Still Life, With Cats

Every year for the past umpteen years some friends and I do a cookie exchange in December. This year I decided that instead of cookies I’d make white chocolate citrus truffles instead.

I’ve made this recipe before, a year or so ago back when I was doing my annual ‘how to use up the bazillion citrus fruit from our trees’ self challenges, and they were such a hit that I have hung onto the recipe to make again. The smooth, creamy ganache in the center has just enough citrus flavor to make these a refreshing bite.

Truffles are actually a fairly simple thing to make, as long as you’ve got space in your freezer for all the chilling steps. First you steep your heavy cream with your flavoring for twenty minutes – in this case, the zest of a lemon and an orange (I used zest I froze in a tiny bit of cream from last year’s citrus crop, since our fruit isn’t quite ripe yet). Then you pour the cream (strained, if you’re using something like zest) over a bowl of chocolate, stir that all together until it melts, and then chill it until firm (this will likely take a couple hours.

Once the ganache is completely chilled, next you scoop it out into individual truffle centers, lined up on a cookie sheet. I use a small cookie scoop to form my truffles, because this allows me to have them as uniform as possible. Pop that back into the freezer for another couple hours, then take them out and roll each one into a ball, before stashing them back into the freezer for a bit longer.

Finally, you melt whatever chocolate you’re using for dipping, plus a little bit of vegetable oil or shortening to help loosen it a bit, and start dipping (I used a fondue fork, but they do make special dipping forks if you want to get all fancy). You’ll want to do this in stages, as you don’t want all your truffle centers to thaw and start to get lumpy during the process. Carefully slide your dipped truffle onto the cookie sheet, where if you’ve done this all correctly, the outer coating of chocolate should set up almost immediately. You might have to do a little patching on the bottoms once they’re set, but otherwise, ta da, you’ve got truffles!

Currently pondering tackling a couple other flavors (peppermint, or espresso, or even salted caramel), because even more sweets is *exactly* what we need this time of year, but ha, when did *that* ever stop me?

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.