Chocolate Truffles
Last year I decided I had had enough of making christmas cookies. Instead I made chocolate truffles. I did make a couple of batches of cookies this year (gingerbread cut-outs & butter cookies), but the truffles just might be a new tradition. Recipes abound. I use the very easy one in Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food (p. 382), one of my favorite cookbooks. This time I made the truffles with Cointreau. Here's my quick paraphrase of the recipe (for more exact instructions see the original):
Chocolate Truffles
Melt together over a double boiler 8 oz bittersweet chocolate and 10 TBS unsalted butter. Remove the chocolate from the heat and add 6 TBS heavy cream and 1-2 TBS liqueur (optional). Refrigerate the mixture until firm. When it is solid, spoon a tsp or so up and roll between your hands--this is the messy part--then roll the truffles in sifted cocoa and put on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Put back in the refrigerator to firm up the finished truffles.
For those who don't like to bake, or if you can't face another spritz, try these!
