Chocolate truffle

A chocolate truffle is a type of chocolate confectionery, traditionally made with a chocolate ganache centre coated in chocolate, cocoa powder or chopped toasted nuts (typically hazelnuts, almonds, or coconut), usually in a spherical, conical, or curved shape.

Chocolate truffle

Type	Confection
Place of origin	Chambéry, France
Region or state	Savoie
Main ingredients	Chocolate ganache, chocolate or cocoa powder
Cookbook: Chocolate truffle   Media: Chocolate truffle

Their name derives from their resemblance to truffles, edible fungi of the genus Tuber.

Varieties

Chocolate truffles with peanut-butter filling

Major types of chocolate truffle include:

• The Swiss truffle, made by combining melted chocolate into a boiling mixture of dairy cream and butter, which is poured into molds to set before sprinkling with cocoa powder. Like the French truffles, these have a very short shelf life and must be consumed within a few days of making.[1]
• The French truffle, made with fresh cream and chocolate, and then rolled in cocoa or nut powder.
• The typical European truffle, made with syrup and a base of cocoa powder, milk powder, fats, and other such ingredients to create an oil-in-water type of emulsion.
• The American truffle, a half-oval-shaped, chocolate-coated truffle, a mixture of dark or milk chocolates with butterfat, and in some cases, hardened coconut oil. Joseph Schmidt, a San Francisco chocolatier, and founder of Joseph Schmidt Confections, is credited with its creation in the mid-1980s.[2]

Other styles include:

• The Belgian truffle or praline, made with dark or milk chocolate filled with ganache, buttercream, or nut pastes.[3]

• The Californian truffle, a larger, lumpier version of the French truffle, first made by Alice Medrich in 1973 after she tasted truffles in France. She sold these larger truffles in a charcuterie in the Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood of Berkeley; then, in 1977, she began selling them in her own store, Cocolat, which soon expanded into a chain. The American craze for truffles started with Medrich.[4]
• A pot truffle, any kind that includes psychoactive cannabis.
• Vegan truffles, any kind adapted to vegan diets by replacing dairy with nut milks and butters.[5]

References

1. Chocolate, Cocoa, and Confectionery: Science and Technology by Bernard W. Minifie (1999), page 545.
2. "Sweet surrender", Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2006
3. "Pralines VS Truffles | makingchocolates". Makingchocolates.wordpress.com. 2011-04-16. Retrieved 2013-05-27.
4. Barron, Cheryll Aimee (September 25, 1988). "Madam Cocolat". The New York Times.
5. "Fine Artisanal Belgian Chocolates". Chocolatsmeurens.com. 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2013-05-27.

External links

• Chocolate Truffle at Wikibook Cookbooks
• Media related to Chocolate truffles at Wikimedia Commons