Every Christmas I make grand plans to try out a few new recipes. . . And every year I pretty much fail. At least I'm consistent!
I managed one new recipe last year, linzer cookies, but I had also planned to make these gingerbread truffles which I found at Baking with Granny, a lovely baking blog if you're not already familiar with it. Also see her post for nicer photography and less lumpy melted chocolate.
After weeks of no baking I felt inspired to make something two weekends ago and remembered these truffles. I reasoned that gingerbread truffles could be a treat for any time of year, not just for Christmas.
The recipe is nice and simple, no baking required, with only a handful of ingredients: gingernut biscuits, ground almonds, ground ginger, condensed milk and melted chocolate.
I had to re roll the balls a couple of times until they looked suitably dainty as I naturally seem to make hulk sized portions. Eventually I ended up with 56 bite-sized truffles.
The only change I made was adding about 30-40g extra ground almonds as I found the mixture was too soft and sticky to hold the ball shape. The extra ground almonds helped to firm them up.
I also decided to cover some of the truffles in 70% cocoa dark chocolate. Normally I am the biggest white chocolate fan, however in the last year my taste buds have expanded to appreciate a good, dark chocolate. I guess this means I'm a grown up now?
As a result, I possibly prefer the dark chocolate covered truffles to the white chocolate ones as I like the contrast of the rich chocolate with the sweet, ginger, cookie dough textured filling. Both are incredibly tasty though. I'll definitely make these again. I kept a few truffles for myself then packaged up the rest to drop off at friends' and family's doorsteps as a winter treat.
The only thing I felt on the fence about was the crystallised ginger topping. They're fine as tiny chunks and the truffles benefit from a decoration but I don't think it's something I'd want to eat as a big chunk. In other words, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of this stuff! Suggestions welcome.
