Recipe for "truffles-1"

NAME

     TRUFFLES-1 - French-style chocolate confectionery
     For those of you who are crazy enough about chocolate to  go
     to  the  extremes that I do, here is the recipe for the cho-
     colate truffles that I make.  The formula is taken from Paul
     Bocuse's French Cooking, but the directions are my own.

INGREDIENTS (3 kg of truffles)

     1.4 kg    chocolate (semi-sweet or semi-bittersweet)
     1 liter   very heavy cream
     225 g     sweet butter (i.e. unsalted butter)
               cocoa powder

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Melt the chocolate in the top of a double  boiler.
               Do  not  cook  the  chocolate. This should be done
               SLOWLY over minimum heat.
          (2)  Boil the cream.  Once the chocolate is  completely
               melted,  and the cream just boiled, combine in the
               top of the double boiler.
          (3)  Take off the top pan  from  the  water,  and  (off
               heat)  mix  until completely combined.  Keep stir-
               ring until it is relatively cool.   Allow  to  sit
               until  it  is cool enough to put into a refrigera-
               tor.
          (4)  Refrigerate overnight (NO SHORT CUTS HERE!!!).
          (5)  The next  morning,  melt  this  wonderful  mixture
               again  in  a double boiler.  When it is completely
               melted again, mix in the butter until it  is  com-
               pletely  absorbed.  Whip, either with a hand whisk
               or a very slow electric gizmo, until the butter is
               completely absorbed and the mixture is cool again.
               This can take an hour or  longer,  depending  upon
               the  chocolate,  etc.   Let  cool, and refrigerate
               overnight once more (this is not  as  critical  as
               the first cooling; a few hours will be enough).
          (6)  Heat once again, and  whip  until  cool.    Refri-
               gerate  until it is thick enough to pipe through a
               pastry bag.  Using a 1-cm ozzle, make little balls
               on  a  big piece of parchment paper that has cocoa
               powder spread on it.  Roll  in  the  powder.  Keep
               chilled  until  just  before  serving.   Let  them
               return to just above room temperature before  eat-
               ing.

NOTES

     If you like Grand Marnier or Kahlua or rum  or  whatever  in
     your  chocolate,  the  last  melting (step 6) is the time to
     add.  I think it's a small but forgivable sin myself.
     I recommend Guittard chocolate.  You can buy their semisweet
     chips in 350 g bags.  You can also buy it in 5-kg bars.  You
     can also buy big bars of  Guittards  ``French  Vanilla  Semi
     bittersweet''  which  is  so  good  you  might eat all of it
     before you cook with it.  Guittard makes five types of  bit-
     tersweet if you like you chocolate really bitter
     Use genuine,  real-live,  honest  ``heavy  cream''  and  not
     ultrapasteurized whipping cream. Try a wholesale dairy.
     I only use Challenge sweet butter.  Under  no  circumstances
     should  you use anything but unsalted butter in this recipe.
     I use Hershey's Cocoa.  Still the best for my taste.

RATING

     Difficulty: quite difficult (melting the chocolate  3  times
     requires  tremendous  care).  Time: 3 or 4 hours of prepara-
     tion  during  a  3-day  period.   Precision:   measure   the
     ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Maurice Bizzarri
     Bizzarri Computing
     mo@csli.stanford.edu     decwrl!mejac!mo