WetLeather Recipe Database - food for bikers

Name:	Chocolate Truffles	Contributor:	Rob Scott
Description:	review and information from a weekend truffle-training	Posted:	2000-05-08
Key words:	cooking class	Category:	Desserts
ID:	622	Updated:	2005-12-11 10:16:57
Ingredients:	chocolate cream flavourings
Preparation:	What a wonderful experience I had this past Saturday. I spend the day quite literally up to my elbows in chocolate and it was indeed a fine thing. If the mantra of Pachinko players is "Be the ball" than my mantra on Saturday was "Be the bean, the cacao bean." Several months ago I had to good fortune of having a cow orker recommend a class in truffle making to me. The class is offered once per quarter (except during the summer months) during the normal school year through the UW Experimental College in Seattle. The principle instructor, Bill Fredericks is an oceanographer at UW and also teaches truffle making at several community colleges and Sur La Table in Seattle. The co-instructor, Elizabeth Peckham is a professional truffle maker who distributes her wares in various Seattle area co-op stores and east-side boutique food shops. The class gathered at Bill's house in Lake Forest Park. The morning was spent on a ninety minute lecture on chocolate history, cacao culturing and economics and the basic physics of prepared chocolate. During the course of the lecture, we discussed and sampled various mixes and grades of unsweetened chocolate liquor, various darks, several milks and three white chocolates. Some of the more important tidbits that I learned from this session were: - White chocolate is indeed considered chocolate if it consists of only cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids and optional flavorings. - Cocoa butter melts at 88 degrees, and must be worked at a temperature of between 88 and 92 degrees. This is what gives pure chocolate confections their distinct and immediate taste and mouth feel. It is also the property that makes it particularly difficult to work with if a fine confection is to be produced. - There are three types of cacao plants in the world: one of which accounts for 85% of the worlds crop and is used primary for the bulk in manufactured chocolate and the other two which are far more flavorful and are mixed with the bulk beans in most chocolate varieties. Similar to coffee beans, cacao beans have regional distinctions and are typically blended by the chocolate manufacturer to produce distinct and consistent products for distribution. - Cacao plants only grow in a belt plus or minus 20 degrees from the equator. The Ivory Coast is currently the worlds largest producer of beans. The plants are very difficult to pollinate and each produces a maximum of between 30 and 50 pods per year. This lack of fecundity accounts for the relatively high price of chocolate worldwide. - Never, EVER expose melted chocolate directly to water. The chocolate will "seize" around the water drops and form a completely unmeltable hard mass that will be most unpleasant in the final product. At the end of the morning session, we prepared our first "ganache", or creamy truffle filling. Most truffle fillings are actually quite simple to make, typically consisting of a quantity of chocolate, heavy cream and a flavoring of some sort. The flavorings may be as simple as a few drops of essential oils, a teaspoon or three of a liqueur or they may be as complex as a reduced fruit mixture strained into a concentrated liquid. Several of the ganaches that we produced needed to set in the fridge prior to our use later in the day. Next we received our first lesson on tempering chocolate. This is the true skill piece in making any chocolate confection. If chocolate solidifies at the wrong temperatures the result is often a grainy mass that is quite unappealing to the eye and the mouth. Only one of seven crystalline forms is the desirable outcome, and to achieve this perfection the melted chocolate must be quickly cooled from between 100-110F to 92F to allow only the "Beta" crystals to form. Bill took some melted chocolate and spread it out on a thick marble slab. The marble (any stone slab will do, actually) absorbs the heat of the chocolate quickly and brings it down to the required temp of 92F without the slow cooling that allows the unfavorable crystals to form. The art of tempering chocolate is knowing when the mixture is cool enough and then beginning to work it. Bill showed us the various tell-tale signs of the proper temperature and soon he had a batch of chocolate at perfect working temperature. He then showed us now to properly fill molds in order to later have a number of waiting vessels for our ganache mixtures. During a brief lunch break we watched a video that showed us more about the crystallization process in chocolate manufacturing. After the video, the class finished preparing a number of other ganache recipes and then proceeded to fill the molded chocolate shells that the instructor had made earlier. Now it was time to make two more batches of tempered chocolate to seal the filled molds and to hand dip some of the ganache in. Your humble servant and author volunteered to temper the batch of white chocolate and it was a great experience to be able to do so under the watchful eye of journeyman chocolate worker Elizabeth. After tempering, there was lots of opportunity to hand dip ganache balls to make hand rolled truffles. We also dipped lots of different fruit varieties, which is an easy and delightful treat. Note that to avoid the chocolate seizing around any moisture on a washed fruit (such as a strawberry) it is very important to wash the fruit well in advance and to make sure that it has dried thoroughly before dipping it. When all was completed each student took two or three of everything that we'd made and put it in a presentation box for take home with us. We each brought at least a pound of premium handmade truffles and other chocolate treats home. An excellent class and delightful fun, too. Of course, WetFood and WetLeather may expect to benefit from my new found knowledge. Let's see what I can come up with for the next WetEvent (although I don't think that I'll be competing with SwtP for a while until I work on some of my skills).
Notes:
Equipment:	marble slab or tempering machine for the coating.