Cocoa Truffles

Let’s start with this: I love this recipe.

These melt-in-your-mouth truffles make it look like you did so much work (and I promise, you won’t have to). The recipe is also incredibly versatile and resilient – I’m pretty sure you could make a lot of changes and still come out with something wonderful. I used a vanilla vodka, but you can use any type of sweet alcohol or liqueur. (My next plan is to try it with orange tequila.)

I used black cocoa powder instead of plain old cocoa, which made these truffles look and taste beautiful. I also split the batter and rolled 1/2 in powdered sugar and 1/2 in powdered sugar and cocoa. (You’ll see I ran out of the black cocoa when I rolled them.)

One thing to note though: This didn’t make as many truffles as I had hoped. It probably came about to about 30 little balls, so next time I’m going to double or triple the recipe.

Ingredients

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 tablespoons vanilla vodka

Coating

¼ cup confectioner’s sugar

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat together 2 cups confectioner’s sugar with butter until well blended in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed. Beat in 2/3 cup cocoa powder and vodka. Mixture will be soft and creamy. Refrigerate, covered, 4-6 hours until firm.

To shape

In a shallow baking pan, combine ¼ cup each confectioner’s sugar with cocoa powder. Using 2 spoons, scoop butter mixture onto coating mixture in level teaspoons. Dust fingertips lightly with coating mixture; shape truffles into small balls, rolling completely in coating mixture. Cover and store in refrigerator. Makes about 4 dozen truffles.

Adapted from an old magazine clipping