Caramel Truffles

[Harpua]

I would like to make these for family and friends for Christmas, and to also get a little more practice working with candy.

Does anyone have any tips on creating a caramel with the correct consistency for truffles? A bit gooey, but not chewy? Do I make a semi-soft caramel and freeze it before I ball it?

Would I cover it with ganache? Any additional suggestions? Thanks.

Oh, I would also like to recreate the praline that I had in France. What kind of flaky biscuits are used? Oh man I love that stuff.

[stir it up]

harp, I would make a nice caramel that uses heavy cream, and manipulate the cream downwards a little to get a soft-ish caramel, trying to get as close to ganache consistency as possible.

Usually I hand dip all my truffles, but if you're doing caramel which would be softer, gooeyer, stickier, you could consider purchasing top quality chocolate pre-made truffle cases (sorry I don't know if that's the correct name, the thin semi-spheres of good chocolate that you can fill with ganache, I think they might be called truffle shells). Then I would fill them with caramel and hand dip them in chocolate. You could even get white cases and cover with dark.

I was thinking some crushed raw cocoa nibs would be nice incorporated into the couverture, to offset the sweet caramel with a deep dark bitter chocolate taste. I recommend getting criollo for the nibs.

I was also thinking about how you could adorn them in an interesting fashion. I had visions of spun sugar but then I thought that would have too many "issues". So I thought a little piece of caramel glass on the top of the outside of each truffle might be nice, and that would further your goal of wanting more practice with candy. Humidity is an issue though.

Remember that truffles from scratch (especially with fresh cream) do not keep the way that some commercial ones keep, so factor that in. Experiment now, eat your experiments, then make the ones for gifts close to the time of giving.

Good luck with the praline, I remember a choclatier in France having chocolate with praline three ways.

Bo Friberg has a recipe for white chocolate truffles with praline paste, the praline and praline paste he does is based on hazelnuts, almonds, and sugar that's caramelized with lemon juice. Then he makes a praline paste by crushing it finely and adding simple syrup. (in The Professional Pastry Chef, the first book).

[tammylc]

Rather than trying to make a round "truffle" you could just make a sheet of caramel, cut it into rectangles, and dip those. The Fleur de Sel caramel from Epicurious is great done this way. It's even better if you double the salt in the recipe.

[Harpua]

oooooh. Sounds fantastic, thanks to the both of you!