Perfect Spheres of Joy

I'm actually writing this entry while sailing to Newfoundland. It's finally that time of year when I make my annual summer pilgrimage home. Traditionally, I would take a night crossing over, picking up a Big Mac combo for the road (or the ocean, if we're being literal), and then a day crossing back, with a bologna sandwich as my traditional meal. Things are a bit different this year because I rescheduled my original booking due to an important milestone deadline for a project I'm working on. Consequently, I find myself on a day crossing with a packed lunch.

What's in that lunch? Well, first, let me tell you that it isn't nearly as spectacular as most of the packed lunches that I saw in the queue waiting to board. You can tell the Newfoundlanders from the visitors by the size and contents of their cooler. Actually, probably the presence of a cooler at all is a tell. I watched as one lady assembled her lunch for a family of three right before boarding started. She filled a large shopping basket with crackers, cheese strings, beef jerky, small bags of chips, pudding, fruit, beverages... There was no end to the snacks! My sister would applaud her style and efforts, and tell me that I'm never prepared.

I am a Newfoundlander though, so you won't catch me on a ferry without a lunch. Complaining about the food prices on Marine Atlantic is a sacred tradition that must be upheld. I have a peanut butter and jam sandwich (which I affectionately refer to as a PBJ), a bag of Cruncheez from my favourite Old Dutch dealer, and two Lindt truffles, with a can of diet ginger ale (Canada Dry, just as BNL would want it). 

Until recently, Lindt truffles were 100% a Christmas thing for me. I would mark the start of the festive season with a Festive Special from Swiss Chalet, which includes a box of five, and I would have a few on Christmas Day from my stocking. (Truth is, I was devastated when Swiss Chalet replaced the Toblerone bar with Lindt truffles. I still wish they would switch back. But I digress...)

The truffle flavours, of course, were pretty standard -- milk, dark, white, caramel... Dependable, for sure, but predictable.

Imagine my surprise, then, the first time I went to the Lindt store in Halifax. I'd heard from a friend that it existed, but my trips to Halifax tend to centre around the downtown core, so I had never visited the box stores that developed on the outskirts of town. That is, until two years ago when my boyfriend and I made our first trip to Halifax for a weekend getaway. I was on a waterslide for the first time in maybe 30+ years, we ate at my favourite Halifax restaurant, and we made a pilgrimage to the Lindt store. 

I had never seen so many different flavours of Lindt truffles before. Naturally, I wanted to try them all and it's easy enough to do exactly that because you can pack your own gossamer bag full of truffles. We decided to get two of every flavour so that we could sample them together and then fill the rest of our small bag with our favourites (like dark chocolate sea salt). We did this again the following year, but got smart and bought the larger bag of 75 truffles. 

Now, not surprisingly, there have been a few flavours that I am more jazzed to try than he is. Among them on the last trip were coconut, mango, and matcha. And it's the coconut and matcha ones that I have here with me now. 

The matcha was of interest to me because I tried making my own a few months ago. While I was happy with the flavour, the texture wasn't ideal. The Lindt version was, of course, incredibly smooth. With a white chocolate shell and ganache, it was overly sweet and the matcha flavour wasn't as prominent as I would have liked it to be. It was just too subtle for my taste. (And what's with the air bubble in the centre?)

The coconut, however, was perfection. It had a milk chocolate shell with a white chocolate ganache that was so creamy it was hard to believe it was made with chocolate. The coconut flavour was present but not overpowering. It was a silky smooth, perfect sphere of joy. 

It would be impossible for a hand-rolled truffle to be so perfectly formed and have such a silky ganache filling (it wouldn't be firm enough to shape and dip in chocolate). But it may surprise you to know that you actually can make a Lindt truffle dupe at home. You see, you can buy trays of pre-formed truffle shells to speed up production. You simply fill them with the flavoured centre of your choice and then cap the little opening with some tempered chocolate, creating a sort of belly button. In most cases, a chocolatier would then roll or dip these in another coating of chocolate, but it isn't necessary (and isn't done with Lindt). 

One tip on the Lindt truffles though: like the chocolate I referenced a few weeks ago, the shells soften in the heat and the centres will actually become liquid. If that appeals to you, then you can stop reading right now, but if you prefer the snap of the shell and the creamy centre, then store them in the fridge in an airtight container during the summer and pull them out for a half hour to come to room temperature before eating them. 

So far, I think my favourite Lindt truffle has been the caramel and sea salt one. How about you? What's your favourite Lindt truffle flavour? Share it in the comments below!