Peanut Buttter Truffles

By Cookbad

Dessert or treat wise, I say truffles are the biggest bang for your buck.
They are more foolproof than almost any other dessert or sweet I can think of. Combined with the fact that people are tremendously impressed when you tell them that, yes, you were the one to make them, they are one of my favorite things to make. This is a version of the Thomas Keller, French Laundry recipe:

Peanut Butter Truffles
To make about 50 truffles:
6 oz. of dark chocolate
24 oz. of the best peanut butter you can find
1/2 cup of sugar
1.5 tablespoons of salt
9 ounces of unsalted room temp. butter.
24 oz. dark chocolate
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa for coating (that I consider optional)

Melt the chocolate & butter in a double boiler or microwave.

Put the peanut butter, sugar & salt into a food processor and blend. Add chocolate/ butter combo. Blend for couple of minutes.

Transfer mixture to the fridge until very solid.

Once it is solid, get a plate or baking sheet that will fit in your freezer and line it with parchment paper. Wax paper works to. Take a 1 teaspoon measurer and scoop out the mixture then roll into a uniform ball with the flat of your hands. repeat until mixture is done. Put them in the freezer.

If your hand get ridiculously sticky during rolling and the mixture becomes petulant, return it to the fridge (or freezer) to solid it up a bit.

Melt 24 oz. of chocolate over a double boiler, remove from heat and let it sit for 10-15 minutes.

Line another sheet with parchment, grab some tongs.

Take the peanut butter balls out of the freezer.

Using your tongs, dip the peanut butter balls into the mixture, swirl it around some to coat it in chocolate then put in on the parchment lined pan.
Repeat until finished. Put the truffles in the fridge.

When the truffles are cooled, re-melt chocolate and repeat for a second coat.

Remove from fridge, let them come to room temp. then roll them in cocoa powder.

These will keep in the freezer for months.

You can also make truffles with any sort of ganache. Ganache is very simple. It's 1 part chocolate and one part cream. Heat cream to just before boiling, pour over chocolate (chopped, chunked or in chips), wait 2 minutes for the cream to melt the chocolate a bit, then combine with a mixer. You can also any sort of flavor or liquor you like. Then proceed with the ganache just as you would the chocolate mixture.