The Chocolate Experiment

My oven is most probably on its last lap. It's become unsafe to use it any more, so I have to take a break from baking. So I did the one thing that I always wanted to do, work with chocolate and see how it responds...

Now I do make chocolates at home, for gifting purposes. But I've never really tried soft centers and truffles.
So this time my focus was to reach a truffle that I would be satisfied with, as till now the only truffles I've wholeheartedly liked are the Lindt ones.

I used two different recipes, for the center.

The first one was a mixture of cream, cocoa and chocolate center...it solidified quite quickly in the refrigerator overnight, and I could make nice little balls , that I refroze. I then dipped these in melted chocolate. Since the balls were already frozen, the chocolate covering immediately solidified.

The next recipe uses a center made with whipping egg whites and adding a reduced cream and chocolate mixture and rum. I thought this will become lighter, but it ended up becoming sticky and melted at soon as it was exposed to room temperature. So I made chocolates with liquid centres instead.

For this, I refrigerated the chocolate tray, and gave a first layer of chocolate that solidified immediately.

Yep, I'm messy when it comes to chocolate...

Freeze this for 5 min, fill it with the liquid mixture, freeze again, and cover it with a layer of chocolate again. Freeze one last time, and you get nice shiny chocolate cubes. I was lazy and didn't scrape the top layer of chocolate, which is why I've got haphazard edges at the bottom ...

Though both tasted pretty good (the egg white one was smoother, and might make a really good dip), the round truffles with cocoa centers tasted better the next day, and the centers were really soft.
If I have to make truffles again, I'll definitely use the first recipe...