black and white chocolate truffles with guava and coconut: "

Today I’m thrilled to release my version of Ina Garten’s chocolate truffle recipe for our friendly chocolate truffle challenge AKA truffle mania. Participating with me is the instigator of the flavorful event, Heavenly, from donuts to delirium; Shelly from the singular Franish Non-speaker, the wonderful Joumana from Taste of Beirut; charming Karen at Gourmet Food and lovely Su from Suvelle Cuisine. A couple participants are new to me: Erika Beth from Life’s too short to skip dessert and the Baking Addict from the More than Occasional Baker, but I’m thrilled to get to know them through this fun cook-off (and I hope that my story hasn’t mis-represented New York for you Erika). If you haven’t already, then you must check out these spectacular sites, and often.

incredible black and white chocolate truffles with guava and coconut

Here’s the link to Ina Garten’s recipe.

Personally, I’m not much of a chocolate fan. I know, sacrilege. What can I do? I prefer fruit sweets. That’s why I was excited by similar truffle recipes that use grapefruit or passion fruit.

My inspiration came from our lovely friends Luís and Savio, visiting us from Vitória, Brazil in the days leading up to this post’s release. (They like chocolate, thank you very much.) Not only did they come to San Francisco, we all traveled together to New York. Hence “black and white” after the incredible New York cookies of that name. Plus that’s still the fashion in the Big Apple: though really it’s black and black and black and a wee bit of white. Tee-hee The guava and coconut are tropical elements to bring it all together.

relentlessly glamorous in black in New York City

classic New York black-and-white cookies

view of Vitória, ES, Brazil

I made a variant of Delia Smith’s chocolate coating to color my truffles in their partial white robes.

Mine don’t look like truffles you’d find at a fine chocolate shop. They’re too irregular in shape and wonky looking. Oh well. They taste great (or at this point I should write, “tasted great,” as they’re long gone now.)

The guava flavor was not nearly as intense as I had hoped. I was thinking luscious dark chocolate and rich fruit. The chocolate part worked but the fruit was a dim shadow of my imaginings. Next time, I’ll just add more guava purée or perhaps try to find the actual fruit and fill the center of the truffle with a tiny morsel.

black and white chocolate truffles with guava and coconut

½ pound bittersweet chocolate nibs (I used Ghirardelli)

½ pound semisweet chocolate nibs (generic Whole Foods here)

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup guava purée

3 tbsp cognac

cocoa powder or confectioner’s sugar

½ pound white chocolate nibs (Ghirardelli)

1 tsp walnut oil

dried shredded coconut

Pour bittersweet and semisweet chocolate nibs in a medium bowl.

In a small saucepan, bring heavy cream and guava purée to a boil, quickly remove from heat, let sit for 20 seconds, then pour over chocolate through a fine mesh sieve. Whisk cream mixture into chocolate until the later has melted. Whisk in cognac. Set aside, covered at room temperature, for an hour.

Cover a large baking tray with wax paper. Using two teaspoons, scoop chocolate from bowl in small rounds. Place on wax paper. These will be irregular but don’t worry! Place in refrigerator and let chill for about 20 minutes.

very roughly shaped truffles

Dust your hands with cocoa powder or confectioner’s sugar. Between palms, gently and quickly shape each chocolate lump into a spherical one. Return to refrigerator.

Using a double boiler or a bowl over a pot of hot water, melt white chocolate and walnut oil. Remove from heat when just melted and a bit runny. Pierce each truffle with a long wooden skewer. Quickly dip in white chocolate then in coconut. Remove finished truffle with another wooden skewer onto wax paper. Repeat with all of them.

Chill briefly and serve.