Truffle Time.

Oh, Dear. 

I really should not have made these, no, I really should not have. Thankfully, I did not make them for myself (Ok..I had a few..). These are Chocolate Truffles with Sea Salt from the one and only pioneer woman. I made these for Shea, her mother in law, and my mother for Moms Day. We took some cute photos of the babies "making" them to present with the finished goodies. Man oh Man. Hubba Hubba. I changed a few things with the recipe but not enough to post it as my own recipe, so click on the link and follow hers, but, I will let you in on what I did differently. 

Here are a few shots of the makins'.

These are actually pretty pricey to make, (about $5 for 4 oz and you need 24 oz of the various chocolates all together)  but, I suppose if you have all of these ingredients on hand already its not bad, but I mean, who keeps delicious bars of chocolate around the house for longer than a few hours, NOT ME! Side note, I literally had to rescue these chocolate bars from the greedy fingers of my husband, who thought they were all for him!

This is so unlike me, I think I was channeling my repressed inner Paula Dean, my mother would be so proud. Side note #2, my mother can eat sweetened condensed milk out of the can, with a crusty baguette, if thats not a dead give away that we are from New Orleans, I don't know what is. Side note #3, Notice the sad forgotten noodle intended for butternut squash mac and cheese, it was a straggler who managed to avoid the pot of salted boiling water, to only be toasted under it. Side note #4, never buy a double boiler, just stick a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water, ta da! Double boiler. 

Using one a mellon baller really helps to scoop out the chocolate to be formed into little yummy truffles. 

So, Pioneer Woman said this recipe only makes 36 truffles. I ended up with 83!?!?! Im not complaining, but either she was doing a lot of taste tests or mine were bebe truffles.

So Pretty Right? So really the only things I did differently where time related, and the way I coated the truffles in the melted chocolate. I made a huge mess fishing them out of the chocolate with the fork and then using the fork to "drop" them onto the wax paper. "Rolling" them off of the fork was easier for me, and less messy. Oh, and the salt. Oh the salt. I spent a good twenty minutes in the bulk spice section at whole foods trying to pick out the right salt. There are certainly different kinds of salt. Salty Salt, Saltier Salt, Smoked Salt, etc. The salt I chose was Himalayan Pink Salt, it was saltier than normal salt, and I thought it would compliment the sweetness of the chocolate. Ok, Ill be honest, it was pretty. Who can resist pink salt?! Especially for Mother's day! They were seriously amazing, a great mix of semi sweet and dark chocolate. Pioneer Woman used milk chocolate for the outer coating, but I went with dark chocolate, and of course, it was fairly traded chocolate. (haha...I HAD to!). The outer coating gave a good crunch and then followed with a great fruity top note. You could really go nuts with this, I thought about what you could put inside of the truffles, like little nuts, or dried fruits. I also saved a few to dust with chili power and dark cocoa powder, those were pretty yummy too. 

So here comes the melt your face off too cute part:

Oh, I know, babies and chocolate. You certainly don't have to tell me. P.s. I give Julian dark chocolate all the time, its good for you! Plus, it took me a long time to get used to the taste of real dark chocolate, I was used to the overly sugary milk chocolate that Im sure isn't really chocolate at all. He is going to have it eventually, at some kid's birthday party, I'd rather he know what real Chocolate tastes like so when he comes cross the not so great kind he knows the difference. 

The Grandmothers loved the truffles and especially the photos. It was a fun time making them, and I will for sure be busting this recipe out come Christmas time. You should try it too, they would be great birthday gifts, or even favors at a wedding shower or baby shower. 

-K