Now, I had understood to this point that a truffle was by definition made with ganache and that the definition of ganache was a combination of hot cream and chocolate. So, what exactly was I being asked to make? Confused, I spent a lot of time researching truffles. Most sources stated it was ganache formed into a ball or cone shape and coated in something (chocolate, nuts, cocoa powder). Were the instructions saying that ganache was off limits? Or was it only cream-based ganache that was off limits? And on the school's website I found a recipe for a ganache truffle that was a flat rectangle. So does truffle refer to the centre or the shape or some mystery still to be revealed? Maybe I was over-thinking this, but it seemed like an oxymoron (creamless ganache, ganacheless truffle). Reviewing the assignment again, I saw that the example was a butter truffle, so I began searching for truffle recipes without cream (God bless boolean operators) and found recipes for "water ganache" and wine and butter based truffles. I also found recipes for "pot truffles," but decided that probably wasn't what they intended with this assignment. Eventually, I decided to make a wine-based truffle.
Lucky for me, I had some Newman's port wine left in my cupboard. I prepared the ganache (without cream) and slabbed it, then let it crystallize for 24 hours. Once it was ready for enrobing, I cut it into 1" squares, dipped them in dark chocolate, and decorated them according to the assignment requirements -- a piped decoration made with a contrasting chocolate that had been tinted using candy colours. I chose to combine candy red and sky blue to produce a sort of winey pink colour.
