Dark Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Espresso Truffles

I'm picky about truffles; they often suffer from bad chocolate, boring or horribly wrong flavors, or an overly-dense texture. Luckily I loved this recipe from The Sweet Life. The flavor of coffee and cinnamon is sophisticated and the walnuts add a nice crunch. The ganache isn't so dense that it's hard to bite into.

I used a 63% Guittard chocolate. If you're in Pittsburgh, you can find good baking chocolate in the back of Mon Aimee Chocolat for 4-5 dollars per pound. This is a steal, considering that Whole Foods charges 9-13 dollars a pound for Callebaut and El Rey coverture.

I will probably take these to class, along with some chocolate chip-pecan cookies. I'd consider making them again for holiday parties too.

Dark Chocolate, Cinnamon, and Espresso Truffles w/ Walnuts
adapted from The Sweet Life by Kate Zuckerman

Truffles:
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp ground fresh cinnamon
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (61-66%)
2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature, diced into 6 pieces
1 tbsp coarsely ground fresh dark coffee

Coating:
3oz bittersweet chocolate
1 1/4 cups ground walnuts

In a small saucepan, combine the cream and cinnamon and cook over medium heat to almost boiling. Remove from the heat, cover, and let the cream steep for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a double boiler, melt the chocolate, stirring with a rubber spatula as it melts. Do not overheat- it should never be so hot that you cannot dip a finger in it.

Remove the melted chocolate from the heat and slowly whisk in the infused cream. Continue to whisk until the mixture (now a ganache) is smooth, creamy, and holds the lines of a whisk. Slowly whisk in the butter and ground coffee until incorporated. Scrape the ganache into a small bowl and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Fill a glass with very hot tap water. Dip a small mellon baller into the hot water and tap on the counter to remove any excess water. Plunge the mellon baller into the chilled ganache far enough down so that it sits completely in the ganache. Rotate the mellon baller 360 degrees and remove from the ganache. Tap the melon baller to release the ball onto a plate or tray. Repeat this process until all the ganache has been scooped into balls. Transfer the plate to the refrigerator and chill.

In the bowl of a double boiler, melt the bittersweet chocolate, stirring with a rubber spatula as it melts. Remove from the heat and cool for 15 minutes.

Set up an assembly line on your counter. From left to right place the chilled ganache balls, the bowl of melted chocolate, a tray with the ground walnuts, and a container to hold the finished truffles.

With your left hand, pick up 2 ganache balls and dip them quickly into the melted chocolate and roll them around until coated. Drop the balls with your left hand into the walnuts. With your right hand roll the balls until completely enrobed. Pick up the finished candies with your right hand and place them in the container.

These truffles will keep, in a sealed container and refrigerated, for 2 weeks.