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The first candy I ever made, these truffles have a great coffee flavor and are loved by all who taste them. This recipe makes a lot of truffles. Reduce by 1/2 or 1/3 if you are just curious, but the amounts below are what I consider a batch.

Recipe:

Ganache (filling)
1 1/2 lb. dark chocolate
1/2 lb. milk chocolate
3 cups whipping cream
3 tablespoons espresso powder
1/4 cup Kahlúa

About 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (to coat hands for rolling)

Enrobing (dipping)
3 lb. dark chocolate

Prepare the truffle centers.
Chop the dark and milk chocolate into small pieces and melt in a double boiler of hot water. Do not boil the water—melt the chocolate slowly. I usually heat the water until scalding hot and then turn off the heat. Depending on how long it takes to melt the chocolate, you may need to reheat the water. Take your time to avoid overheating the chocolate. Stir the chocolate occasionally to help with melting.

While the chocolate is melting, heat the cream over medium heat, stirring frequently until the cream boils. Add the espresso powder and mix thoroughly. Let the cream mixture cool just a bit from boiling before adding it to the thoroughly melted chocolate. Once you add the cream, the tendency is to think something horrible has gone wrong. Just keep stirring and the cream will slowly disappear into the chocolate. Add the Kahlúa and continue stirring until smooth. You can use a whisk to blend the cream and chocolate together, but be sure not to incorporate any air into the mixture or else the texture of your truffles could be compromised (less gooey and more dry and crumbly). Wipe the bottom of the double boiler with a towel to remove water and pour ganache into a bowl to cool. It's best to let it cool slowly, but the refrigerator is ok. I place it in the garage overnight, where the temperature drops to the mid 40s ° F.

Dipping
You can dip by hand, but I prefer small loop or spiral dipping tools. Dip the truffle centers in chocolate and then quickly transfer them to a cookie sheet lines with wax paper.

Decorating
Decorating is optional, but is actually done very quickly and adds more "wow" factor to your candies. If can also aid in distinguishing between different truffle centers dipped in the same kind of chocolate. I prefer to decorate in a contrasting color of chocolate, so that usually means white or milk chocolate, but you can also add coloring to white chocolate to come up with your own colors. Whatever you do, don't think you can skimp on tempering the chocolate for decorating.

Once the chocolate has been tempered, I usually just spoon some in a small plastic bag (one with sharp corners) and snip off a corner and start piping. You can do intricate designs, but I find that you get better results by not taking your time and working quickly rather than slowly and deliberately. My favorite decoration is also the fastest—repeated stripes in one or two directions across all the truffles.

Gallery:
Click any image below to enlarge
  1. Comment from christopher 
    9:38 PM   04-Jun-2007
    This is a nice recipe. The ganache has a subtle mocha flavor. It's very good and I felt guilty after just eating two of them, so you know they're good truffles.
  1. Comment from Leticia Burmann 
    8:12 AM   25-Aug-2008
    Hi Brian!

    Congratulations on your site, it's great! I loved the recipes and we will try to make this one, Mocha Truffles!

    My name is Leticia Burmann and we just open a new business Chocolate Gourmet Truffles on the web few weeks ago.

    Our truffles are made with a hard shelf and a melty filling, it's a different way to make truffles, and we are hunting for new ideas to make new flavors. So far we have: Original White chocolate, Dark chocolate, Crunch Truffles, Bailey's liquor chocolate truffles, Raisins truffles and we are working in the Peanut truffles now.

    Great recipe! I tell you latter what it turn out.

    Leticia
  1. Comment from chamila R. 
    9:42 AM   27-Jul-2009
    thank you so much for this site, i love desserts to eat & make, i wanted a site which i can get good "real" recipes which doesn't have "magicked" recipes which look so good but never work that well. this site is awesome.
    1. Response from Brian
      6:10 AM   28-Jul-2009
      Thanks Chamila, I strive to keep the recipes and instructions so that just about anyone could make them and I avoid specialty ingredients that aren't carried by most supermarkets.
  1. Comment from Rosana 
    3:00 PM   21-Sep-2010
    I agree with Chamila, your site is awesome. So simple, so natural, so fresh ... I do really like it. I'll try your truffle recipes. Thanks ....
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