Chocolate Truffles

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Bittersweet chocolate with a smooth, melt in your mouth texture.

Ease: super quick Type: dessert Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 1 hour + chilling time Yield: about 48 truffles

Cook's notes

Use only pure, unsweetened baking chocolate. Ghirardelli makes a "Premium Baking Bar" (Chaff K certified Kosher) that is very fine.

The best cocoa powder I have ever had is made by Frontier. (KSA certified kosher.) Be sure to get the non-alkalized cocoa which is, unfortunately, not organic. You can buy it directly from Frontier or save money by special ordering 1 lb. bags from Whole Foods.

Please do not confuse firm tofu with silken, super firm or any other type of tofu. Firm is softer than super firm and slightly firmer than regular.

Both Horizon (circle U kosher) and Organic Valley (circle U kosher) make Neufchatel that tastes exactly like regular cream cheese. Unlike the conventional "Lite" cream cheeses, they have no chemicals and taste really good.

The water bath insulates the delicate chocolate mixture from the oven heat. It only takes a couple of minutes to prepare.

Ingredients

5 oz. firm tofu
1 extra large egg
1 t vanilla
3 - 4 T honey to taste (3 T will give you very bittersweet and 4 is semisweet)
3 oz Neufchatel cream cheese at room temperature
4 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
non-alkalized, not Dutch, cocoa powder for coating the truffles (optional)

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 325 ° F, no convection. Have ready a 2 liter Pyrex baking dish.
2. Prepare a water bath by placing a folded towel into the bottom of a large roasting pan. In other words, you want two layers of towel on the bottom. Place the Pyrex baking dish on the towel, making sure that it is not touching the sides of the roasting pan. Add water to the roasting pan until it comes half way up the sides of the baking dish.
   
   
3. Whirl tofu in food processor until very smooth, scraping the sides often. Add egg, vanilla and honey and whirl until absolutely smooth, scraping the sides often. Add the cream cheese and pulse just until well blended, scraping the sides often.
4. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, microwave (on a very low power) or over an extremely low heat on the cook top (some commercial style cook tops have a heat setting this low.) Careful not to burn or boil the chocolate. You want to heat it until just before boiling.
5. Add the melted chocolate and whirl until smooth and well blended.
6. Spread the mixture evenly into the baking dish in the water bath. Carefully, without splashing water into the chocolate mixture, place the entire water bath as prepared in step 2 into the oven. Bake for 40 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool. When the baking dish is cool to the touch, cover and chill well.
8. Scoop out teaspoonfuls of the chocolate mixture and form round truffles with your hands. Roll in cocoa powder if desired. Serve chilled.

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