DARK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Last Saturday I went to my first cookery class since the days of school lessons in Home Economics (I'm still not sure that learning how to put chocolate icing over a bought swiss roll can actually be classified as learning to cook). Thankfully this one day course at the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine was both more fun and more informative than the dreaded HE (which was only ever surpassed in awfulness by needlework classes). During the course of the day I was thrilled to realise that, contrary to previous experiences, I really like lentils. So, after cooking and devouring our three course lunch the chef for the day said that there was just time for a short lesson in the basics of making truffles and proceeded to show how sublimely easy it is to make these chocolatey treats. Since then I have been eagerly wanting to try for myself, so with Nigel Slater's 'Real Foods' in hand I got started. 200g of Lindt 70% chocolate melted into 125g of warm whipped cream, an hour in the fridge to harden a little and I had my truffle mix. I had planned to roll the truffles and dip them into melted white chocolate but soon realised that this was a little too delicate for my first truffle attempt so I settled for rolling them in Green & Black's cocoa powder, which is hardly a bad compromise. Now that this first basic truffle is out of the way I am imagining new and endless possibilities, a few spices, a little fruit, possibly some alcohol...