Peanut Butter Truffles

The last dish I made for my extravagant (and at this point, super long) dinner was peanut butter truffles. I figured I could make this in advance and they would be the first finished dish and the least of my worries. Through no fault of their own, this did not happen. I just didn't time everything correctly and found myself coating these in chocolate the day before when I should have been preparing for a night out at the drive-in movie theatre.

But the truffles were assembled and coated in chocolate (albeit, quite sloppily) and they were well worth the extra planning. I'm not a devoted chocolate lover, but these were pretty great. The filling is sweet and salty, and the cocoa powder coating adds just a little bit of initial bitterness which plays well off the (really thick) chocolate coating.

Why yes, I did set the table with a flower theme. It's spring after all.

Peanut Butter Truffles
Adapted from The French Laundry Cookbook
Makes about 3 dozen

• 4oz milk chocolate
• 1 pound natural peanut butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 12 tbl unsalted butter, softened
• 1 pound bittersweet or milk chocolate
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Chop the milk chocolate into medium chunks and place in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds and stir. Microwave for another 30 seconds and stir again. Repeat until the chocolate is melted. In a food processor combine the peanut butter, sugar, salt and softened butter. Blitz until smooth and airy. Add the chocolate and blitz again until smooth. Refrigerate the mixture for at least an hour.

Once the peanut butter filling is thoroughly chilled and you are ready to shape the truffles, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop the filling into balls using an ice cream scoop or just use a spoon and shape the filling with your hands. Place the balls on the baking sheet and freeze until the next step.

Melt the remaining 1 pound of chocolate in a bain marie and if you wanted to have shiny chocolate, make sure it is tempered. If you want help with this, check out the link here. If you're like me and don't really care, melt the chocolate and just try to cover the truffles before the chocolate cools too much. Since you end up coating them with cocoa powder, it doesn't really matter if your chocolate blooms. The best method I found to coat the truffles with the melted chocolate was to place the truffle filling on a fork over the chocolate bowl and spoon the chocolate over the fork. This was my first venture into truffle making and although my truffles came out a little rustic, I wouldn't let that detour you from trying these. Really quite excellent.

Keep refrigerated in an airtight container.

Don't worry mom, the champagne glasses made it back to the china cabinet safe and sound!