dan's truffle recipe 2002/12/30
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5 lb. dark chocolate (6-7 bags)
3 cups total of cream and unsalted butter

(1) for orange-ginger truffles:
1 cup vsop cognac
12-15 clementine oranges
6 oz. candied ginger

(2) for mocha-almond truffles:
replace cognac with dark rum
replace oranges with 1 cup fresh fine-ground coffee, 2 tsp ground cloves and 2 tbsp cinnamon.
replace ginger with 2-4 cups chopped almonds

- get good chocolate!  i usually use Ghiradelli double-dark which most supermarkets have now, but this year
Trader Joe's had 5 lb. house brand dark chocolate blocks which were of better quality than the ghiradelli, and cheaper so i
used that instead.

- you can use 2 cups of cream and 1 cup of butter, or you can use 3 cups of butter.  all butter is the richest of course, but 
it is not much different with 2/3 cream.

- i used clementine oranges since they have more peel per pound than normal oranges, but normal ones would work also.

- get the zest from the oranges (that's the colored outer part of the rind).  i use a peeler to do this, with care you can
avoid most of the white part of the rind.  boil the zest in a small amount of water for a minute and then drain.  this gets
rid of some of the bitterness of the rind.  chop up the zest into bits if it isn't already.

- eat the remaining part of the oranges now, as they are not used in this recipe.

- chop up the ginger into bits

- set aside 1/4 of the chocolate for later (it will be the coating for the truffles).

- you can use either stove or microwave for this.  put the cream, the butter and the remaining chocolate into a pot or bowl
and heat until it all starts melting.  then alternate stirring and heating until everything is melted smooth and mixed well 
into a single consistency.

- add the orange zest to the melted mixture and cook for 2 minutes to get some flavor out of the oranges.

- remove mixture from heat.  add ginger bits and mix them in.

- heat the cognac in microwave until hot (do not boil).  this lets it mix in much easier with the chocolate.

- add 1/2 the cognac to the chocolate mixture and mix it in well until it all gets dissolved.  then add the rest and mix it
in also.

- pour all the chocolate mix into a cookie sheet or baking pan.  put it into the fridge for a few hours until it is
cool.  (we put it into the pan so that the orange and ginger bits stay fairly well dispersed in the mixture)

- scoop out pieces of the chocolate mixture from the pan and form them into balls with your hands.  you can choose how 
large to make the truffles.  put the balls onto another pan.  when finished put the pan of balls into the freezer for an
hour.  this gets them cold so that the chocolate coating process does not melt them.

- also put a cutting board in the freezer for an hour.

- when ready, put the remaining 1/4 of the chocolate into a pot by itself and melt it all.

- take out the cold truffle balls and the cold cutting board.  put wax paper on the cutting board.

- drop a truffle ball into the melted chocolate, quickly coat it all over with chocolate and remove it.  drop it onto the
cutting board.  do this for all the truffle balls.

- when done, put the coated truffles into the fridge to harden.

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