Thursday 30 August 2012

Coffee Cream Truffles

coffee creams just like you used to get in quality street

I have toyed with what to call these confections. They could be one of two things really.

But back to the start, and one of the great goodies I received a couple of weeks back from LittlePod, was coffee extract. It smelled divine and I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it. Who remembers coffee creams? You used to get them in Quality Street and many other chocolate selections. But not a sniff of java in any of the choc boxes now.

The closest you get is the coffee ones in Revels, and even then in the commercial they take the mickey out of them! But they were always my favourite and I miss them. So when I took a whiff of the coffee bottle, it conjured up halcyon days, sitting in front of the TV watching ‘Charlie’s Angels’ and scoffing said coffee creams.

My mind got to ticking and I thought a good way to make them, would be to use a cream cheese frosting type recipe, make it very stiff with the icing sugar, add the extract and coat generously with dark chocolate. Oh coffee creams, how I have missed you…

Yield: 36 (or thereabouts)

Ingredients:
113 grams full-fat cream cheese, softened
30 grams unsalted butter, softened
500 grams icing sugar
2 teaspoons coffee extract
300 grams Dark Chocolate, melted
2 bars Caramac, melted – to decorate

Method:
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese until completely smooth. Next, add the coffee extract and mix to combine. Add your icing sugar, mixing until you get a thick, dough like consistency.



Using a melon baller, dipped in icing sugar, or just with a teaspoon, take balls of the truffle dough and with your hands, dusted with icing sugar, roll the dough into balls. Place on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper and pop into the fridge for a couple of hours to firm up.



Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl, over a saucepan of simmering water and remove from the heat. Allow it to cool a little. Then taking a toothpick or a small fork, stab the truffles and dunk into the molten chocolate, covering completely and drain the excess chocolate. Pop back into the fridge and allow the chocolate to set fully. To decorate I melted some Caramac bars and drizzled them over the truffles, then let them chill again.



The truffles should be kept cool until ready to eat, as in the heat they can get quite soft. And keeping them cool means that when eaten you get that satisfying crack when you bite into them. The coffee cream centre is sweet and a nice contrast to the bitter chocolate. The centre has a nice subtle coffee flavour, but if you wanted more of a ‘hit’ you could add another teaspoon.

Now I settled on the name coffee cream truffles, but they could have also been coffee flavoured cream cheese frosting truffles. In fact, replacing the coffee extract for vanilla, that’s what they would have been. But whatever you call them, go get creative and enjoy!


Note: If you can't find coffee extract, simply dissolve one sachet (you know the long thin sticks) of strong coffee with two teaspoons of boiling water. This will give your truffles a great coffee kick! And instead of Caramac, white chocolate works just as well.

19 comments:

  1. take my word for it- awesome! One of my colleagues said that words could not describe how good they were!

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    1. Two of my favourite things, chocolate and coffee! These look beautiful and I am sure they are delicious. I can just imagine the crack of cold chocolate and the scent of coffee when you bite into them! I will be giving this recipe a go! : )

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    2. Super easy Debs - I'm making a sugar cookie this weekend spookily enough!

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  2. I love making truffles and these coffee ones look delicious! I bought some camp coffee and chicory essence which would work well too :)

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    1. I've never had Camp before - it's always made me curious! Love it's name tho ;)

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  3. I love coffee creams!!! At Christmas everyone at work used to bring me their unwanted coffee cream chocs that they hated. How can anyone hate a coffee choc? I was thought of as weird though.
    I'll be making these and will have to eat them all. Love your recipes Cakeyboi, I made the marshmallows and a few other, all yum.
    Keep it up.
    Andrea xx

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    1. Thanks Andrea - comments like this really inspire me to keep going! Glad you are enjoying and I hope to keep on entertaining for a long time :)

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  4. Now, I would like you to invent some orange creams for me. I hate coffee, but I love orange cream :)

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    1. Mmmm - orange creams - super easy, orange extract instead of the coffee - that would be like a Terry's choccie orange in miniature form - yummo :)

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  5. These sound utterly fantastic! The name coffee cream truffles sounds perfect. I'm going to need to get me some coffee extract!

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  6. One of the confectioners that makes rose and violet creams makes WHOLE BOXES of coffee creams which are dairy free too so I can eat them.

    These look marvellous though and when I'm not dairy intolerant anymore I'm definitely making some, you do make some lovely yummy stuff! :)

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  7. What is a carmac bar, for those of us in the US?

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    1. Hi Andrea - caramac bars are kind of like caramel flavoured white chocolate. Quite tricky to describe, but they have a caramel flavour and colour, so perfect for adding to truffles. But white chocolate would be fine too. Thanks for checking Cakeyboi out

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  8. How long do these keep once they are made?

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    1. Hi there, they keep for a few days, in an airtight container. As they have cream cheese in them, they do need to be refrigerated also. Thanks for getting in touch.

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  9. Thanks for that I'm going to make some for mothers day they look yummy

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  10. Hi Cakeyboi, these look amazing!!

    I'm planning to make these for my dear old dad for Xmas (and possibly "quality check" a few myself, ahem...) but I wondered if I'd be able to freeze the truffle mixture prior to chocolate-coating? I've got oodles of stuff needing done in the run-up to Xmas and it'd be a bit easier to make these mostly in advance - I was worried the cream cheese might split when frozen though, any advice?

    Thanks, and I'm loving your website, sooooo much good stuff - I need to get a-bakin'!!!

    xx Lu xx

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    1. Hi - thank you for your kind comments - I am blushing!
      It is so handy to have treats ready to crack out of the freeze at busy times isn't it? As for these truffles, they will be okay to freeze but when you defrost they will become a bit looser, so add more icing sugar to stiffen the mix up again. After that you are good to go! I hope your dad enjoys them as much as i did. Merry Christmas!

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