This page copyright 2003 Courtney Eckhardt. It may be freely modified and/or distributed in any format, provided that this statement is included and I (and any other contributors) are credited.

The first recipe I came up with was for honey-flavored truffles; I like chocolate and honey together, and I experimented until I found the strongest honey flavor I could get without adding so much flavoring that the ganache wouldn't set. I started with the truffle recipe that appears in Chocolate: Cooking with the World's Best Ingredient, by Christine McFadden and Christine France.

I've included the rose and pandan recipes even though I don't yet consider them "done" mostly for my own benefit; so I don't forget what I did and what I'm planning to try next.

It occurred to me to mention that all of these flavors are very subtle, and would probably be overpowered by strongly-flavored chocolate. But YMMV.

Honey truffles
Rose truffles (still experimental)
Pandan truffles (also still experimental)

Honey truffles

I found that the honey flavor becomes more intense the longer the ganache sits; if I make it a day or two ahead and refridgerate it in the meantime, it tastes more strongly of honey than when it was fresh off the stove. This ganache will be very soft and you'll probably have to freeze it to be able to manipulate it.

  1. Heat the cream until it boils.
  2. While it's heating, chop the chocolate into fairly small pieces (no larger than a half ounce per piece).
  3. Remove the cream from the heat, and add the chocolate all at once. Stir the chocolate in. If you have to warm the mixture a little more to get it all to melt, do so carefully on low heat.
  4. Add the liquor.
  5. Add the honey.
  6. When it's no longer steaming (though wait till it's actually room temperature, if you can) cover it and put it in the freezer. Leave it there until the center and outsides are uniformly hard. It's now ready to be rolled and dipped.

Rose truffles

The rose is a direct extention of the honey recipe; however, the flavor of the rose fades with time (in contrast to the honey, which becomes more intense). I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with this, though my taste testers seemed pleased; I'm considering using actual rose petal preserves instead of rose syrup.

Use the recipe for honey truffles, omitting the liquor and substituting 5 tablespoons rose syrup (not rose water! it's not concentrated enough) for the honey. This ganache will also be very soft, though not quite as soft as the honey.

Pandan truffles

A friend of mine fell in love with the Buddha's Leaf truffles from Vosges (a very pricey and impressive French chocolatier). However, they are very pricey, and this is a seasonal flavor. The description said that the chocolate was flavored with pandan essence. I set about to try and create something similar.

For the curious, Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages had what I considered to be the most interesting and concise information on pandan. Apparently this is a very common flavoring in Southeast Asian cooking, and while it's something most people in the US have never heard of, you can get it if you look hard enough (Google is your friend, or if you can't find it email me and I'll tell you where I got mine).

I have no idea yet what will happen to this flavor with time, or if the chocolate is the right darkness. The first batch is cooling on the stove as I type; more information in a few days when I have some results.

Follow the procedure for honey truffles above.

Update:
I used pure Ghirardelli and the chocolate was about the right darkness. The truffles should be molded or dipped in something of similar darkness. However, I gave most of these to the aforementioned friend and forgot to notice what happened to the flavor over time. There will probably be another batch in the next month; more news later.

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Last updated 6/21/2003 by Courtney