Who doesn't love coffee and chocolate? This truffle recipe is makes for an easy and beautiful last-minute Valentine's treat to share with your loved ones!
Chocolate Coffee Truffles
Makes about 4 dozen truffles (I made these for a crowd, but you can easily half the recipe)
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 20 oz dark chocolate chips (I used two bags of Ghiradelli 60%)
- 2oz your favorite Voyage Coffee (I used our Sumatra), coarsely ground, (like for drip or French press)
Optional: (for rolling)
- Hazelnuts
- Cocoa Powder
- Cinnamon
- Raw Sugar
- Sea Salt
- Nonpareils
Directions:
To start, we need to infuse the cream with coffee flavor. Regular brewed coffee or espresso would have too much water and mess up the texture of the ganache. (That's a fancy word for the chocolaty stuff truffles are made out of.) Typically recipes have you use instant espresso powder, but we wanted to use fresh, high quality coffee instead.
Mix the cream and coffee grounds in a double boiler. (If you don't have a double boiler, you can use a heat-safe bowl over a small pot of water like I did. Instructions
here.)
Heat on med-high for about 15 min, until the cream is hot but not boiling and has turned pale brown and tastes like coffee. Using a fine strainer (the metal filter from our drip coffee machine worked nicely), strain out the coffee grounds and return the cream to the double-boiler.
Reduce the heat to low and add the chocolate chips. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and combined with the cream. (Tradition says that chocolate will seize up if you're in a bad mood, so think happy thoughts! That shouldn't be too hard to do, just imagine how good these are going to taste.)
Remove from heat and allow the ganache cool to room temperature.
Tip: You can use your coffee-infused ganache for lots of other desserts too. I recently use some as filling in a chocolate cake. It's great with ice cream, as a frosting, or just by the spoonful!
Now for the fun part: rolling your truffles. Roll your ganache into balls roughly 1" in diameter (don't worry if they're not perfect spheres) and then get creative with toppings.
I did four types: festive colored nonpareils for Valentine's, cocoa powder and cinnamon for a Mexican mocha flavor, sweet and salty with raw sugar and sea salt, and toasted chopped hazelnuts.
You can use just about anything you want, nuts, chopped dried fruit, crushed pretzels or anything else you can dream up.
Store your truffles in the fridge until your ready to serve them.
Enjoy!
Have an easy Valentine's recipe? What's your favorite way to use ganache? What toppings did you try? Leave a comment below!
-Jessamyn at Voyage Coffee Roasters
