Today, I was browsing through my shelves, reorganising and decluttering old volumes of various kinds of magazines when a thichk dusty Forbes volume fell literally on my head!
Unlike Archimedes eureka moment i just got a headache from all that paper’s gravity force.
Never the less, this random event coincide with me forgeting to trash that particular magazine.
Later and much to my surprize, i decided to give it a go and browse briefly through the glossy pages, mainly seeking an excuse to take a break from tidying up my shelves..
As I was browsing through expensive watches, powerful men and yachts wondering why i had that particular magazine “in house”, I found a full page commercial depicting :

“The most expensive chocolate truffle in the world, La Madeline au Truffe”.

“La Madeline au Truffe starts with a decadent 70% Valrhona dark chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, truffle oil and vanilla as the base for the rich decadent ganache. A rare French Perigord truffle (a rare mushroom) is then surrounded by this rich decadent ganache; it is enrobed in Valrhona dark chocolate and then rolled in fine cocoa powder. The result is pure extravagance! Lying on a bed of sugar pearls in a silver box tied with a ribbon.”

Fascinating right?
And it is so that i decided to go make some ganache and roll into coconut crumbles, caneel flavored crystal sugar and lick my finger as i roll my very own freshly made chocolate truffels!

Did you know?

Truffels were invented by M. Dufour in Chambéry, a beautiful city on the south east of France in a cold December 1895! M. Dufour used ganache, rolled it and coated it and served the first truffel that would come to be the number 1 cherished chocolate sweet in the world today!

Today, we can distinguise three different variations of truffels, all made with the same principle (rolling bitesize balls and covering them with yummie things).
-The Swiss variation
-The Canadian variation or American variation (depending on your source of info:P)
-The European variation
While the swiss variation includes a mixture of melted chocolate with cream and butter and uses cocoa as a coating, the european uses cocoa powder, milk powder and fat which makes its lifespam on the shelf or in your cookie jar more lasting. The American/Canadian variation differs even more since peanut butter and graham cookies are used as main ingredients.

Though i like all three variations, i usually make my truffels using Elleen’s Method, which i like to call the French-Dutch variation as i came up with it during my studies while sitting in a high speed train crossing Europe.

I use ganache and mix it with cake crumbles. Leave it to cool and roll it in balls. Then i use farmers butter mixed with syrop to coat it and then dip it in chocolate flakes, coconut or crystal sugar.
I tend to divide the paste and add liquer , amaretto, coconut liquer or menthe de creme or kaluah and make variations of truffels to please all of my friends.

Nothing is more yum yum than a nice freshly ground mug of coffee with an assortiment of truffels after a dinner!