Chocolate truffles, despite sounding like extravagant creations from some fancy food world, are surprisingly not difficult to make!
I gotta put that out there first, because I myself had never thought of producing home-made chocolate truffles before. Years of living in Belgium, the holy land for world-class chocolate, has given me plenty of chances to visit authentic chocolate shops here, to witness the chocolate making procedures, and to get a taste of the finest traditional Belgium chocolate whose secret recipes have been passed on for decades. So for a long time, chocolates had belonged to some sumptuous, luxurious category of food that I should never venture into.
With that prejudice stuck in mind, when I took the courage to make chocolate truffles at home and the first bite totally struck me like “Damn, this is good!”, I was totally on cloud nine. Homemade chocolate truffles are in fact not difficult to make at all, nor do they require many tools and appliances. The only challenge, especially for kitchen novices, is not to get smeared from head to toe with chocolate and cocoa powder after a chocolate making session. Not to scare you guys though – if I can do it, of course you also can. All you need is some patience, some determination, and a lot of aspiration for successfully producing your own chocolate – that’s more than enough 
There are loads of recipes for chocolate truffles on the Internet. This is an encouraging plus, because it means you can be very flexible with adjusting the ingredients and their proportions to your own preference. I shall be introducing 3 different versions for your choice: French truffles, which are very popular in different regions of the world, with chocolate and cream being the key components; Belgium truffles, consisting mainly of chocolate and butter; and finally “diet” truffles using mostly cocoa powder.
—————-
BELGIAN CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RECIPE
Ingredients (make about 14 – 16 truffles with 2.5 – 3 cm diameters)
- 75 gram (5 Tbsp) unsalted butter – softened at room temperature
- 30 ml (2 Tbsp) whipping cream (at least 35% fat) – at room temperature
- 200 gram (7 oz.) chocolate (54 – 65% cocoa)
- 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract or 10 – 15 ml Rum/ Brandy/ Baileys… (up to your preference)
- 150 gram (5 – 5.5 oz.) chocolate (54 – 65% cocoa) – for coating
- Cocoa powder, dried coconut flakes, crushed nuts, candy sprinkles… for decorating
Method
1. Melt chocolate. The best method is using the water bath: Simmer some water in a saucepan. Put chopped or grated chocolate into a bowl, the bowl should be big enough to sit on top of the saucepan without touching the water. Bring water to a boil, then turn heat down to simmer. Place the bowl on the saucepan and stir the chocolate constantly with a whisk or a spoon until chocolate is completely melted. Set aside, allow to cool.
During this process, try to avoid any water dripping into the chocolate, which could affect your truffles setting later on. This is why we use a bowl bigger than the saucepan to avoid steam getting near the chocolate.
Using the microwave to melt chocolate is fine, but be extra careful with this method, because the chocolate could get burned (it’s best to take the chocolate out every 15 – 20 secs and stir to prevent chocolate from getting burned).
2. Put butter – softened but not melted – into a mixing bowl. Beat at low speed at first, then gradually raise speed to high and beat until the butter is creamy and fluffy, color turns to light yellow or ivory (the duration depends on the amount of butter and your mixer’s power, but the fluffier your butter is, the more creamy, melt-in-the-mouth your truffles will be eventually).
3. Lower speed, slowly add whipping cream, continue beating until combined. Add 1/2 of the melted chocolate from step 1 (cooled but still in liquid form), beat until incorporated. Add the rest of the chocolate, mix well again.
If you use vanilla extract, liquor or flavorings, add them at this final step. Beat until combined.
final chocolate mixture
4. Transfer chocolate to a piping bag. Prepare a large plate or tray lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Cut the tip of the piping bag by 1 – 1.5 cm. While holding the bag upright, pipe chocolate to form 1.5 cm rounds. After piping all the chocolate, grease your fingertip with oil or melted butter to smooth out any tips on top of the chocolate rounds, try to mold them into semi-spheres. Place the tray into the refrigerator for 20 – 30 minutes (or longer, depending on your fridge’s power) until the chocolates have hardened.
piped chocolates before being smoothed out and refrigerated
* Note: This method involves creaming butter so the final chocolate mixture should almost feel like buttercream, which is not runny and can be piped easily. If the mixture is too runny, you can refrigerate it for 10 – 15 minutes so it can harden a little. Make sure not to leave the chocolate in the fridge for too long, because it could become too hard to be piped.
5. Once the chocolates are hard enough to be handled, take them out of the fridge and start shaping. In step (4), we already shaped them into semi-spheres so in this step we can simply stick two pieces together to form a ball. Use your fingers to fix the chocolate balls into perfect round form if needed. I think this is a great way to shape chocolate truffles because it’s both easy and quick. This method doesn’t require us rolling the chocolate balls in our palms or with our fingers, which prevents body heat from our hands melting the chocolates, creating ugly, uneven balls.
After shaping all the chocolate balls, place them onto the tray, refrigerate for another 15 – 20 minutes so the truffles can set, making it easier for the decorating step.
the messy “warzone” after the shaping stage 
6. While waiting for the chocolates to set, melt the remaining 150 gram chocolate for coating. Do the same way as step (1).
Line the worktop with a large newspaper or paper sheet. Place a wire rack on top of the paper sheet. Get your decorations ready: cocoa powder (sifted), dried coconut flakes, candy sprinkles, etc.
7. Dip chocolate balls into melted chocolate. You can stick them with a toothpick to make the dipping easier.
8. After dipping each truffle, turn it over so the chocolate can cover its entire surface, shake gently so the excessive chocolate can fall back into your coating chocolate bowl. Place the coated truffle on the wire rack (the lined paper sheet underneath will catch any chocolate drippings, saving you from a mess).
9. After coating all the truffles, place them back into the fridge so the coatings can dry partially. In winter weather when the temperature is below 20°C/ 68°F, my truffles dried up enough after only 15 – 20 minutes in room temperature. Once the chocolate coatings have dried a little, just finish your truffles by rolling them in cocoa powder, coconut flakes, or crushed nuts… to your preference.
* Note: Only wait until the chocolate coating dries a little bit. Don’t let them dry completely, because powder, nuts or candies won’t stick to dry, hard chocolate. This chocolate coating is optional, but I think the truffles taste better with it.
Keep the truffles in the fridge for about 2 weeks. Before serving, take them out to soften at room temperature, they will taste better as well.
——–
FRENCH CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RECIPE
Ingredients (for 14 – 16 truffles with 2.5 – 3 cm diameters)
- 25 gram (approx. 1/5 stick or 1 oz.) unsalted butter
- 90 ml (1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp) whipping cream (at least 35% fat)
- 200 gram (7 oz.) chocolate (54 – 65% cocoa)
- 5 ml (1tsp) vanilla extract or 10 – 15 ml Rum/ Brandy/ Baileys… (up to your preference)
- 150 gram (5 – 5.5 oz.) chocolate (54 – 65% cocoa) – for coating
- Cocoa powder, dried coconut flakes, crushed nuts, candy sprinkles… for decorating
Method
1. In one bowl, add together butter (cubed), chocolate (chopped into small pieces or grated) and whipping cream. Using the water bath method like in step (1) of the Belgium Chocolate truffle recipe, melt all the ingredients and whisk until combined. Add all the other ingredients, mix well.
2. Place the chocolate mixture in the fridge until the chocolate hardens a little (approximately 15 – 30 minutes depending on your fridge’s power). Transfer chocolate to a piping bag. Follow the same remaining steps as the Belgium truffle method, starting from step (4).
————-
“DIET” OR LOWCARB CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RECIPE
Ingredients (for 12 – 14 truffles with 2.5 – 3 cm diameters)
- 95 gram (3/4 stick plus 2 tsp) unsalted butter
- 130 ml (1/2 C plus 2 tsp) whipping cream (30 – 40% fat)
- 47 gram (6-1/2 Tbsp) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 65 gram (4-1/2 Tbsp) caster sugar
- 125 gram (4.5 oz.) chocolate (54 – 65% cocoa) – for coating
- Cocoa powder, dried coconut flakes, crushed nuts, candy sprinkles… for decorating
Note: I used regular white sugar here. If you’d like to follow the low-carb diet, you can replace it with your own diet sugar or sweetener, and leave out the 125 gr coating chocolate.
Method
1. Warm butter and whipping cream together in a saucepan while stirring constantly, until the mixture is completely melted and incorporated. Don’t overheat.
2. Sift cocoa powder and sugar into the cream and butter mixture, stir well until cocoa powder and sugar are dissolved, creating a smooth mixture. Add vanilla extract, stir well. Remove from heat, allow to cool.
3. Place the chocolate mixture in the fridge until the chocolate hardens a little (approximately 20 – 40 minutes depending on your fridge’s power). Transfer chocolate to a piping bag. Follow the same remaining steps as the Belgium truffle method, starting from step (4).
Important notes for all the recipes above:
1. I’ve myself tested all 3 recipes above. Which is the best one? It’s hard to determine. The Belgium Truffles probably has the best “melt-in-the-mouth” texture thanks to the large content of butter and cream, and is also the easiest to mold and shape. The French Truffles have the distinctive rich flavor of cream. And the “Diet” Truffles are more prominent in cocoa flavor than the other two.
2. To produce the best truffles, make sure to use the best butter, chocolate and cocoa powder that you have access to. Butter is highly more recommended than margarine as it provides the melt-in-the-mouth taste that margarine can’t. Chocolate should have at least 54% cocoa, because a lower cocoa content will result in over-sweetened and pasty truffles. In these cases, the amount of ingredients should be adjusted. If your chocolate has more than 70% cocoa, the truffles may turn out bitter, you should add some more sugar. Use pure unsweetened cocoa powder (don’t use chocolate powder mix such as the kind of cocoa powder for instant chocolate drink).
3. The most “troublesome” step in making Chocolate truffles is probably shaping the chocolate into balls. The heat from your palms tends to melt the chocolate quickly, so if you have rubber gloves, you can use them. Otherwise, try using your fingertips and shape the chocolate as fast as you can (I had no problem shaping them using the semi-sphere piping trick above). Two other tricks that might work very well is to use an ice-cream scoop with spring release mechanism or a silicon cake-pop mould like the one in this video (at 1:35 – 1:38)
4. In between the shaping, coating and decorating steps, always give your truffles some time to set before proceeding to the next step. That would make your job easier and less messy. If you coat the truffles with cocoa powder and don’t plan to eat them right away, you should coat a thin layer first. Before serving, roll the truffles in cocoa powder again for a thicker and nicer coating (because some of the dry powder will be absorbed into the truffle after a while). Another good idea is to mix cocoa powder with icing sugar by 70% and 30% respectively to reduce the cocoa powder’s bitterness.
For all three recipes above, you can use a candy or chocolate mold to create your own desired shape. The Belgium truffle recipe makes the firmest truffles. Keep the mold in the fridge overnight until the truffles are completely set before attempting to remove them from the mold.
JOIN US