Johanna from the passionate cook is hosting this month's Sugar High Friday. As she loves chocolate truffles (who doesn't?) she asked us to make our own truffles. I chose dark chocolate truffles with grappa coated with white chocolate.

I bought two layers of hollow chocolate balls. The filling was made of heavy cream, chocolate (dark Valrhona chocolate 70%) and butter. To give the truffles more flavour I added grappa.

My biggest problem was to get the already filled truffles out of their plastic mould. More than half of the truffles broke so I had to eat them immediately. The nice ones that were left over went straight into a bath of melted white chocolate. You have to be quick at that because the truffles melt easily.

Once truffles were dipped into the tempered chocolate, I rolled them on a special wire grid to create characteristic chocolate spikes. In german we have the special verb "igeln" for that which is derived from the german word for hedgehog ("Igel").

I really like the truffles but next time I'll better check the hollow chocolate balls before I fill them. Once stuck to the plastic (perhaps because of warm temperature) they are not easy to handle.

The recipe for the filling:

200 g heavy cream
160 g butter
300 g chocolate; choped
2-3 cl grappa or other brandy

Heat the cream and melt butter and chocolate in it. Let it cool down. If it's to warm the hollow chocolate balls will melt. With this filling you can fill about 100 hollow chocolate balls.

To close the hole you need meled chocolate. Be sure to close the hollow figure before you coat the truffle with the same chocolate you are going to coat them. Otherwise the ganache might escape. Wait a few minutes to be sure that the truffles are closed.

For the coating take about 200 g of coating chocolate. Melt the chocolate carefully. 35? C is a good temperature for coating. Don't overheat the chocolate as the cacoa butter will separate.