time.

The Matcha powder is so colorful that it naturally tints the buttercream green.

The book from my friends.

Thank you Cheryl, Cindy, Mary, Leah and Martha. You are such good friends and so thoughtful.

So taking inspiration from Swiss dot cakes featured in the book, I devised this rich chocolate cake covered with a Swiss Meringue Green Tea Buttercream. Swiss dot just means dots that are evenly spaced and raised.

Swiss dot inspiration!

Here's how to make the cake:

Chocolate Espresso Cake With Green Tea Buttercream

Chocolate Espresso Cake:

1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons espresso powder, dissolved in 1 cup of hot water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease, flour and line with parchment paper two 8-inch cake pans.

In a medium sized bowl mix together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Mix the dry ingredients well and slowly add the wet ingredients, continuing to mix until smooth and combined. Add the hot water with the espresso powder and mix again, being sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl.

Divide the batter among the two baking pans and bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool for 15 minutes in the pan before inverting them onto a cooling rack.

Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

Green Tea Buttercream:

3 large egg whites
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
4 teaspoons Matcha green tea powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water and completely cooled
Pinch of fine sea salt

Place the whites in a clean mixing bowl. Whisk in sugar and cream of tartar.

Place bowl over a double boiler on medium heat, stir frequently until the mixture is very hot (120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit).

Move to mixer and whip whites on high for 2 to 3 minutes; turn down to medium low until cool (use the bowl as your guide).

In a separate bowl with a wooden spoon, stir butter to soften.

With mixer on medium/high speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time, adding the next tablespoon just as the previous one is blended in. Once all the butter incorporated, add in dissolved and cooled matcha green tea powder mixture and salt.  Whip on high speed until fluffy.

To Assemble:

Place one of the cakes on a cardboard round or platter and add a top coating of buttercream.

Add the second cake.

Frost the entire cake.

Use an offset spatula to smooth the icing as much as possible. Refrigerate the cake for about 30 minutes to firm up the icing.

Use a skewer to poke holes where you want "dots" to be added.

Using a pastry bag and a round #5 tip, pipe dots.

Also add dots to the top and using a star tip, pipe a boarder around the base and add a swirl to the top.