We Should Cocoa Challenge: Mint

A 'skinny' truffle for June's We Should Cocoa Challenge

 

Garden Mint Truffle

From 'Adventures with Chocolate', Paul A Young

 

 

If you who have been around reading my chocolate posts before you will have noticed I am rather fond of the recipes from Paul A Young's book 'Adventures with Chocolate', so no surprise that I turned to it again for the 'mint' challenge. This month's challenge host is 'a kick at the pantry door',

 

 I was in two minds about this challenge as I am really not very fond of mint and chocolate together and I am sad to say it is still in my 'not bothered' list but this is none the less a simple and clean tasting truffle recipe.

  

I have referred it as a skinny truffle as there is no cream or additional fat added, just a mint infused syrup that is poured whilst hot onto the chopped chocolate and then whisked to a truffle texture.

 

I halved the recipe as I was very unsure of liking it and that was a good move.

 

• Make a syrup from 50g of sugar and 150ml of water, boiling the sugar to fully dissolve, then add 18g fresh mint leaves to the syrup and simmer for 3 minutes.
• Leave the syrup to cool and further infuse with the mint.
• Chop 175g of a 64% plain chocolate.
• Strain the mint leaves out of the syrup and bring the syrup back to a simmer.
• Pour the hot syrup over the chopped chocolate and stir/whisk well to create the smooth truffle texture.
• Allow to cool/set and then scoop into small truffle balls with something like a melon baller or suitable teaspoon.
• Roll the balls in your hands to get a smooth surface and chill a little to firm up.
• Melt some more dark chocolate in a shallow bowl and place cocoa powder in another shallow bowl. Temper the chocolate if you wish but the cocoa dusting will hide any whitish cocoa butter imperfections.
• Quickly drop each ball into the melted chocolate and then into the cocoa powder. This bit is messy and I would say use whatever tools you like to move the balls into and out of each bowl. Fingers work but only use one hand in the melted chocolate or you will get completed glued up yourself. Roll each ball around gently to cover with the chocolate and then the cocoa powder and then leave a moment or two to set before attempting to lift the ball out of the cocoa and onto a tray.

 

Water based ganache truffles are best eaten very fresh as the flavours seem to dull far more rapidly than with a cream or butter ganache.

 

The 'We Should Cocoa' challenges are hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog, and Chele over at Chocolate Teapot. You will find a list of the previous challenges on Choclette's blog.