Blue Cheese & Ganache Truffles by Michelle

Chocolate and port is a perfect pairing. A perfect way to top off a great meal…or a wonderful gift combo. Many of you recognize Michelle’s friendly face from the Wine Room.

Ingredients:

8 Ounces of semisweet chocolate (a cacao content of about 60% works best & I like a bag of Ghirardelli because they're already small)

½ Cup of cream (for chocolate with 70% cacao, increase the cream by about a tablespoon or two)
Crumbled blue cheese

24 Mini cupcake liners (pre-line a baking sheet with these before you start the process)

Directions:

1.   Chop the chocolate into fairly even, small pieces—a heavy serrated knife works well or hammer. 

2.   Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat until it begins to boil. Remove from heat. Add the chopped chocolate to the cream. For an extra smooth truffle, add butter. Wait a minute or two until most of the chocolate and butter is melted.

3.   Transfer to a mixing bowl. Whisk until smooth. Once the chocolate is mostly melted, quickly but gently transfer the mixture to a bowl so that you can form your emulsion in a cooler environment.

4.   Whisk the mixture vigorously until it’s thick and smooth, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl and incorporating all the cream and chocolate. If you have one, an immersion blender helps make sure the emulsion is stable.

5.   If the ganache shows signs of breaking at this point (if it looks curdled or oily), you can add a few drops of cream to help re-emulsify it. A well-emulsified ganache should look like chocolate pudding: thick, smooth, and glossy. Leave it in a cool spot to firm up for at least four hours, ideally overnight.


6.  To add blue cheese to the equation, I use mini cup cake papers and drop a bottom layer of ganache in each one. Then add a bit of blue cheese on top of each one, finishing with another layer of ganache to seal in the blue cheese before putting the truffles into the fridge to chill and harden.


7.  Store them at room temperature for up to a week, in the fridge for two to three weeks, or in the freezer for two months.

Serves 2 dozen truffles