Truffles

Today is a big day for me. My bedroom is empty, my car is going to storage, my bags are packed, my kitchen empty. It's an odd feeling. In a way it feels like going on vacation. When I leave tomorrow, for the last time, I'll be leaving for NYC, not my new home. There will be a duffle bag on my shoulder and air mattress waiting for me, just like all my other trips to visit my friends in NYC. It is strange to think I'm not coming "home" from this vacation. I'll get back to DC and go to another friend's house.

I'm incredibly worried that one day I will go on auto pilot. I'll get on the metro, go home, get there and realize I have no keys! It's not my house anymore.

Tonight is my last night in the house. When I get up and head to work I'll be leaving a key behind. I knew this was coming but there was no way to be fully prepared. I'm packed and "ready" but I'm completely scared out of my wits. I guess that's normal for being homeless for a few weeks and buying a house. So many life changes all at once!

In my haste to pack and move and get going....I forgot I was supposed to post two daring bakers recipes in one post! My apologies. Here are my second candies for our challenge: a basic chocolate truffle. 

Truffles

1 ¾ cup Dark/Bittersweet Chocolate
2/3 cup Double/Heavy Cream

Finely chop or grate the chocolate. Place in a heatproof bowl.

In a saucepan, heat cream until just about to boil (it will start bubbling around the edges of the pot).

Pour the cream over the chocolate. Gently stir the mixture until all the chocolate has melted and it is smooth. Allow the ganache to firm up in a container of choice, preferably deep rather than shallow.

Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop up room temperature ganache.

With gloved hands, roll the balls between your palms to round them off.

Roll in various ingredients like cocoa or chopped nuts as desired.

White Truffle Ice Cream

Yes, my monthly Iron Chef Competition rolled around and I did not shy away from making a "mushroom" ice cream! White truffle oil gives you a decadent take on the familiar staple!

Iron Chef posed a great challenge to me this month. How on EARTH was I supposed to be able to get a MUSHROOM into a dessert. Are you kidding me? Mushrooms were not meant to meet sugar. Also, simply the idea of saying "Oh yes, my dessert is just filled with fungus" was a rather great turn off.

I have no great qualms with mushrooms. I like them well enough. I eat them, but do not seek them out...that's not true. I am more than willing to seek out perfectly snobby mushrooms such as a truffle or a morel or matsutake, which are all absurdly out of my price range. In fact, it would take ten times what I spend on food in a month to buy a pound of matsutake mushrooms. I am willing to seek out this mushroom....I just can't afford it when I find it!

All in all my planning for Iron Chef was a little patchy. In the end I figured I would end up just throwing some black truffle salt into a dessert and calling it a cop out of a day...but then I googled "white truffle ice cream." Out of sheer cheek and snobbery I decided that if white truffle ice cream existed on the internet, then making some myself would be a great idea.....it was an idea.

To be fair this ice cream did actually get votes. I believe it even tied for third. I ate two helpings as it were. Was I craving more later? No. Will I make this again? No. But to be fair, most things I crave and want to make again usually involve chocolate or cake, and especially chocolate cake....which now that I'm thinking about chocolate cake I'm half tempted to abandon this post and make some!

In any event the ice cream was no match whatsoever for this amazing stuffed chicken dish that Yandary and Justin brought. It had a lovely glaze on top and won over my vote for sure. I wish I'd been able to keep my wits about me and grab the camera to take a photo instead of sitting there and gobbling down a few more pieces! I'm making full attempts to find the winning recipe! It was delicious! but the notes read something like this: white mushrooms sauted in butter then mixed into cream cheese, pound the chicken breast,stuff it with the cream cheese, roll and bake it in a honey dijon mustard glaze with almonds. For the actual recipe check out this link. 

In the event that you feel so brave as I did and want to try out some white truffle ice cream, may I recommend pouring strawberry sauce over it with a few slivered almonds? Makes a world of difference!

White Truffle Ice Cream

2 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
2 cups cream
1 cup milk

2 teaspoons white truffle oil

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar.  Beat for one minute until light and fluffy. 

Gently mix in the cream, milk and white truffle oil. 

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker. Allow the ice cream to churn until finished and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Chocolate Bacon Truffles

Easily a new favorite! Bacon is good and chocolate is good and combining them is GREAT! The bacon adds smoke and salt to dark chocolate that just makes it irresistible. As seen on FoodBeast.com, and Photograzing. 

chocolate bacon truffle

Sorry about missing last week’s Baking with Butchie, but we were busy. Living in the nation’s capital for the Fourth of July keeps one on their toes. This week, we decided to try to recreate one of our favorite items on the Savannah and Charleston trip we took.  The filling for the original truffle was a little stickier than we wanted,, so we decided to try for a fluffy bacon ganache instead. Did I say try? SUCCEED! [Word. That filling was the best idea we ever had.  –B.]

I’ll go ahead and apologize for the lack of precision in this recipe. It’s going to come to you in parts. Mostly because it’s hard to say, use the fat of six pieces of bacon. Bacon was not created equally. So instead please laugh at our measurements in grams and one part, two part, red part, blue part, instructions.  [As long as you’re measuring carefully, you can scale this up or down as much as you like.  You will need more bacon fat than you will actual bacon, but what you do with the leftover strips is up to you. Obviously ours didn’t last very long. –B.]

The most important advice we have is to use good quality chocolate, and be VERY cautious tempering the chocolate. It’s not an easy process, and even as we were succeeding we weren’t sure it was going to work.  Good luck!

clockwise: molded chocolate, melted chocolate, garnished truffles, cut in half, filled molds, excess chocolate

Bacon Chocolate Truffles

1 part bacon grease

1 part butter, melted

2 parts dark chocolate

Chopped up bacon to taste

Plenty of dark chocolate to temper

Cook the bacon and measure the bacon grease in grams. Melt and equivalent amount of butter in the same pan (uncleaned to pick up more bacon flavor) you cooked the bacon in.  Add in the two parts of chocolate  and melt.

Once all is melted and combined, set aside to cool. We opted to cool ours covered in the freezer stirring frequently. Chop a few pieces of cooked bacon into tiny pieces, and set aside. We like it extra crispy for texture.

While the mixture is cooling temper the chocolate.  Place two thirds of the chocolate in a double boiler.  Melt slowly to 107 degrees. Remove from heat and stir until it reaches 110 degrees.  Add in remaining third of chocolate and stir to combine until the mixture reaches 90-93 degrees. Use immediately.  If using molds, coat the molds and place in the freezer.

Once the mixture has cooled to a spreadable consistency, spoon it out into a stand mixture and whip at a high speed until it is light and fluffy. Fold in bacon pieces. 

Fill frozen molds, leaving room to seal with extra tempered chocolate.

Cover with tempered chocolate and freeze overnight.

Demold carefully in the morning. If you can resist eating one you are a better person than I.

Enjoy!