Friday, July 25, 2008

Sugar High Fridays #45: Berries!



For my first official Sugar High Friday, the fantastic Susan from Food Blogga has picked berries! I'm very excited to present my recipe for this month's challenge, Raspberry and Blackberry Cinnamon Truffles.

I picked up some gorgeous local blackberries and raspberries at Limbo this morning, and felt like trying something new. They were big and beautiful, perfect for standing alone as individual berries inside a truffle.

I made a thick ganache with organic whipping cream and semisweet chocolate chips that I spun in the dry food processor until they resembled breadcrumbs. This melted effortlessly into the warm cream, and kept a workable consistency for a long time.

I dipped individual berries into the chocolate mixture, and settled on fishing them out with my fingers - a girl's best tool, and the two-fork method had proved cumbersome - and placed them on plastic wrapped cookie sheet. After cooling in the fridge for an hour, I dusted them with unsweetened cocoa and confectioner's sugar.

This is a really fun, simple treat - great for parties and gifts. My friends couldn't get enough of them tonight, and the ganache would be great for dipping anything and everything - pretzels, strawberries, even drizzled over popcorn.

Here's to sweet treats, summer berries, and Sugar High Fridays.
Eat Well.


Raspberry and Blackberry Cinnamon Truffles
Ingredients

1/2 cup heavy cream
14 oz fine-quality semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped in a food processor
1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 c. fresh raspberries
1 c. fresh blackberries
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbs confectioner's sugar

Preparation

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap.

Bring cream just to a simmer, Remove from heat, then add chocolate and stir gently until ganache is smooth. Stir in cinnamon.

One at a time, place berries in ganache until fully coated. Remove each chocolate-covered raspberry with your fingers (get dirty!) then transfer to tray. Coat remaining berries in same manner.

Chill truffles on tray until firm, at least 1 hour, then loosen from wax paper.

Sift cocoa, using a mesh strainer, over chilled truffles and toss to coat, then dust with powdered sugar. Keep chilled until ready to serve.

9 comments:

  1. Ha you are going to laugh. I made truffles last night with left over ganache!! Seriously the easiest thing ever to make and it's possibilities are endless!
    Great pics!

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  2. Hey Oakley,

    I could dive into that ganache. And it's only 8:25 in the morning. For shame. Thanks for the fabulous and fun SHF entry! You're so lucky to be in the land of berries in Portland.

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  3. This look absolutely mouth watering! Berries are one of my favorite summer fruit!

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  4. Hi Oakley!

    Thanks so much for the encouragement on my new food blog ( www.theportlandpickle.com ) What a terrific job you have. I don't think my farmer's market photos will ever compete with yours--all the beautiful fruits and veggies do make it hard to take a bad photo though! But yours are pretty spectacular regadless. These truffles do look finger licking good. I actually have some forgotten ganache in the freezer, now I have an excuse to make your chocolate-berry concoction! Maybe I'll bump into you at the market someday. I'm linking to your site from mine too.

    Best of luck, Louisa

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  5. oh, wow. these look so amazing! I usually don't like chocolate with fruit - but the raspberries look SO fresh in your photos!
    Thanks for stopping by my blog! I am glad to have found yours!

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  6. Oh my God..those are gorgeous!! and they look sooo good..Are you sure you need my advice with cupcake frosting when you can make gorgeous things like these?

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  7. Those look fantastic! It's been so long since I've had ganache, but those raspberries look lovely! Welcome to the SHF world ;-).

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  8. This looks great - I've bookmarked your recipe and plan to try it when I get home in a couple of weeks!

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  9. That ganache... wow. I want some right now, and I haven't even had breakfast yet! I'm going to have to try making these before berry season is over.

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