There is something about the holidays that calls for really special treats and I think of truffles, chocolate truffles.

Let me take a half of cup of this heavy cream and just heat it up. What you don’t want to do is boil this because there’s nothing worst than a taste of boiled cream.

Okay, get my chocolate truffles with that lot of chocolate. I’m using bitter sweet and semi-sweet. I think that this sweets a little too bitter and semi-sweets are little too sweet, so I like to combine the two and get sort halfway in between so that’s three ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, chop it up fairly fine because what I’m going to do is pour the hot cream over it, and then melt the chocolate.

Now, I’m going to chop up three and a half ounces of bitter sweet. You know true chocolate are efficient us only like a bitter sweet chocolate, but I have to say little bitter for me. So, the key to this is to add flavorings that really complement the chocolate. I find vanilla and coffee really make chocolate taste more chocolatey and then I like to add one other flavor, so there’s sort of back note to it, very often I use Grand Marnier but this time I think I’m going to do with hazelnuts.

So, I'm going to do chop hazelnuts on the outside and Frangelica which is hazelnut with curd in the inside because the next thing that I’m going to do is pour this warm cream. It’s actually hot. It’s just under the simmering point through a strainer onto the chocolate and the cream is going to melt the chocolate, and just stir this.

The good thing about the system is you can overheat the chocolate. The cream just gets under the simmering point and then it will just melt the chocolate, so I’m going to let that melt and add the other flavorings. One and half tablespoons of Frangelica Liqueur which is Hazelnut Liqueur, one tablespoon of prepared coffee which I have from this morning, and at that time it’s even better. It helps melt the chocolate and half a teaspoon of good vanilla extract.

And if I poured my curds right, the chocolate should be melted by now, so just stir it around. That is pretty good too. It’s so good. I love the balance of bitter sweet and semi-sweet, so I’m going to chill this about 45 minutes and then make little balls and roll them in hazelnuts.

So, it’s time to scoop the truffles. So I’ve got the chilled mixture of semi-sweet chocolate, bitter sweet chocolate. I have the delicious flavorings like Hazelnut Liqueur or Frangelico, vanilla, coffee and cream. They’ve been chilling in the refrigerator. You can scoop this with spoon feel passion way, the small ice cream scoop makes it really lovely. It’s easy and you get every single ball exactly the same and I’m going to roll each one on chopped hazelnuts that I’ve toasted in an oven for about 10 minutes at 325. Now, that was good to eat.

Remember, that one perfect little circle you want them to look like wild truffles. That’s great for the holidays, just pack them up in a bag and it’s a great hostess gift.