Rustic Chocolate Rum Truffles

If you’re looking for a treat to finish off your meal or for something special for the festive season then I’m hard pressed to think of something better than these Rustic Chocolate Rum Truffles. The blend of the dark chocolate, rum, honey and cocoa come together perfectly to produce a beautifully balanced flavour that will not easily be forgotten, I really can’t express just how good I think that this recipe is.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I’m posting a Christmassy recipe at the beginning of August. Well, for those people in the northern hemisphere that wouldn’t have come across it, down here in Australia, Christmas in July is a great excuse to pull out all of those great traditional heavy Christmas recipes that don’t lend themselves well to the summer heat that we get in December.

Ingredients

250g Dark Chocolate buttons
1 large tsp of clear honey
25g butter
200ml thickened cream
1 tbsp Rum
Dutch Cocoa Powder to coat the truffles

Directions

Melt the chocolate using either a microwave oven or water filled Bay-Marie. Once the chocolate has been melted, add the honey and butter. Stir until melted.

For further details on how to melt the chocolate you can see our How to Melt Chocolate Page.

Meanwhile, while the chocolate is melting, pour the cream into a saucepan and bring it to a slow boil.

Once the chocolate is melted and the cream is up to temperature, pour the cream over the chocolate mixture and whisk until the mixture is smooth.

Once the cream and chocolate are thoroughly mixed, add the Rum and once again mix until combined.

Pour the truffle mixture in a glass bowl and put it into the refrigerator to set. The truffle mixture may take up to four hours to set depending on the shape of the glass bowl. The mixture, once set should still be reasonably soft to the touch but should not flow like a liquid.

Once the mixture is set, shape little quenelles between 2 teaspoons. Place each quenelle on a baking sheet. Once all the truffles have been shaped, put them back into the fridge to set for about one hour.

Don’t worry if they are a bit rough around the edges at this point, the edges will be smoothed out in the next step.

Spread a layer of Cocoa on a plate. In turn, place each truffle into the Cocoa and roll it around until it is completely coated.  

Once coated transfer to a clean plate and refrigerate until use.

Notes:
If you don’t have any Rum handy, other flavours that will also work with the truffles include orange liqueur or brandy.

Truffles can be coated in finely chopped nuts such as toasted hazelnuts or macadamias rather than Cocoa if you’d prefer.

If you are not familiar with the technique for forming quenelles using teaspoons, the truffles can be piped using a piping bag fitted with a 2 cm nozzle onto a baking sheet.