Adventures In Cooking #1

Every so often, I like to try out new recipes to flex my culinary muscles. So, as the holidays approach my work project has a little "cookie" exchange and contest for the best "cookie". I quote the cookies, because it's pretty much any candies, sweets, or other desserts. Last year was a complete disaster when I attempted to make fudge ... had no candy thermometer and the fudge never became hard because I missed the temperature for the "soft ball" stage. This year, I decided to a try a dry run with the new treat recipe ... very successful; the dry run received high praise.

The recipe included below was original based off this recipe. However after looking at several other truffle recipes (some just general truffle recipes), I knew that it just wasn't right. I knew that this recipe needed to be tweaked to make it work for me and the final product of my tweaks is included below.
As for the contest results, I tied for 1st place in the category for best taste. So, I guess the Chocolate Cayenne Truffles are "Award-winning" now.

Chocolate Cayenne Truffles

Makes 2 - 3 dozen, depending on truffle size

• 9 oz semisweet chocolate
• 1/2 cups of unsalted butter
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Melt the chocolate, butter and cayenne in a double, or a bowl in the microwave. Stir well.

Remove from heat. Mix in cream and powdered sugar (you might want to mix the cream and sugar first; then add). Stir well and quickly (or else the sugar will stick together in little lumps, though this will not make it taste bad).

Cover and chill for 4-8 hours (you want it to get hard before you start to work with it, but not so hard you have problems scooping out your individual truffles) .

Make a powder coating mixture of:

• 1/3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Scoop out the chocolate, one tablespoon at a time. Mold it into balls (this is messy). Roll the balls in the powder mixture to coat them.

Put them back in the fridge, until serving time.

いただきます! (Itadakimasu!) [Let's eat!]