(Almost) Everyone's Favourite

Hands up! Those of you who loves chocolates. I can see a few hands shooting up. You may have noticed that I seem to be 'into' chocolates. Well, I made the Chocolate Pound Cake twice right? To be honest, I am not a HUGE chocolate fan, as I only have a liking for dark chocolates(must be 70% and above, to be exact) for snacking purposes. But I like to use it in my baking. Why? Well, most people like chocolates (of course there are those who have health concerns or just simply do not like them). So it's not that difficult to find someone to 'wallop' apiece of chocolate cake. Say if I made a durian(a thorny tropical fruit with a distinctive smell and taste) cake, I'm sure half the people would not even touch that. So chocolate is pretty much like a 'universal' food.

I like working with chocolate, although they are temperamental. Just one drop of water into the chocolate while it's being melted, and the chocolate is likely to be destined for the trash bag as they simply turn into a grainy mess. They are also sensitive to temperatures. Have you noticed that after leaving your favourite bar of chocolate in the refrigerator, they sort of became 'mouldy' after a while? But that's just chocolate 'bloom', doesn't affect the taste, just the appearance.If you want to temper the chocolate, that's another complicated story(at least for me) altogether.

I have tried twice at making chocolate ganache, using two different recipes. The whole mixture separated into a mass of chocolate solids and oil. So I gave up for a while, until I got the recipe for the Mocha Chocolate Glaze from Giselle. This recipe worked perfectly both times and the ganache glaze is simply delicious. That's the basis of the truffle centres below. I simply made the glaze, refrigerate until firm, scoop and shape them into balls. The ones on the left are simply coated with cocoa powder. The other one is dipped into melted chocolate to coat and then rolled in chopped almonds.


How about making some for Valentine's Day?