As a follow on for the home-made Christmas gifts I thought I'd share my chocolate truffle recipe. Beware - it's very rich but utterly yummy and perfect for the holidays. Feel free to add in your own gift recipes.



CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES:

150ml double cream, extra thick if you can get it

300g good quality plain chocolate (at least 55% cocoa solids)

3 tbsp brandy, rum, Cointreau - optional

Cocoa powder or toasted-coconut or ground nuts for decoration


Break the chocolate into small pieces. Heat cream in pan but don't boil. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate. Leave for 2 mins then stir until melted and snooth. Stir in the liqueur and pour out of pan into bowl. Chill in fridge for about 2hours until firm.
Dust your hands with cocoa and shape teaspoonfuls into small balls. Roll in coating of choice.

To present use food trays (small tomato or beans/mini sweetcorn from the supermarket). Place a layer of greaseproof paper in the bottom and arrange chocolates. Wrap in cellophane or tissue paper and tie with a ribbon. Or chocolates can be wrapped individually in cellophane or coloured foils... be creative.

For Amaretti truffles, finely crush 2oz amaretti biscuits. Stir into cream and chocolate with 2 tbsp Amaretto liqueuer. Roll in crushed amaretti biscuits instead of cocoa.

Will keep in the fridge for a week and are highly yummy!!!

Sounds yummy!

I can remember many years ago and I used to make my own truffles to give out as presents, they always went down a treat.

ET

I have family birthdays to contend with as well as Christmas, in November and December, and as a kid had to make all the presents for my immediate family: finding inspiration was really tricky at times.

Creations included: a beanbag in the shape of a radish for my sister (no, I'm not sure why either), complete with leaves and a root: a black wooden cone shape for my dad to hang in the rigging of his boat when motoring with sails up: an embroidered cloth to line the basket for bread at mealtimes, with a little mouse in one corner and sheaves of wheat round the sides - thanks to the way the stitching worked, the wheat ears looked stripped from the back, so I made the back of the mouse be a real back to match - the eyes were only visible from the front, ditto the pink lining the ears.
I'm currently knitting socks again - but can't offer a pattern, I'm afraid - basically the process consists of knit a tube of the right size on five double ended needles, then go on knitting just on half of the tube, reducing after a bit, picking up the edges and then knitting more tube til the foot bit looks long enough, and making the tube smaller in an outline of tip of foot shape. Not really enough information to go on with, sorry . We've also majored on sweets and chocs in the past, and that is still something I end up resorting to when I'm really stuck.