Chocolate and Almond truffles

Jumping back two posts ago, you may remember that I made a steamed chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce. Well, the sauce in question was actually a ganache, made from chocolate and cream, that sets quite hard once cooled. I had quite a bit of ganache left over from the pudding and, not wanting to let it go to waste, I turned the solid, chocolatey mass into chocolate truffles. You could make just about any kind of truffle that you fancy with ganache as the basis: add a dash of Cointreau for orange truffles, peppermint extract  for peppermint truffles, limoncello, cherry herring, or unadulterated for a perfectly plain chocolate truffle.

I went with Amaretto for these truffles. Just add a splash of your chosen liquer/extract into the cooled ganache, place in the fridge to set, then, with lightly greased hands, shape small moundfuls of ganache into rounds, or whatever shape you fancy (logs look nice). The truffles need to be coated in something to prevent them from sticking to one another. Here I have finely chopped some almonds and rolled the balls in the nutty flakes to give them an even coating. You could also use cocoa powder, coconut, sprinkles, other finely chopped nuts or some melted . You can really coat them and flavour them however you please- plenty of scope for the imagination and a really quick and easy little treat to make.

Nigella's chocolate sauce (ganache)

125g milk chocolate, chopped

125g dark chocolate, chopped 

250ml double cream 

75g golden syrup 

4tsp vanilla extract

Put all these ingredients into a saucepan and stir occasionally over a low heat until combined. Cool this sauce, add your liquer/extract of choice and then refrigerate to set completely before shaping (see above). You can actually omit the golden syrup and vanilla from this recipe for a slightly less sweetened truffle. It is also possible to alter the type of chocolate used. Feel free to play around and use milk, dark and/or white chocolate, according to your preference. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1094188/Chocolate-pudding-Christmas-pudding-haters.html#ixzz1ueAkPfM9