Truffles

Let me say right off that I have never tried to do any kind of dipped chocolates before.

In fact, my usual candy making involves a can of Eagle brand milk, a package of semi sweet chocolate chips and a microwave.

This year, however, the DH found a recipe for chocolate truffles that involved just 2 ingredients (before we tweeked it) and sounded easy.

So, we embarked on that candy making journey, and this box of lovelies was the result.

I'd like to add here that you should allow yourself a good bit of time to do this. While the recipe is short on ingredients, it is long in prep time, including a stint where you just hang out while the centers cool in the 'fridge.

This is how we did it:

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
24 ounces semi sweet chocolate
1/2 tsp each of lemon and peppermint extract (or flavors of your choice -- optional)
sanding sugar, powdered sugar or cocoa powder -- optional

Note: the original recipe called for 20 ounces and wanted you to use the baking bars of chocolate, chop them up with a knife, etc., but we found that semi sweet chocolate chips work just as well, and that with only 20 ounces we were a bit short when it came to the dipping part of the recipe.


Directions:

Melt 8 ounces of chocolate.

Beat the cream cheese with hand mixer until creamy

Stir in melted chocolate

Divide mixture into sections and add flavors if desired (we did the peppermint, the lemon and left some just plain)

Refrigerate until firm --- at least 30 minutes

When firm, shape into balls (the original recipe called for making 36 balls, but we did smaller ones and got about 50)

Melt remaining chocolate

Dip each ball into chocolate using a fork, be sure to coat all around

If you are decorating, sprinkle as soon as the ball comes out of the chocolate dip (we sprinkled the lemon flavored ones with yellow sugar, the peppermint ones with red sugar and left the unflavored ones undecorated)

Refridgerate (remember, these have cream cheese in them, so when they aren't on the serving tray, they need to stay cold)

We used the fancy candy papers (I'd had these for years), and packed them in a gift box so they looked pretty.

Next time maybe we'll try some other things inside with the chocolate and cream cheese.