Truffes Au Chocolat

Photo by Katie Kay

I planned this decadent dessert around a bottle of wine I picked up several years ago with Chrystal during one of our first trips together to New Orleans.  We went wine tasting near Jackson Square and sampled (from what I can recall) some pretty strange fruit wines.  I loved and purchased Midnight Sun, an orange wine with coffee beans.  This one was fantastic with a sweet orange and coffee flavor.  It's strange to sniff a glass of wine and have such a strong Starbucks scent coming off of it!  

Photo by Katie Kay

The wine is so sweet and unique that I felt certain it would be best served with a dark chocolate dessert.  I browsed recipes for tortes, lava cakes, brownies, and more until I came upon some truffle recipes.  This was a dessert in celebration of my parents' wedding anniversary, and I thought truffles would be the perfect finish to our meal.  
I looked at truffle recipes with coffee, liquor, cream, and other secret ingredients.  I picked this one below because I enjoyed reading the story behind it and it sounded simple and rich; a perfect compliment to the wine.  These came out exactly as I had hoped, and were super easy to make!  They were rich, creamy, dense and fabulous!
Truffes Au Chocolat by Tartelette
8.25oz bittersweet dark chocolate, broken into chunks 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature 2 large egg yolks 1 cup powdered sugar cocoa powder for dusting
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set tightly over a pot of simmering water.  Stir occasionally.  Remove from heat, then add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring with a whisk after each addition.  At this point, it looked like my chocolate was going to harden up, but as I added more butter, it stayed soft and shiny.  Add the egg yolks and stir until combined.  Add powdered sugar and whisk until combined.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.
When firm, scoop out chocolate a small amount at a time and quickly roll into balls.  Set them on a baking sheet and refrigerate until firm (overnight or at least an hour or two.)
When firm, roll in desired coating and refrigerate again until ready to serve.   I used regular cocoa powder, extra dark chocolate cocoa powder, and powdered sugar for color variation.  I couldn't really tell the taste difference between the 2 cocoas.