Happy Day 11 of 12 Days of Christmas Desserts and Happy Christmas Eve Eve to you all! Let’s talk truffles.

Truffles are a very easy, last minute homemade gift idea that really give the ‘this took me barely any effort at all but they look fancy and cute so you will think I spent hours creating this for you’ vibe. Truffles are just ganache and ganache is just chocolate and heavy cream. It’s all about the technique, so let’s get down to it.

First thing to know about ganache: The consistency of your ganache depends on your chocolate to cream ratio. For a saucy, hot-fudge style ganache, start with 2 parts cream to 1 part chocolate. For traditional, spreadable ganache, it’s a 1:1 ratio, and for scoop-able, truffle ganache, we start with 2 parts chocolate to 1 part heavy cream.

A quick note: milk chocolate has a higher milk solid content than dark chocolate, which will add more fat and cream to your mixture. This means that you would have to slightly adjust these ratios if using a milk chocolate because there would extra fat added to the mixture. For all of these ganache ratios, stick with a chocolate that is at least 52% cocoa solids, preferably a bit higher. 60%-70% is my sweet spot.

making ganache

1. Roughly chop your chocolate. You want small pieces or else your ganache will be chunky.

2. Heat your cream until little bubbles form around the edges. (This is called scalding and if you’re measuring, the cream will between 180°-190°F.)

3. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate and jiggle the bowl just a bit to get it all settled down. Let it sit for 3-5 minutes.

4. After the mixture has rested a bit, start whisking. Whisk (fairly vigorously) starting in the very center of the bowl and working your way out. As you whisk the mixture will begin to look like chocolate milk and then will rapidly change to a smooth, glossy consistency. When the entire bowl has reached that glossy consistency, continue whisking for one minute more.

5. Cool. For truffles, let the mixture cool for about an hour or until it’s is a scoopable consistency.

more recipes like this