SHF25 - Matcha Chocolate Truffles

TGIF!!! Ie. Thank God It's Friday. Not to be confused with the US food chain TGI Friday's.

I am a slave of short cut writing. Where 'You' becomes 'U', 'You are' becomes 'UR' and 'In my humble opinion' becomes 'IMHO (not to be confused with I am a Ho.. NOT). We (my friend Bec and I) have become accustomed to starting off each Friday morning by emailing the one liner :'TGIF!!' Such are the days where 'Google' has become synonymous with the word 'Search/ing'. It's a bad habit I know, I try not to do it when I'm commenting on other people's blogs. So I always make sure I proof read my comment before posting it.

Anyway, moving on.. it's Friday and it's also Sugar High Friday, 25th Edition, hosted by Johanna of The Passionate Cook. Johanna decreed that this months mission, should we food bloggers choose to accept it is to:

1) Go out and buy the best truffles in the market.
2) Over indulge on them truffles and then
3) Make your own!

Which was exactly what I did! The Saturday after the theme was announced, I took a trip down to Prahran Market and bought myself some Monsieur Truffe! Monsieur Truffe makes the best handmade truffles I've ever had in Melbourne. I believe Ed of Tomato discovered it, shared it with his friends, who somehow ended up sending some to Deb of The Food Palate up in Sydney and that was how I discovered Monsieur Truffe. (Incidentally, I believe I may have met the man himself on my first trip. Ed describes him as 'the real deal with the full French accent)

So this was my second visit to Prahran to pick up some truffles. On my first visit, I picked up some marzipan filled truffles, chocolate covered with hazelnut praline truffles and some kalamansi lime truffles. This time round, I was intent on sampling his regular chocolate truffles. I mean, the flavoured ones are great and a must but I can't 'NOT' try the normal dark chocolate ones, how else would I know the difference? So I left the Monsieur's stall with $20 less in my pocket, two a small pack of chocolate truffles - dark chocolate and passionfruit; and a pack of caramalised chocolate almonds. I couldn't wait to get home, so I opened then bag of almonds and munched all the way home. LOL! Since I was sharing some with Ellie, I was only able to gobble half of em. Yum yum.. let's just say it was yummilicious! (Ellie: Don't worry, I still have your half !)

(Unfortunately, no pics of the chocolate truffles I bought. In my haste to consume, I kinda forgot all about it, so you'll have to be content with one of the old shots)

So after over indulging on some MT, I set about preparing the ganache for my own chocolate truffles. I have probably mentioned a few times (like here, here, here and here) of my love for Matcha. So it was only logical that I would one day try and come up with my own version of a Green Tea Chocolate Truffle.

My inspiration for these truffles are from these lovely Japanese chocolates called Melty Kiss in Matcha flavour made by the famous Japanese confectionary company Meiji. They are little cubes (about 1cm x 1cm) of cocoa dusted candy with a matcha flavoured ganache like center. They litterally melt in your mouth as the cocoa powder dissolves in your mouth and reveals the bittersweet matcha center. A friend's mum brought a large box of these back from HK and since then, I have always associated chocolate and matcha to those chocolates. So with that in mind, I modified the Claudia Fleming's Earl Grey Chocolate Truffles recipe by substituted dark chocolate for white chocolate to make the ganache centre and added some matcha powder into the equation. The result was:

Ok, so the green's doesn't look quite as appetising now, but it was really bright green when I made it about 2 weeks ago? I have been busy with the boy's birthday and moving houses that I didn't really get around to taking a photo of the truffle until a few days ago. :( I guess there's a reason why FRESH is always THE BEST. It's just a tad darker than it was before but it still tastes awesome!

This photo will probably not do it any justice, since I took it at night in bad lighting and bad focus, but it should give you an idea of what it looked like two weeks ago.

If I was to compare it to the Melty Kiss, there would be no comparison of course. Whilst both would melt in your mouth, the Melty Kiss had a stronger matcha flavour, whilst my truffles have an extra coating of dark chocolate and was a bit more creamier and sweeter due to the white chocolate. But no doubt, with a bit of tweaking and practise I am sure I will be able get it right one day. :)

Matcha Chocolate Truffles
*Adapted from Claudia Fleming's Earl Grey Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients:
1 & 1/4 cup Double Cream (Heavy Cream)
140g White Chocolate, chopped finely
4 tsp Matcha powder*

250g Dark Chocolate (35% - 60% cocoa)
1 cup unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder

*to your taste, I used 4 tsp because I prefered a stronger taste)

Heat cream gently until boil (be careful as heating it too quickly may cause the cream to split). Add matcha powder and stir until the tea powder is dissolved. Remove from heat, let the mixture sit for 2mins. Place chopped white chocolate in a medium sized bowl and pour the cream mixture onto the chocolate. Whisk until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

At this point, you can either choose to: a) cover the mixture and chill for a minimum of 4hrs until the mixture is set. or b) pour the mixture into a lined rectangle or square shallow container before chilling. The first time I made truffles I followed Claudia's recipe to a T and ended up with chocolate covered hands when I was rolling the truffles with my hands into rounded balls. I think I had to wipe my hands clean 3 times throughout the rolling process and I ended up wasting quite a bit of chocolate there, not to mention making a mess on the table.

This time round, I decided to pour it into a shallow rectangular plate that I have. By lining the sides, I was able to remove the ganache from the plate and cut square pieces of ganaches, there by solving the dirty hands issue. I think I got the idea when I bought some truffles from Koko Black once. Come to think of it... Monsieur Truffe's truffles are rectangular in shape too! Why didn't I think of that sooner... anyways.. Your choice. I know some people use a melon baller to scoop it up into perfect round balls. I'm not that skilled with the melon baller, so I chose the latter :)

After shaping the truffles, return to the fridge for 15 - 20mins to firm them.

Meanwhile, melt two thirds of the dark chocolate for the truffles coating using a double boiler or simply by suspending a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the remaining chocolate and stir continuosly until the chocolate is melted, smooth and is at room temperature.

(This is where I erred, and I think that is why my chocolate ended up with a funny white streak when it cooled. :( Something to do with chocolate tempering.)

Place the cocoa powder into a bowl and like an assembly line drop the truffles into the melted chocolate (use a fork to foat them with the chocolate) and when well coated, lift the truffles out of the melted chocolate and drop them into the cocoa powder and roll them until they are well coated with the cocoa powder. Repeat with remaining truffles.

Makes about 24 chocolate truffles.

Note to self: Do not make truffles on a warm day. The ganache filling oozes out of any available cracks. (See the above close up photo)