Carole Bloom's Bittersweet Chocolate-Salted Caramel Truffles

All photographs from this post were photographed by Lisa Christensen at CouponSahmIAm.

You know those recipes that you see and wonder, yeah right, the recipe makes it look easy. Well this recipe really was that way for me. The real title should be Amazing Truffles that any one can make! or Just Double the Recipe Truffle's, They were so good that I only gave away half of them to family, and I kept the rest for my husband and I.

In Carole Bloom's cookbook Intensely Chocolate comes this great gem of easy candy making. No mold, or candy thermometer required, (my kind of recipe.) As always I have to give a shout out to Craftsy, for introducing me to a talented pastry cheif, Carole Bloom!

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 Tablespoon of light corn syrup
3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream, NO Substitute
2 ounces of unsalted butter (1/2 stick, another reason to double the recipe)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, I used Vanilla Bean Paste (totally worth it)
1/2 teaspoon kosher, or fleur de sel or other fine grained finishing salt. (I used Kosher salt.)
3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 70-72% cocoa, (I used Zoet premium Belgian Chocolate from Hy-Vee.) chopped fine. To be real, I got distracted with my children, and only some how managed to put in half the bar, it was really tasty and it was enough chocolate for me. Zoet, Chocolate is really a great deal for the money, I really like the taste, better than baking chocolate!

How I made them:

Add the sugar and the water into a 3-4 quart pot, don't go with a small pot, you will make a mess! Once you swish (don't stir,) the water and sugar together in a large 3-4 quart pot, add the corn syrup. Let it get hot and bubbly, you want the mixture to turn to a light amber color. Once the mixture starts bubbling, take a pastry brush with clean water, and brush around the sides where sugar wants to crystallize, do that twice. The mixture should start to turn amber color about 7 minutes, keep watch, it turns really fast, and you can't save it from getting a burnt taste.

while the sugar mixture is heating up, heat up the heavy whipping cream, in a small sauce pan. (don't scald it) Once the sugar mixture is at a perfect lighter amber color, add the hot heavy whipping cream together, be prepared to see it bubble up. stir, untill it's incoporated, Then add the rest of the ingredients, starting with the unsalted butter, make sure it's good and melted before adding the other things in, paying attention that your chopped chocolate is all melted together. That's it for the truffle part.

Now you can store the truffle sauce in a covered container in the fridge, for up to two weeks (just another reason to double.) I chilled mine for over night, and the next morning I made the truffles you want the sauce to be cold and pliable.

Shaping the truffles was easy: take a small 1-inch diameter round scoop and scoop out the chocolate, I did one at a time, I wanted them to be shaped in a ball, not a half circle dome, so I rolled them into my hand, the scoop is there to get the same size of ball every time. then I rolled them in cocoa, but you could dip them into your choice of tempered chocolate if you wanted too. Then lay them on a sheet, chill them for at least 15 minutes before serving.  They should keep in your fridge for about 2 weeks covered, or in the freezer for up to 3 months in a freezer safe container.




I plan to make this for some Christmas presents/goodies but instead of rolling them all in cocoa I will roll some of them in nuts, and powder sugar! You could do sprinkles or praline, they would present well with all four different coatings! I can't wait to make some for the Christmas season! Thank you Carole Bloom for your talented chocolate recipes!