One of the real keys to making these Simple Chocolate Truffles is using quality chocolate.  While you will find lots of recipes using chocolate chips to make truffles, I do not recommend that.  The finished product is likely to be grainy which is not what you want in these sweet morsels of chocolate goodness.  While your chocolate doesn’t have to be absolutely gourmet, it does need to be of a fairly strong cacao percentage. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to find good chocolate in most of today’s local markets.

Where exactly do we get chocolate?  And I’m not talking about from the candy aisle in the grocery either.  The cacao bean starts as a fruit pod on the cacao tree which grows primarily in the tropical areas of Southeast Asia, Central and South America and West Africa which contributes approximately 70% of the world’s cocoa.

When you see the term “cacao” on a label of chocolate, exactly what does that mean?  It refers to the total percentage of ingredients by weight in the product that actually come from the cacao bean.  This will include the chocolate liquor and the cocoa butter.  The higher the percentage, the more intense the flavor and the more bitter the taste.  In the United States, milk chocolate must contain 10% chocolate liquor where semisweet/bittersweet chocolate must contain at least 35%.  If you are a dark chocolate fan like me, then you’ll want that percentage to be much higher.

Most chocolate as we know it falls into three main categories: dark, milk and white.  So what’s the difference?

There are three main kinds of chocolate:

• Dark Chocolate: Dark chocolate is simply chocolate liquor (the centers of cocoa beans ground to a liquid), extra cocoa butter, sugar, an emulsifier (often lecithin) and vanilla or other flavorings. Dark chocolates may contain milk fat to soften the texture, but they do not generally have a milky flavor. It is sometimes referred to as semi-sweet, unsweetened or baking chocolate. It will have a higher percentage of cacao — a higher amount of cocoa beans than milk or white chocolate.
• Milk Chocolate: Milk chocolate also contains cocoa butter, sugar, an emulsifier and usually vanilla.  It is usually made with dry milk solids as opposed to liquid milk.  In addition to 10% cocoa liquor by weight, it must also contain at least 12% milk solids.  
• White Chocolate: White chocolate features cocoa butter.  Rather like milk chocolate minus the cocoa solids.  In addition to the cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, lecithin and vanilla, white chocolate may contain other flavorings. It must have at least 20 percent cocoa butter, 14 percent milk solids, and no more than 55 percent sugar.  Typically, it will make the softest (and sometimes the most difficult to work with) truffles.

When I made these Simple Chocolate Truffles on THV11 this week (You did see me, didn’t you?), I used the following recipe.  It is my go-to truffle recipe and can be easily adapted to a wide variety of combinations.  Because I can easily find flavored quality chocolates on the market shelves now, I seldom start from scratch any more.  The only limitation on combinations of chocolates and coatings is your imagination and your taste preferences.  

What not give some of these a try:

• toasted nuts (pecans, walnuts, macadamias, almonds, peanuts, smoked almonds), finely chopped
• toasted coconut 
• crushed Butterfinger or Heath bars
• ground freeze-dried strawberries (use with strawberry flavored truffles)
• peppermint bark chips/crushed peppermint
• salted caramel or peppermint hot chocolate mix (Williams-Sonoma)
• dark or semi-sweet ground cocoa
• decorating sprinkles/sugars

Some of our favorite combinations are:

• white chocolate/coconut truffle with a toasted almond in the center, dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in chopped almonds 
• dark chocolate/peanut butter truffle dipped in dark chocolate/peanut butter and rolled in chopped peanuts or dipped in peanut butter/chocolate dipping glze
• dark chocolate/orange truffles dipped in dark chocolate glaze with orange extract
• milk chocolate truffles dipped in milk chocolate and rolled in crushed Butterfinger or Heath bar
• dark chocolate/chili truffles rolled in semi-sweet cocoa with a pinch of smoked chipotle pepper and finely chopped smoked almonds
• white chocolate/coconut truffles rolled in toasted coconut and coconut sugar
• dark chocolate/freeze dried strawberry truffles rolled in ground freeze dried strawberries
• dark chocolate/dried blueberry, cranberry or cherry truffles 
• dark chocolate cherry/almond truffles rolled in finely chopped almonds
• dark chocolate espresso truffles rolled in finely chopped espresso beans

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

This is a great project to do with your kids.  However, you need to know that you will probably have to chill the truffle balls as you go along.  Little little hands like to roll and roll and roll…