Chocolate Crème Pots With Truffles

For some reason, certain food photographs that I have seen in other blogs, magazines or cookbooks gets stuck in my head like glue, until I try it out at least once. This recipe is inspired from one such photo. An adult chocolate creme that looks and tastes divine. What I liked the most about this dessert is, its neither thick like a pudding nor thin like a drink, but somewhere in between. As a true chocolate lover, I served this velvety dessert with home made chocolate truffles. Overall, this dessert is elegant and easy. Prepare the chocolate crème and truffles 2 days before, refrigerate them separately, bring 'em to room temperature and serve your guests. Now that’s easy entertaining.

As always, I like chocolate slightly bitter and so I have used dark chocolate. But feel free to use semi-sweet chocolate. Also, I noticed that when refrigerated for more than 3 days, the chocolate crème thickens like a pudding. Not that it alters the taste anyway. So serve this at room temperature or slightly warm. Likewise, refrigerate the truffles and serve at room temperature. This dessert is so easy that everything is put together using microwave oven. Adjust the cooking times to suit your microwave. Since chocolate is the star of this dessert, try using the best available quality chocolate.

This quite fits Stephanie of Happy Sorceress’ theme and I am sending my Chocolate Creme with Truffles to her Blog Party – Another Bite of Dessert. This is also my entry to My Favorite Things - Chocolate, hosted by Bindiya of In Love With Food.

Chocolate Crème

Ingredients

Dark chocolate – ½ cup
Heavy cream – ¼ cup
Low fat milk – ½ cup
Egg yolk – 1
Coffee liquor – 2 tsp

Method

Microwave cream and milk together for 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on the sides. Stir in the chocolate and coffee liquor. Stir until melted. Add egg yolk and mix vigorously. Microwave for 30 seconds. Stir once and microwave again for 30 more seconds. Pour into serving containers while warm. Cover with plastic wrap or foil to prevent the chocolate crème from forming a crust.

Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients

Semi sweet chocolate – ½ cup
Heavy cream – ¼ cup
Orange zest – ½ tsp
Chopped nuts and cocoa powder – for coating

Method

Microwave cream until bubbles appear on the sides, about a minute. Stir in the chocolate and the zest. Keep whisking until chocolate completely dissolves and glistens. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. When ready, scoop a tsp of the chocolate mixture, roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Roll either over cocoa powder or chopped nuts. I have used pistachios.

When ready, top one truffle over chocolate crème and serve with dessert spoons. Leave additional truffles on the table and let the guests help themselves.

Later, I found adding a pinch of chilli powder/cayenne pepper to chocolate crème instead of liquor was over-the-top. After the initial sweetness of the chocolate, the chilli powder leaves a slight heat on the back of the throat.

If you don’t want to use egg yolk, use 1 tsp of corn flour in ¼ of water. Adding a tsp of butter to the crème will give it a silkier texture. I omitted it because between the heavy cream and the egg yolk, I felt there is enough calories already.