Soo... after last week's Nutella Balls of DOOM which were too Nutella-ey for the household of Nugget, Bart and Jenna, I vowed to make dark chocolate balls according to *my* idea of what the ratios should be, and not be swayed by the Internets.
...and so here we have...
SPICY DARK CHOCOLATE BALLS OF COCOA-DUSTED DOOM4 parts sweetened condensed milk (I used one full 400ml tin)
3 parts dark chocolate (75% cocoa)
Lemon juice (probably 2 tbsp)
Dollop of honey (probably 1 tbsp)
Dollop of butter (again probably 1 tbsp, salted or unsalted doesn't matter)
Garam masala spices, ground (to taste)
Cocoa to roll dem balls in
Again, Rice Cooker Disciples, dump chocolate, butter and honey into a bowl, dump the bowl into the rice cooker, and set it on cook until it pops up (which it will when everything is melted enough). If not, go do your water bath thing. *shudder*
After it's all melted together nicely, whisk a bit until you've slain any remaining lumps of chocolate.
Glop in all the condensed milk and lemon juice, whisk it all together.By now, it should have a very dough-like consistency. If you don't like the idea of spices in chocolate, or you don't like garam masala spices, or you just want dark chocolate truffles, this is when you can dump the mixture in the fridge and ignore it for about 30 minutes. Or at least, that's how long I ignored it for when I went off to kill things.If you do like the idea of adding ground spices, whisk them in now. Start with small amounts and taste the mixture. Stop adding / whisking in spices when the spice taste is subtle, but not strong. Don't make it strong, because once the truffleys set and the chocolate makes sweet cocoa-love to the spices and it all sets in one gooey mess... er what? Right. Once the chocolate sets and combines with the spices, the taste of the spices roughly doubles in strength. So, in order to get Spicy DARK chocolate truffles, you need to stop when the taste of the spices is subtle. If you don't stop, you'll end up with SPICY dark chocolate truffles (which I did, because I did not, until this experiment, know about the intricacies of choco-spice seks).
Dump the mixture in the fridge to cool for 1-4 hours (depends on how madly cold your fridge is).Take the mixture out of the fridge. The texture you're looking for is similar to edible chocolate Plasticine. It should be pliable and cookie-dough-like, but still easy to work with.
Dust your hands with cocoa, and make a little ball of dark and spicy chocolate happiness. Roll the little ball of dark and spicy chocolate happiness in the cocoa.
Put all your little balls of spicy dark chocolate happiness rolled in cocoa in the fridge and leave them for 12-36 hours or so.
Then...
...
...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
***I really really love the texture of the truffles this time round. It's pretty much the perfect texture after it sets, and it's also really easy to work with. Pliable but not melty or messy.
Next week I shall try version 2.0: Less garam masala, with a roasted coffee bean in the centre.