Published November 1, 1997.
We discovered a few things that took the risk and guesswork out of our truffle recipe: Butter and corn syrup added to the traditional chocolate and cream made our truffles creamier and more delicate. We did not want to take the time or deal with the hassle of tempering chocolate for the coating used in our truffle recipe, so our coating wasn’t smooth and shiny. We rolled our chocolate-covered truffles in cocoa, toasted nuts, or grated chocolate to cover our untempered chocolate.
These truffles are meant to look like the real thing—small, irregular mounds instead of perfectly spherical balls. If you decide to omit the liquor flavoring, reduce chocolate from 9 to 8 ounces. For microwave-oriented cooks, you can melt the chocolate at 50% power for about 3 minutes. The ganache mixture is quite forgiving. If it cools too much in step 1, place the bowl in a larger pan of warm water and stir the mixture until it has softened and warmed up. If this overwarms the mixture, cool it again as directed. The same flexibility applies if you overwhip the ganache by mistake. Simply warm it over the hot water, cool it, and whip it again. One person alone can dip and coat the truffles, but the process is simpler with a second person to roll coated truffles in ground nuts and lift them onto a clean pan.
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