Dark Chocolate Espresso Truffle

Continuing with my chocolate truffle creations, today's installment includes these lovely Dark Chocolate Espresso Truffles. I am not a coffee person, but these ended up being delightful. I know I'm reusing the image to the right, but after taking some shots of the truffles, I couldn't get a good enough shot from my iPhone. I still think that the melted chocolate just looks like the thing you'd want to drown in for a decadent death so the image works for me.

Back to the recipe at hand, you can modify these in several ways: more coffee, less coffee, different flavor of beans, etc. For ease of use, I used Ash's Keurig with Green Mountain Dark Magic blend, set to dispense espresso. The chocolate to coffee ratio worked pretty well so I might stick with that for the future.

The shell is a dark chocolate melt, while the inside is a rich coffee flavor that is not too over-powering. I topped the truffle with brown sprinkles to differentiate the espresso truffle from the other few flavors I had (and yes, those recipes will be coming!).


Ingredients

3/4 heavy cream
1/4 cup hot espresso coffee (1 K-cup of a strong brew set to espresso works)
16 oz dark chocolate, >70% coarsely chopped or in chips
10 oz chocolate, melted
Brown sprinkles or cocoa powder, for coating


Directions

1. In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. During this time, prepare the coffee, either in the Keurig or Espresso Machine.
2. Once boiling, remove from the heat and combine the coffee and chocolate. 
3. Whisk together until the chocolate is melted and the mixture becomes shiny and smooth.
4. Line a small bowl (I used a ramekin) with wax paper and pour the mixture into it. Let the chocolate cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours. If you are short on time, put it into the refrigerator for 20 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
5. After it's slowly cooled, place into the refrigerator and leave for 2 hours to set.
6. You can now get creative with how your form your truffles once it's set and has a fudge-like consistency. Cut it into squares, roll it into balls, whatever your creative mind can come up with. I used a spoon to get enough of the chocolate to roll into 1 inch diameter balls.
7. From here you have a few more options, first you could roll this straight into cocoa powder. I wanted a hard chocolate coating so I placed the balls on a wax-lined baking sheet to harden for about 20 minutes.
8. During this time, I prepared my melted chocolate. Taking the espresso truffle centers, I dropped 4 truffles at a time into the liquid chocolate. Using forks to pass the truffle back and forth to eliminate excess chocolate, I placed the final product on the wax-lined baking sheet. Before the chocolate hardened, I topped with brown sprinkles for decoration.
9. Once hardened, they can be enjoyed. I would recommend placing them into the refrigerator for about 15 minutes prior to serving to make sure they are nice and solid. These can keep for about 2 weeks.