Truffle Shuffle 2012

Every year my friend Jes and I make chocolate truffles for the holidays. She moved to Michigan two years ago but still comes to visit so we can continue with the tradition. We make upwards of 600 truffles every year in 10-15 flavors. It takes all day but is soooo worth it.

Ingredients including about 3 pounds of butter, more than 10 cups of heavy whipping cream and over 200 ounces of chocolate. This will be a relatively small production this year. We planned for 10 flavors and only a few double batches since Jes had to take her haul back on a plane.

Getting started with some double boiler action

My lab skills really come in handy here. BOOM! 1 pound exactly.

Mixing in some Baileys for this batch.

We roll the chocolate truffles in different toppings. From the upper left in a clockwise fashion: toasted coconut, pretzels, almonds, walnuts, pecans, potato chips. We also use powdered sugar, cocoa powder, crystallized ginger or crushed up candy canes. 

Rolling some potato chip truffles. As you can see caffeine is always nearby so we can plow through all these truffles.

Some finished truffles. Top: Lime and crystallized ginger, Bottom: baileys and coconut

All the truffles! Clockwise from the lower left we have lime and ginger (rolled in crystallized ginger), plain (potato chip), bacon (cocoa powder), orange (powdered sugar), amaretto (almonds), raspberry (walnuts), bailey's (toasted coconut), peppermint (crushed candy canes), hazelnut liquor (pretzels). 

I started at 10 am (Jes joined in at 11:30) and we finished by 6 pm. There are 461 total! The new favorite is the bacon. That was a first for us and it is so yummy. The bacon stays crispy on the inside so it is like a salty nestle crunch bar. The potato chip is a guilty pleasure and the lime and ginger is such a fun an unexpected combo that we go back to every year.  

Do you cook or bake anything en masse for the Holidays?