16th
Darin’s Diablito Truffles
Diablitos are rich, dark chocolate truffles infused with hot chiles, cinnamon and cayenne. sweet, rich, painful, decadent.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1# coverture-grade dark chocolate (for the ganache)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 dried chiles
- 1-2 dozen black peppercorns
- ground cinnamon
- ground cayenne pepper
- ground white pepper (optional; adds heat)
- dark cocoa powder
- turbinado sugar (may subsitute refined white sugar; turbinado = more texture, white = more sweet)
- yield = ~4 dozen or ~48 truffles
recommendations:
* chocolate: Callebaut 835; Guittard ‘La Nuit Noir’; Callebaut ‘Bittersweet 60/40’, Guittard ‘Gourmet Bittersweet’, Guittard ‘Oro’
* cocoa: Scharffen Berger, Schokinag
* heavy cream: organic, with *nothing* added (it should list “ingredients: cream”)
* chiles: poblanos, anchos, guajillos, New Mexico, California NOT recommended:
** chocolate: Scharffen Berger (it’s too sacred, too amazing on its own for this), Ghirardelli, anything in the Barry brand (personal dislike), or any cheap crap like Baker’s, Nestle, Hershey, etc.
**cocoa: anything cheap or sweetened or cut with milk powder/solids, Hershey, etc.
** heavy cream: any brand containing colors, fillers, preservatives, and/or carageenen
** chiles: chipotles, japones, Thai chiles, or any green chiles
PROCESS:
- coarsely chop the dried chiles into rough chunks; set aside.
- put the cream in a sturdy pan, heat on medium-high.
- watch closely: the moment the cream hits a boil, remove from heat and stir in the peppercorns, chiles and chile seeds. set aside to cool.
- chop/break the chocolate into rough chunks with a big knife, the smaller the better. put in a dry glass dish and set aside.
- back to the cream: when the pan is just cool enough to hold in your palm, strain the chiles from the cream, directly into the chocolate chunks.
- stir stir stir with a spatula until you have a perfectly smooth, thick ganache. usually the residual heat from the boil + friction from stirring is enough to melt all the chocolate. if it’s not, you can put it in the microwave.. but NO more than 10 seconds at a time!! (seriously.) stir vigorously between nukings, otherwise you could get a scorched hotspot and ruin the whole batch.
- add generous amounts of cinnamon and cayenne to the ganache (to taste).
- add trace amounts of white pepper to the ganache (optional, also to taste).
- set ganache aside to cool. okay to put in the fridge or freezer, maybe with a plate over top to prevent a lot of air-exchange. Do NOT use an air-tight lid, otherwise condensation will form and drip into ganache.
- meanwhile: toss ~0.5 cup cocoa into a small, shallow dish. this will be the dry coating for the truffle balls.
- add ~1 tsp. cinnamon, ~1 to 2 tsp. cayenne, ~1 T. sugar to the cocoa. stir well, and adjust proportions to taste.
- once the ganache has cooled and solidified: use a melon-baller, two spoons, or your hands to roll out truffle balls. yes, it’s a challenge; your hands will melt the chocolate faster than you can roll. (i use a melon-baller with a thumb-release, like a mini ice cream scoop, cleaned in hot water and dried thoroughly after every 3rd or 4th truffle. i also use unpowdered, food-service latex gloves to smooth out the spheres.)
- drop each ball into the dry coating bowl and roll around until evenly coated.
- set aside on parchment paper with a little breathing room between each one. - try one (quality control, of course) and adjust the coating as needed
- add cayenne for more burn, cocoa and sugar for less.
- if you run out of dry coating, or it cakes up on accident, just make more. - tweak any/all proportions as you see fit for your taste/texture preferences. :)
STORAGE: store in air-tight container (ie. tupperware), with parchment paper between layers. (personally, i add a clean paper towel at the bottom to soak up ambient moisture.) shake any leftover dry coating over each layer. truffles will keep probably ~4-5 days at room temp, ~2-3 weeks in the ‘fridge, or up to 6 weeks in the freezer. if you do chill them, do allow them to warm up to room temp before serving – otherwise most of the flavor will be blunted out by the cold.
