And thus concludes the tripartite truffle adventure. Earl grey also seems to be a flavor popping up everywhere these days and I wanted to try my hand at getting the tea flavor into chocolate.
Well, that part turned out to be amazingly easy. Just infuse cream with earl grey leaves and leave to steep for about 5 minutes (if you can make tea, you can make these). When combined with the chocolated, it gave it a wonderfully subtle earl grey flavor. Total thumbs up from me.
The only issue with this recipe is that it didn't call for the truffles to be coated with another layer of melted chocolate as the previous two truffle recipes. This left the truffles resembling fudge rather than truffles. Now, this was not a flavor problem in the least. But, it did make the process of eating the truffles a bit of a sticky mess. I eventually decided to go ahead and dip these chocolates in another layer of chocolate, leaving them with this nice hard shell, making them much easier to eat. Either way though, they are delicious! And oh so refined.
Ingredients
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces and softened
2 teaspoons loose Earl Grey tea leaves
6 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped + 12 oz for outer coating (optional)
1 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
Method
Bring cream and butter to a boil in a small heavy saucepan and stir in tea leaves. Remove from heat and let steep 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, finely grind chocolate in a food processor and transfer to a bowl. Pour cream through a fine-mesh sieve onto chocolate, pressing on and discarding tea leaves, then whisk until smooth. Chill ganache, covered, until firm, about 2 hours.
Spoon level teaspoons of ganache onto a baking sheet. Put cocoa in a bowl, then dust your palms lightly with it. Roll each piece of ganache into a ball (wash your hands and redust as they become sticky). Drop several balls at a time into bowl of cocoa and turn to coat. Transfer as coated to an airtight container, separating layers with wax paper.
Optional Extra External Chocolate Coat:
Line 13x9x2-inch baking sheet with foil. Place remaining 12 ounces chocolate in medium metal bowl over saucepan of barely simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water); stir until chocolate is melted and smooth and thermometer inserted into chocolate registers 115°F. Remove bowl from over water. Working quickly, submerge 1 truffle in melted chocolate. Using fork, lift out truffle and tap fork against side of bowl to allow excess coating to drip off. Transfer truffle to prepared sheet.
Truffles can be made 1 week ahead and chilled, or 1 month ahead and frozen in an airtight container.