If you’ve never made handmade truffles before, you’d be surprised at how simple they are to prepare. They also make a stunning culinary gift. In the end, I created a gingerbread spice version—chef jargon for pumpkin spice—but the fun part is that you can flavor these however you wish! Use a scale to ensure that the amount of cream you add equals 60% of the weight of the chocolate for the ideal ganache.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr |
| Servings: | 18 |
| Yield: | 18 truffles |
Ingredients
- 326 grams dark chocolate chips
- ¾ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch finely ground black pepper
- 1 tiny pinch salt
- tiny pinch cayenne pepper
- 196 grams heavy cream
- 2 cups dark chocolate chips, or as needed
- 1 crispy gingersnap cookie
Instructions
- Add chocolate chips to a heat-proof mixing bowl; add ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, and cayenne. Heat cream over medium heat until it just starts to simmer. Immediately remove from heat and pour hot cream over chocolate. Shake bowl slightly to fully cover the chocolate; let sit for 2 minutes. Slowly whisk until well combined and a thick, glossy ganache forms.
- Cover ganache with plastic wrap and let cool to room temperature or until firm enough to scoop, about 15 minutes. Form about 2 teaspoons of the ganache into balls using a small sorbet scoop, or roll by hand. Place balls onto a baking sheet lined with silicone or parchment paper. Refrigerate until cold and firm, about 15 minutes, then re-roll as needed to smoothen.
- Place a heat-proof bowl over a pot of hot water on the lowest heat settling. Add most of the chocolate chips, reserving about 1/3 cup, to the bowl and let melt, about 5 minutes. In the meantime, break gingersnap in half and place on a plate next to a microplane. Stir the reserved chocolate chips into the melted chocolate until they disappear. Remove from heat.
- Dip truffles into the melted chocolate by hand or by holding each truffle with a fork and spooning the chocolate on top. Place truffles on the baking sheet and swirl the tops with your finger. Grate the gingersnap on top. Let truffles rest on the baking sheet until the coating dries and hardens completely, trimming away excess chocolate from the bases using the back of a knife if desired.
- I used dark chocolate chips that were 63% cacao. You can easily replace the chocolate chips with chopped-up bar chocolate. Feel free to skip the chocolate coating and just roll the truffles in cocoa powder instead, or dip in melted white chocolate.
- Any other flavoring(s) of your choice can be added to the chocolate in Step 1, from coffee and extracts to oils and powdered spices.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 215 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 26 g |
| Cholesterol | 15 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 27 mg |
| Sugars | 0 g |
| Fat | 14 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Made this twice with a slightly lower % of cacao dark chocolate but worked perfectly. Chef John says you can make subs but try not to use milk chocolate as that will mean you need to use different amounts of heavy cream. Also ganache CAN melt when you’re applying the outer layer of chocolate and you are impatient; once it melts, it is an absolute mess to deal with. So be patient.
I have made these three times so far and every time it has been a hit! It’s very easy to make different flavors by replacing the spices with some extract. So fat I have made the spiced version in this recipe, mint, coconut and orange. If you divide the ingredients it’s very easy to make 2 or 3 kinds at the same time. With minimal added time.
I made this twice and both times it was unusable. I used milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate. I didn’t see anywhere that it had to be dark, the recipe said we could make substitutions, and we prefer milk chocolate. The ganache was not very thick. I had to keep them in the freezer all night and I was able to roll them into balls, but they soon flattened and started softening. I’m going to put everything back into the bowl and remelt the ganache and use it like a fondu. If the milk chocolate is the reason this didn’t work for me, should I be using a different percentage of cream or does it have to be dark chocolate? I really want this to work for me.
My 15yo daughter made these for presents. She did 2 batches after the 1st didn’t work as well. Inspiring Baker.
Made this today to give for holiday gifts for the staff. The truffles turned out very well, but when I dipped them in the melted chocolate the truffles started to melt too! I think I managed to salvage the truffles, hope they taste as good as they look!
I’ve never made truffles before today. I watched the video, measured out my chocolate, heated the heavy cream and bam, made the truffles. I couldn’t be more pleased with how easy this was. The flavor is outstanding, the texture is perfect. I’ll be making these again.
Using the chocolate:cream weight calculation vs volumetric measurements was perfect. I wanted to do a test run of this recipe, so I just grabbed the tail end of a big bag of chips, poured out a pleasingly round number of grams, added the correct amount of hot cream, whisked, boom. Perfect ganache. The whole thing came out perfect (including the spice addition). I used a pair of plastic forks with the center tines snapped out as dipping tools, as seen in someone else’s video, and those worked a treat.