In baking, as in life, things don't always turn out as planned. I wish I could say all my experiments were heavenly, mouth-watering, over the moon successes. But I do live on Earth, my optimism occasionally grounded by the cold, hard realities that whole wheat can be dry as dirt, the only good substitute for sugar is sugar, and chocolate will never be fat free. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my attempt to replace "heavier" ingredients (like heavy cream) with "lighter" ones (like fat-free half and half) resulted in a Valentine's Day treat only slightly more deflated than my lofty aspiration to make baked goods that are healthy (My dreams will rise again--my chocolate truffles...will not). It's a good thing I made some Valentine backups this year, including homemade chocolate shapes (also found in my December post here),
more Chocolate Peanut Butter Hearts and even some chocolate cupcakes from a box, topped with cherry frosting and dotted with Dove Dark Chocolate & Cherry Swirl Heart-Shaped Promises (candies that are truly divine just on their own). The cupcakes turned out great:
Too bad I don't have a recipe to share, but I might work on coming up with my own from-scratch version with real cherries in the frosting too!
So yes, I made all these treats the night before Valentine's Day to have something to share with family, coworkers, and friends, as well as something chocolately to post here for V-Day as promised (I do acknowledge that I'm almost a month late--refer back to my "things don't always turn out as planned" opening). With such a smorgasbord of chocolate to offer, I guess it's okay that my first-ever attempt at Chocolate Truffles ended up looking like...this:
See, I wasn't kidding about the deflation.
If you're curious what not to do to make chocolate truffles (they're supposed to be round) follow my recipe below that was (rather poorly) adapted from Williams-Sonoma's Chocolate Truffles recipe. Visit their website if you want to know what to actually do in order to make truffles the correct (and, of course, more fattening) way.
Flat N' Low-Fat Chocolate Truffles
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup fat-free half and half
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions:
1.) Pour the half and half into a small pot over medium heat. Let it warm, then lower the heat and add the chocolate chips and butter. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and smooth.
2). Remove the mixture from heat and let cool at least 15 mintues. Stir in the vanilla extract and then pour into a large paper bowl. Refrigerate overnight.
3). At this point you're supposed to be able to scoop the chocolate mixture into the shape of gumballs. Every time I tried to do this the chocolate fell apart into a not-quite-liquid, not-quite-solid lump. And it got my hands extremely messy. So I let the chocolate chill another day.
4). Try to get a ball-ish shape out of the chocolate using a spoon or rolling them with the palms of your hands. Then roll them in the cocoa powder until they're fully coated.
5). Place the "truffles" in the freezer in an attempt to get them to keep some sort of shape (they probably won't). Roll them in cocoa powder if you can. Eat if you dare.
The good news is that the flavor of the truffles will actually be rather tasty (I can't eat much milk chocolate because of the dairy but I did try one bite). The texture is the biggest issue, and I know it's because I didn't use full-fat cream. But hey, just because we live on Earth doesn't mean we can't be optimists too. I'll take this as a learning experience and think such positive thoughts as how all the best inventions were created through trial and error and many failed attempts. The important thing is that you try. You stay open to experimentation. You don't stay deflated for long.
Next up, my only-sort-of failed experiment with banana muffin tops (But I promise I'll return to more delicious successes soon!).
No comments:
Post a Comment