Disappearing truffles

I decided to make little truffles to give my collegues in my division as Christmas treats. Truffles are very simple and easy to make, but it takes so long to do them! I made four different types over three nights. That's rolling and dusting/coating approximately 130 little treats. And how about the time it took to package 27 little packs for my collegues? Highly time consuming, but I enjoyed making them (except towards the end of last night when it was getting late and I just wanted to finish wrapping them!)

The reason why I call them 'disappearing' is the fact that they disappear as I was making them. You know, taste testing them to see if they are good enough. Rob enjoyed licking the bowl and spoon after I was done with the truffles..

Note that for all these truffles, you can use crushed nuts, cocoa, icing sugar, coconut, sugar etc for coating the truffles.


Plum Pudding Truffles (Makes approximately 40)



Ingredients
800grams of bought plum pudding (I bought the fundraiser Mills and Wares brand for which all proceeds goes to the Legacy fund)
2 tablespoons plum jam (or enough to moisten and make the pudding stick)

(You can also add alcohol like rum or brandy if you like, but I don't like the taste of alcohol in
my food and we don't have alcohol at home because neither of us drink alcohol).

Method
Break the pudding up into crumbs, add the jam and use your hands to combine into a sticky doughy consistency. Roll into balls and coat in cocoa powder. Coconut or nuts or even melted chocolate would work well as coating.


Apricot Balls



Ingredients
1.5 cups dried apricots, chopped
1 cup coconut
150mL condensed milk
Extra coconut for rolling

Method
Combine the dry ingredients and add the condensed milk little by little until the desired consistency is achieved (if you've overpoured the liquid, you can always add some more coconut). Roll into balls and coat with coconut.


Dark Choc Truffles



Ingredients
250g dark chocolate block
1/3cup thickened cream
Sugar for coating

Method
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, ensuring that no moisture enters the bowl (otherwise the chocolate will seize and will be wasted). Heat the cream and add to the melted chocolate and mix well. (Alternatively, you can finely chop the chocolate, heat the cream and add hot cream to chocolate to melt. You're basically making ganache for this truffle recipe). Chill until firm to form balls. Roll into balls and coat with sugar (looks really pretty)


Mocha Coconut Truffles



Ingredients
0.5 cup butter
2.25 cups icing sugar
0.5 cup cocoa
0.25 cup cream
1.5tsp vanilla
Enough coconut to achieve desired consistency

Method
Cream the butter. Combine icing sugar and cocoa and add alternately with cream and vanilla to butter. Blend well and chill until firm to form balls. Roll into balls and coat with coconut.


The truffles were all then separated into little packs of four and wrapped with white and red tissue wrapping paper (a cardboard square was used as a base for packaging stability and I wrote the names of each truffle on it so that my collegues knew what they were eating.




My personal favourite is the dark chocolate one, probably because it is made from real dark choc and I love dark chocolate. I'm not big on fruit cakes nor coconut, so that would explain why I am not that keen on the remaining three. Strangely though, it seems like the apricot balls were a favourite amongst my collegues (strange because it was the easiest one to make next to the plum pudding one ;P). And I keep forgetting that not everyone likes dark chocolate..

I have leftover condensed milk and thickened cream, so I'm planning to make more truffles for my family for our dinner on Xmas eve, and for Rob's mum for our lunch on Xmas day.. Whether I have the time to is another matter.