Earl Grey Truffles

Earl Grey is one of my favorite tea flavors and I always like to find ways to incorporate it into different foods. Other times I have done Earl Grey shortbread and brown butter chocolate chip cookies, but this time I tried truffles!

Chocolate truffles are very easy to make, even when you add an extra flavor like I did. The original recipe is from This Celebrated Life (Link here!). I did have a little hiccup, which I will tell you about soon, but let's get into the ingredients first.

You will need:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream (I used half and half and it was fine)

• 4 tbsp. Earl Grey tea (The tea I use for baking is from Twining's)

• 1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1/4 tsp. salt

• 1/2 tsp. granulated sugar

• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I'm pretty sure that semi-sweet and bitter sweet are very similar in flavor, so either one will work.)

First, heat your cream/milk/half and half over medium heat in a sauce pan. Add the tea leaves when it's warm, and stir continually to make sure that the liquid doesn't scald on the bottom of the pan. Watch the tea leaves, when the liquid turns a light brown color, you're ready.

Strain and pour the hot cream over the 1/12 cup of chocolate chips and let it sit for a little bit so they melt. Stir to combine.

This is where I had a hiccup. When I was steeping the tea in the cream, it didn't feel like enough liquid. I eye-balled adding more half and half to the pot, and it ended up being too much. After the chocolate melted and everything was stirred together, the mixture was much too liquid-y to be shaped into anything. Even after chilling the bowl, I was adding cocoa powder by the tablespoon to thicken it up. It took a while, but I was able to salvage the mixture. Don't be like me, just trust the recipe!

Once I got it to the correct consistency, I started shaping them into little balls. I dusted them with cocoa powder first to keep them in the right shape because of my mishap, but if you avoid the problem in the first place you should be fine. Make them as big or as small as you want, but you will be covering them in more chocolate so keep that in mind. Melt that other cup of chocolate chips in the microwave and use a fork to roll the balls of chocolate in it and then place them on a parchment-lined sheet tray. Before the chocolate coating dried, I sprinkled on some of the dry tea for a fun garnish.

They aren't perfect looking, but they're delicious and that's what matters! I kept them in the freezer once they were done, so they wouldn't melt all over our fingers when we were eating them. Once you get them all coated, chill them in the freezer until the chocolate is set. Then, you'll be able to peel them off the parchment and store them in something else. For photography purposes, I plated some and made them look fancy, which was a lot of fun. In the image below, I actually made that plate myself!

These truffles are super tasty and so easy to make, they would be great for a baking project when you have a free afternoon. If you try making them, let me know how it goes!

Thanks for reading!

xx, Hannah