Baileys truffles for the holidays

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Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

I love summer, I love Halloween, but Christmas, and the whole month leading up to it, offer up treats galore. From cooking the turkey for Christmas dinner, to making cookies, and yes, chocolate truffles, there’s no better time of year for me.

The best part of making truffles is that it’s really a lot easier than you might expect. You’re really only looking at 15 to 20 minutes to make the ganache, and then a maximum of an hour to roll them once the ganache has cooled.

So, diverting away from the usual entertainment focus, here’s a fantastic recipe I picked up for making Baileys flavoured truffles for the holidays.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of whipping cream
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 3 tbsp. of granulated sugar
• 240 grams of semi-sweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup of Baileys Irish Cream

Other items: One or more coatings from the list below, plus 50-60 truffle cups (they look like very small cupcake baking cups).

Coatings can consist of almost any treat – grated coconut, ground coffee, chocolate, sprinkles, icing sugar, cocoa, chopped nuts, or even crushed candy canes.

First of all, put the cream, butter, and sugar in a medium sauce pan and bring it to a light boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.

When the cream boils, remove the saucepan from the heat and add in your chocolate, mixing until it is completely melted.

Next, stir in the Baileys (other liquers can be substituted, but the Baileys makes a fantastically rich treat) until the ganache look uniform. Once that’s done, cover the saucepan and chill it until it’s firm – usually 3-5 hours.

Lastly, setup your coatings in small plates or bowls, covering the bottoms entirely for an even spreading surface. Take the ganache out of the fridge and using a small scoop or a teaspoon, remove a small amount of ganache from the saucepan and roll it into a ball in one coating, and then drop the finished truffle in a cup.

A few notes:
Keep your truffles smaller than the amount of ganache you can fit on a rounded teaspoon. They are very rich, so they’re best in small doses.

Since this is an American recipe, it called for 8 oz. of chocolate, which equals 240 grams, or 8 squares. Unfortunately, in Canada a package of 8 squares of chocolate is only 225 grams. The best solution is to have an extra 15 grams of chocolate to add into the mix (that’s three teaspoons) – generally I use semi-sweet chocolate chips.

In terms of alcohol, if you may want to mix the recipe up a bit by using other classic liquers, like creme de menthe, amaretto, Grand Marnier, or Kahlua, just to name a few.