Baileys Truffles

I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. (Julia Child)

This has been such an exciting week!  I have joined twitter (@SuzyJMills), signed into Pinterest and am now writing my first blog post, it’s daunting….but I hope you will enjoy.

My name is Suzy, welcome to my food blog!!!!

I draw inspiration for my recipes from everyday life, reading magazines, recipe books and online journals, adding in my own tweaks to suit my culinary palate.

In a way I can relate to the above quote. I didn’t start getting serious about cooking until I was 29. Even then, my inspiration originated from simple beginnings – I can recall the first time I realised I wanted to learn more, prompted by the chocolate moulds and recipe book my husband got for his birthday. I love chocolate and I love Baileys and when I looked through the recipe book and I saw a recipe for truffles that used exactly these ingredients, I just had to make them. This made me very happy. The great thing about this recipe is that it is simple, far more straightforward than other truffle recipes I have seen since. This is why I have called my blog Simply Suzy. I love making simple and tasty treats and I want to share these recipes with you.

I have to say, after 5 years, Baileys truffles are still my favourite thing to make and I could probably make them in my sleep! I have played around with the recipe and used dark, milk and white chocolate, either grated or melted over the mix. I have experimented with different brands of chocolate. I tried Cadburys and Galaxy, but finally ended up using chocolate from Aldi. You can use whichever chocolate you like of course. I found that using cheaper supermarket brand chocolates means you normally need less cream in the recipe, but they can still be used.

Baileys Chocolate Truffles

Truffle mix (makes 20-30 truffles)

200 grams of milk, white or dark chocolate
4 tbsp. double cream or 6 tbsp. if not using liqueur.
2 tbsp. Baileys (or any other liqueur you wish to use)

Decoration

200 grams dark, milk or white chocolate to cover truffles

Method

1. Chop up 200 grams of chocolate and place it in a non-stick pan.
2. Add 4 tbsp. cream to the pan and heat the mixture on the lowest setting.
3. Keep stirring the chocolate until just melted, making sure the pan does not get too hot. Take off the heat.
4. Add the liqueur or extra 2 tbsp. of cream and stir until incorporated.
5. Pour into a clean bowl and leave until cooled.
6. Cover and keep in the fridge overnight.
7. The mixture should be quite hard at this point. Roll a teaspoonful of mixture into a ball and place into another bowl. (I use food gloves for this as it can get quite messy)
8. Repeat this process until the mixture has gone.
9. Stick in to the fridge again to harden. At least 2 hours.

Here is where you can be creative.

10. Grate the chocolate leftover for decoration into a bowl. (This can be a different chocolate to the truffle mixture.)
11. Take the mixture out of the fridge and re-roll to melt slightly and drop it into the grated chocolate. Roll around until the truffle is fully covered and leave on baking paper.

Instead of using grated chocolate, you can melt chocolate over the truffles as well. Again after rolling the truffle in the melted chocolate, place them on to baking paper to set. To melt, I chop up the chocolate and place it into a microwaveable bowl and heat for 20 seconds at a time until just melted. In between each 20 second interval, I stir the chocolate making sure the mixture does not get too hot. There will be more on tempering chocolate in a later blog. Watch this space!

12. After the chocolate has set, you can put in to a presentation bag to give to someone as a present or leave out on the table for people to scoff during a party

Baileys Chocolate Truffles

For me, food is a way of life. I love spending time in the kitchen and creating recipes I can call my own. I enjoy making the naughty and the nice, especially cakes and ice-cream, but I have also created healthy recipes that are equally delicious and will be sharing these with you too.

Thank you for reading my first blog. I hope you like this recipe. I would love to hear from you so please let me know how you get on.