Notes On Truffles and Ice Cream

These are the notes I originally wrong that go along with the creation of the truffles and ice cream I wrote about in this post. It was originally put up on the Salemfood website, which is why I write things like “Christmas party coming up.”

Chocolate Ice Cream Notes
I put this on the page for the story, but I’ve had great success using a mix of the Lindt 70% cacao dark chocolate and the Lindt milk chocolate. The flavors balance nicely and the mix provides high, medium, and low notes. Using all dark tends to result in mostly medium and low notes, but I won’t say it tastes bad, as it’s still really good. The Lindt bars are 3.5 ounces each, so the total weight of the bars is 7oz.I’m sure some people are wondering why the ice cream has no eggs in it. The answer is simple: they aren’t necessary. One of the best parts of the recipe is its simplicity in preparation. The other best part is the how mindblowing the result is. The key is the cream.

On a recent episode of Top Chef the chefs had to do an ice cream challenge, and one chef was complaining about how difficult it was to make the ice cream creamy. Well it’s harder when you skip the cream and rely on eggs and milk!

Yeah yeah yeah you shouldn’t eat large portions of this ice cream. It’s got a TON of fat in it. But it’s so good that you will be satisfied with a smaller portion. Trust me.

You can leave out the chocolate and use the base recipe for pretty much any kind of ice cream you want. For instance, for mint chocolate chip, leave out the melted chocolate, add 1-2 teaspoons of the mint extract of your choice, and add chocolate chips when it comes time to add the toppings. Easy.

Here are some pictures for you…

Melting chocolate

Melted chocolate

The mix, ready to be chilled

It’s not pretty yet, but oh so good

I added marshmallows for the topping and smashed up some chocolate covered peanuts for garnish

If you are wondering, I did the photography as well. I would do pictures of a plate, Rachel and I would eat it before it melted too much, and then I would clean the plate and set up another scoop. Not bad work.

Truffle Notes
The truffles got top billing and for good reason. They are freaking awesome and like the ice cream, not too difficult to make. Here’s some truffle porn for you…

Coating starting from the left: Santander 70% with pineapple and toasted coconut (“tropical”), Valor 70% with mint, cocoa powder, Perugina white chocolate with semi-sweet drizzle

From another angle:

My favorite truffle base came about pretty much by accident. I wanted to do a shot of chocolate bars so I bought a variety of bars at Cost Plus. When it came time to make truffles, I saw what I had to work with and said “why not?” I ended up using a Santander 70% Colombian single origin bar, a Valor 70% bar, and a Perugina dark chocolate bar (no percentage listed, sorry.) It was absolutely amazing.

A couple of weeks later we made a huge batch for Thanksgiving and I used all Lindt 70% dark, which is an excellent chocolate mind you and created excellent truffles that were loved by all, but the mix was even better.

On to practical matters…

Be patient during the process of making these. Chilling is extremely important.

You will also rediscover your love of wax paper. Wax paper is your friend.

The universe of toppings for these things is huge. If you can melt it or get it to stick without falling off you can probably use it.

Toasted coconut

Topping the truffles — tropical up top, mint bottom right

Of the four I made for the story, my tasters (Rachel, her dad, stepmom, and brother, J-me, and the BeekeeperTM) liked the mint the best, followed by the white chocolate, the tropical, and the cocoa powder. But keep in mind the quantitative values were something along the order of “Oh my God,” “Incredible,” “Amazing,” and “I liked the cocoa powder the least.” Poor cocoa powder.

For Thanksgiving we did the white chocolate and mint variations. We also did some just for us topped with Dagoba latte chocolate, which is like a mild Mexican chocolate. Which is to say, it was awesome. I am making more for a Christmas party coming up, and will definitely do the mint again and may try using a melted Mexican chocolate tab (it’s been awhile since I’ve melted one, so I’m not sure how well it will work.)

And for the record, the Valor 70% dark chocolate bar with mint is one of my favorites. Excellent! You can get it at Cost Plus. Overall I was pretty impressed with the Valor brand bars.