In honor of Sugar High Friday, I got back into truffle making.
In a twist of great timing, the Dec Bon Appetit issue has an inspiring article on truffle making featuring Katrina Markoff of Vosges Chocolates. Not only does she have some fun flavor combinations, but she is pictured coating her truffles in tempered chocolate, rolling them around in her hand to coat them with just the thinnest layer of chocolate. It looks very do able (and with hindsight- she looks alot cleaner in the process than I felt).
Holding a new tub of crunchy dehydrated strawberries, I was excited to see her balsamic vinegar truffle variation. A dish of strawberries drizzled with sweet thick balsamic vinegar is on my culinary to-taste list… what a fun flavor idea to roll into a chocolate truffle.
I whirled the dehydrated strawberries into a powder to coat the truffles (an excellent way to color code your flavors! Even strawberry and raspberry powder can be distinguished from one another) and went to town making a bittersweet ganache for my truffle base with a splash of vinegar. The resulting truffles are pretty in their blushing pink coating, tangy, and smooth with just a slight crunch from their thin chocolate shell. The vinegar blends in with the bittersweet chocolate so seamlessly. If anything it accentuates the peaks of flavor found in bittersweet chocolate. The strawberry plays a similar flavor role- holding the vinegar’s hand and skipping off to jump on my taste buds, inducing another drooled chocolate smile.
Listing of SHF truffle participants at Passionate Cook.
Strawberry Balsamic Truffles
After a Thanksgiving weekend of toting these truffles around, its been discovered that the strawberry powdered coating will absorb moisture from the environment and get gummy the next day.
I now recommend rolling in powdered strawberry for consumption that same day.
I’m looking to test out truffle textures with including strawberry puree or powdered strawberry in the cream step.
In a food processor, whirl into fine bits:
- 11 oz of 70% chocolate
Bring 1 cup of cream or half and half to a simmer. Remove from the heat and add 1 Tbs of balsamic vinegar to the hot cream. Don’t be alarmed as the vinegar will immediately cause the cream to curdle. Pour this hot cream into the food processor of chocolate bits and pulse for 15 seconds.
Pour the resulting ganache into a glass loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool at room temperature for several hours.
The truffle ganache will set up to a nice firm consistency. Scoop out portions with a small ice cream scooper so that you have thumb tip sized pieces. I found my scoop to be too big, so i cut each portion in half. With your finger tips, round down the corners of your ganche pieces, making smoothish lumps.
Prepare for coating your truffles by grinding 1/4 cup of dehydrated strawberries in a coffee grinder. These berries can be ground down to a fine powder. To keep the fruit powder nice and loose, add 1 tsp of corn starch and stir. Place this powder in a small bowl.
To coat the truffles in a thin layer of chocolate:
In a double boiler, melt finely chopped chocolate until just barely melted. Remove from the heat and stir. Add a couple tablespoons of finely chopped chocolate and continue stirring till the second addition of chocolate is melted. It should be just smooth and barely warm, not hot.
Place a spoonful of melted chocolate in the palm of your hand. Place one of your truffle bits in the puddle of chocolate and swirl it around to coat entirely. The resulting shell of chocolate can be quite thin. Drop the coated truffle into the bowl of strawberry powder and shake to coat. Allow the outer shell to set up before spooning the powdered truffle out of the powdered strawberry and onto a surface to finish firming up.
Makes about 40 fat thumb tip sized truffles.
Other Brownie Points Truffle creations:
- Pomegranate Truffles (non dairy)
- Spicy Aphrodite Truffles with Kava Kava
- Chili Orange Truffles (non dairy)
- And of course, cute little pyramid boxes to put them in for gifting.
14 Comments
Well, nevermind that long list of christmas cookies I was going to make. I may just have to stick with truffles now 
Those look stunning!
Love that strawberry color!
That looks just *amazing*. And I just found dehydrated berries.. yeay!
One day I decided to use dehydrated strawberries in my baking, but I didn’t have any. I did, however, have Special K Redberry cereal, you can see where this is going… I sat and picked strawberries out of the cereal box for quite some time. Next time I’ll just go to the store.
Those are gorgeous! And I was just thinking I want to make truffles for new year’s.
Wow, those are realy original!
and i was struggling to find proper couverture around here – never mind dehydrated strawberries! but that amazing colour makes it worth going out of your way for… they certainly brightened up my day, and that’s without tasting them!
The color on these truffles is beyond fantastic! I bet they taste amazing too.
What an intriguing combination!
Wowee! I have only had dehydrated strawberries once but they were seriously divine – I loved the crunch. And I can imagine how well the tart strawberry powder works with chocolate. My Italian sister-in-law’s dad always insisted on strawberries with balsamic vinegar and we always thought he was crazy….
Great pics too, btw
What a perfect Valentine’s day candy! These look great. I really like the idea of using deyhydrated strawberries. How simple and colorful! I don’t know about the trick of rolling the truffle in melted chocolate in your hand. Knowing me I’d end up with a big chocolate handprint somewhere unwanted 
The color play resulting from the powdered fruit is very satisfying. However- the powder is quite hygroscopic. I tossed some corn starch in with it, only instinctively- not sure if that helps the issue at all (is there a chocolatier placebo effect?). Kelli- s there an ingredient that professional bakers use that would address the issue of hygroscopic tendencies in fructose powders?
–McAuliflower
gorgeous!
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