Democratized truffles
For those who remember these truffles I posted about earlier (which of course link back to two previous generations), you'll see that these have been a work in progress for me.
The beauty of this latest version is that it requires absolutely no special equipment, and you don't have to worry about breaking the chocolates when you unmold them. Just buy a roll of parchment paper, some ribbon, and off you go. You can toss them into a decorative bowl or just pile them into a gift bag--no worrying about keeping fiddly chocolates in petit-four cups.
Melt chocolate in a double boiler (i.e., a bowl set on top of a pan of barely simmering water). Cut parchment into 6" squares. Using a pastry brush or small spoon, spread a 2" circle of chocolate (thin enough to be completely opaque, but not so thick as to spread out on its own) in the center of a square of parchment. Put a 1/2" ball of filling (freeze filling briefly if it's too soft to roll into balls) in the center of the chocolate, gather up the edges of the paper, and tie it off as shown with a 6" length of narrow ribbon. Different colors of ribbon make it easy to signal different fillings. Chill until serving. That's it!
The ones shown above are marzipan (with pre-made filling) and chai (which I made).
Here's what they look like when opened. Obviously, they're far from perfectly shaped, but I figure that's part of the charm. And you get to shake the shards into your mouth from the paper :)
