Chocolate Truffles

These babies are seriously divine, they're easy to make, you don't need to scour the shops for any special ingredients or equipment (which is the absolute bane of my cooking life!!!), they look impressive to serve up to your friends and family after a meal or to give as a gift wrapped in some simple cellophane and tied with a pretty ribbon or a nice little box lined with tissue paper or a pretty paper napkin.

Ok there has to be bad news, per truffle we're talking serious calories and for anyone doing Weightwatchers (like moi) they work out at 3 whole propoints each - eek!!! Nonetheless .....they are worth it!! Hehe!!!

A tip : The ones coated in cocoa powder wold be very slightly less calorific than the vermicelli coated truffles!

The following recipe makes about 21 truffles, yes, yes I am painfully aware there are 18 on the plate in the picture above - I gave himself ONE and shur I had to make sure they tasted okay myself! If one didn't taste the mixture as it was cooling etc one might have got 24 truffles

Here's what you'll need:

120mls cream

30g icing sugar

100g Dark chocolate 70% cocoa solids broken into small pieces

50g Milk chocolate, broken into small pieces

25g butter

30 mls Baileys Irish Cream or other liqueur of your choice (Tia Maria, Creme de Menthe, Cherry Brandy, Malibu, whatever floats your boat!)

Chocolate vermicelli and cocoa powder for rolling the finished truffles in.

Re the chocolate - I do a mix of dark and milk chocolate, but if you prefer use all dark, 'tis up to you!

Here's what you'll need to do:

Put the cream and icing sugar in a saucepan and gently heat, do not let it come to a boil!

Take off the heat.

Put the chocolates in a bowl, pour the hot cream/icing sugar mix over it.

Stir well until the chocolate is melted.

Add the Baileys or liqueur of choice, stir well.

Cover and put in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours until set.

Use a teaspoon scoop out amounts of the mixture similar in size to a Ferrero Rocher, roll into balls with your hands.

A tip: Try to have your hands cold for this part and the kitchen ideally wouldn't be meltingly warm either!

Have a couple of plates ready with chocolate vermicelli and cocoa powder and roll the truffles in these as desired.

If liked you could dip them in some melted and cooled chocolate instead.

These will keep in a container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Next time I'm going to try some White Chocolate and Limoncello Truffles so watch this space!