Last week I had the opportunity to play with chocolate with a new friend, Shari. I am working on a new flavor, lavender, and Shari had some ideas for me. To make my lavender truffle, I have infused the dried lavender flowers into the cream. This is done by steeping the cream with the flowers and letting it sit for about 10 minutes. The flowers are then strained out and the cream is added to the chocolate. The whole beautiful combination is stirred until all of the chocolate is melted. Then a bit of butter is added to enhance the smoothness of the truffle. Shari thought that this would be a good time to add lavender essence to boost the flavor. It was a strong addition.
It made me think about my taste palette. I have always worked at making my truffles delicious, but I have steered away from flavors that will be so strong that the chocolate gets lost in the flavor. My chocolate philosophy is to enhance the flavor of the chocolate and not overpower it. Sometimes, it's a very subtle difference.
While we were playing with flavor combinations, we also tried adding blood orange essense to bittersweet chocolate. This was a great combination. The orange could be tasted and smelled, but it didn't overpower.
I am thinking about creating a dairy free truffle and we played with different ways of substituting for both the cream and the butter. We used a nut based product called Mimiccream and coconut oil to replace the butter. I was curious about adding saffron to the dark chocolate. This was a very complex truffle flavor combination. Our flavors weren't quite right, but we felt like we were on to something and I will definately be playing with those flavors more.
What a wonderful time. Thanks, Shari!
Yours in chocolate,
Emily
The Truffle Lady
