Rich and Sweet

After dinner treats for my love. Visiting rights are being observed and Mr. Stripey Cat is over for the weekend.

These chocolate truffles are really easy but like anything else they taste best if you use the absolutely best quality ingredients you can afford. The recipe makes rather too many sweets and you can halve the ingredients and still get 12 or 15 sweet treats for your guests. They are so rich one or two will be perfectly satisfying.

Rum Raisin Truffles.

200g 70% cocoa solids cooking chocolate (or any other high cocoa content chocolate of your choice)
200ml soya cream. I used a Gerblé version for these but I think almost any would do.
100g Speculoos biscuits. These are 'accidentally' vegan and so are our usual bought biscuits but if you can't get them then digestives with a pinch of cinnamon would substitute.
50g or so raisins.
Enough quality spirit, brandy or armagnac for preference.
Cocoa powder or granulated sugar.

At least a day before you need to make them, put the raisins in a small jar and barely cover with the brandy or other spirit. If you want to make a larger jar of these for stock, I can recommend it. They keep in the fridge indefinitely. Allow the dried fruit to absorb the alcohol.

When that's done, crush your biscuits roughly and mix with the drained raisins. You can sip at the juice or keep it in the jar for another day, I'm not looking.

Melt the chocolate in a dry bowl over simmering water and when it's completely melted whisk in the soya cream gradually, ideally over the heat. It will get lighter in colour and thicker. Fold in the biscuit/raisin mixture and put to cool in a small greased pan. A counsel of perfection would suggest that you grease a piece of parchment paper and use it to cover the top of the mixture while it cools to ensure an even set. Otherwise it tends to be a little stiffer near the top, but that's not too damaging.

Allow to cool a bit and then put in the fridge for a few hours until it's firm. Take teaspoonfuls of the lovely stuff, roll into small balls (and less is more with these, as in so many situations) and then roll in cocoa powder or granulated sugar to coat. The sugar tends to be absorbed, so don't do this too soon before you need to serve them. The cocoa powder ones keep better. You could also dip the balls in melted chocolate, drain and allow to set on some waxed paper but that was more work than I could contemplate.

If you have them pop the finished truffles into some pretty little bonbon cases and serve immediately, they will also keep for a few hours in the fridge if you've got a lot on and need to schedule your workload. I really wanted vine leaves to display my efforts but had to make do with mint and a saved Booja Booja case which added a certain piquancy!