Passion Fruit Truffles

By Elizabeth LaBau
Ads:

(c) 2010 Elizabeth LaBau, licensed to About.com, Inc.

Passion Fruit Truffles have an exotic white chocolate-passion fruit filling surrounded by
rich semi-sweet chocolate. This truffle recipe is elegant, unusual, and really delicious.
To make these truffles, I use Goya brand passion fruit puree, found in the freezer
section of my local supermarket. For optimal taste and texture, use the best white
chocolate you can afford (this means no white chocolate chips!) and take the time to
temper the semi-sweet chocolate. If you've never worked with candy molds before, be
sure to check out the photo tutorial showing how to make molded chocolates!
Yield: 30-36 molded truffles
Ingredients:

1 lb chopped semi-sweet chocolate

2 tbsp heavy cream

2 tsp light corn syrup

2/3 cup passion fruit juice or puree

9 oz good-quality white chocolate (not chips)

Clean, dry candy molds

Preparation:
1. Begin by making the passion fruit ganache filling. If you are using passion fruit puree,
pass it through a mesh strainer to remove the solids from the juice, and discard the
solids. Place the 2/3 cup of juice in a small saucepan with the light corn syrup and the
heavy cream over medium-high heat. Bring this mixture to a boil.
2. While waiting for the passion fruit mixture to boil, finely chop the white chocolate and
put it in a heat-safe bowl. Once at a boil, pour the hot liquid over the white chocolate
and immediately begin gently whisking to melt the white chocolate and emulsify the
mixture. If you have a handheld immersion blender, use it to blend the passion fruit
ganache together. Otherwise, just continue whisking until you have a silky smooth
mixture with no bits of white chocolate remaining.
3. Press some cling wrap over the top of the ganache and refrigerate the bowl until the
ganache has cooled and can be spooned, about 2 hours. Alternately, you can
refrigerate it over night, and then take the bowl out of the refrigerator the following day
and let it sit at room temperature until it loosens up.
4. When the ganache is almost ready, start preparing the molds by tempering the semisweet chocolate, following these instructions. If you don't temper the chocolate, it will
become soft at warm room temperature and might turn dull or sticky. Tempered
chocolate remains hard and shiny, with a good snap. An alternative to tempering
chocolate is to use chocolate-flavored candy coating, or to keep the truffles refrigerated
until just before serving.
5. Use a spoon to fill the clean, dry candy molds with the tempered chocolate, all the
way up to the top. Once full, turn the molds upside down and allow the excess
chocolate to drip back into the bowl. Take a bench scraper or metal spatula and scrape
it across the top of the molds, removing the excess chocolate. Refrigerate the molds to
speed the setting process of the chocolate, for about 10 minutes.
6. Once the chocolate lining the molds is set, spoon the passion fruit ganache into each
mold, leaving some space at the top for a layer of chocolate to seal up the truffles. It is

better to have a little less ganache and a good chocolate seal, as opposed to more
ganache that leaks from a poorly sealed truffle.
7. Spoon some of the semi-sweet chocolate on top of the ganache in each mold, and
spread it until it completely covers the ganache and seals in the sides. Again use the
bench scraper or metal spatula to scrape across the bottom of the mold, removing any
excess chocolate from the edges. Refrigerate the molds to set the bottom layer of
chocolate.
8. Once set, gently turn the molds upside down and pop out the truffles. Store Passion
Fruit Truffles in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week, and serve at
room temperature.

Knowledge Bank

Making a Fruit Ganache with Ravifruit Pures

Now is the time to be thinking about making some really fruity

chocolates! But what recipe to use for your ganache? The fact is that
there are a thousand different recipes and so there is no one right
way to do it.
However there are some basic things to get right to ensure that your ganache is stable
and that it has a balanced taste, a good consistency and mouth feel and a good shelf
life.

What Is A Ganache?
Fundamentally, a ganache is a combination of chocolate and a liquid. Usually this liquid
is cream but it could be a fruit pure or even wine or beer. The main ingredients of any
ganache are therefore water, fat, sugars and dry substances.
This diagram shows the ingredients of a typical, high-quality, creamy ganache where
two-thirds of the fat is cocoa butter and the remaining one-third is butter (dairy) fat.
Normally, the total fat content of a ganache would be between 25% and 40%. Sugar
content should ideally be 75% of the water content.

Since water and fat repel each

other, the water/fat ratio is very
important to ensure that you
can have a good emulsion.
The dry matter and the sugars
bring the taste profile and also
help to emulsify the water and
fat molecules. Sugars are also
often added to extend shelf life
as they act as moisture
stabilisers.

Fruit Ganache Recipes

Here are three basic recipes, all of which will act as a good starting point which you can
then adapt according to the taste profile and fat content of your chocolate, the acidity of
the fruit, the shelf life required, etc.
In these recipes, we have assumed that the chocolate used is one of SCC501
(Callebaut 811 Dark), SCC521 (Callebaut 823 Milk) or SCC541 (Callebaut W2 White),
all three of which have a total fat content of approximately 36%.
The average water content of the Ravifruit ambient fruit pures is 75% and that is what
is assumed for the calculations. Similarly, we have assumed a 35% fat cream with a
water content of 60%.

In each case, it is better not to boil or over-heat the pure as this can impair the flavour
of the fruit. In the cream based ganache, just heat the cream, melt in the chocolate and
fold in the pure. Alternatively, put all the ingredients into a microwaveable bowl and
heat in short bursts in order to melt the chocolate without losing temper. If your ganache
is tempered, it will be more stable.

RAVIFRUIT Fruit Pures

As Ravifruits new distributor for England and Wales, we are delighted to offer their full
range of ambient fruit pures from stock. These pures are 100% natural and are of an
exceptionally high quality which you really have to taste to believe! They have a 12
month shelf life (ambient below 15c) from date of production and a 3 day shelf life
(refrigerated) once opened.
There are a number of great advantages when using an ambient pure:
1.

You dont need to use up your valuable freezer space for storage

2.

You dont need to worry about defrosting it before use.

They are all available in 1 litre Variopak cartons but if you dont think you will use the full
litre within three days, then you can simply freeze what you dont think youll use in ice
trays as soon as you open the carton and save it for another time. Click for details of all
the ambient pure flavours.
We can also supply the full range of Ravifruit frozen products, but at present these can
only be ordered in full mixed pallet quantities. Please click for details of the
whole Ravifruit range.

Shelf Life & Other Issues

Usually, the most important determinant of shelf life is the amount of free or available
water (AW) in the ganache. If there is too much water, it can lead to separation of the
fats and provide an environment for mould growth.

Water Activity (AW) is defined as the vapour pressure of water divided by that of
pure water at the same temperature. In effect, it is a measure of the free or unbonded water in a food product. The closer the AW is to 1, the more liable the
product is to bacterial, fungal or mould growth. Typical AW values are 0.99 for raw
meats, 0.95 for bread, 0.85 for cheese, 0.6 for dried fruit and 0.3 for biscuits. Solid
chocolate has a very low AW and is therefore microbiologically stable. Bacteria
usually require an AW of above 0.9 and most moulds require an AW of above 0.8.
An AW of below 0.6 would prevent any microbiological spoilage at all and this is
what is required if you want a 12 month shelf life at room temperature for your
ganaches. To lower AW, you need either to remove water, or bind it using agents
such as sugars, or lower the temperature of the product.

One common way of reducing the AW of your chocolate centres is to add sugars. There
are many sugars that can be added and glucose and sorbitol are the most common.
Each sugar has different characteristics and differing levels of sweetness, so you may
need to use a combination of sugars to achieve the best overall results. For instance,
sorbitol is very good at binding the water and it is only half as sweet as normal sugar
(sucrose), but too much can have a laxative effect!

Adding Alcohol to your Fruit Ganache

Adding a fruit flavoured alcohol concentrate, such as strawberry liqueur, Calvados or
Kirsch to your ganache will not only boost the fruitiness of the ganache, but also make it
a really indulgent adult treat. Alternatively, you could use alcohols such as Cointreau,
Passoa and St James Rum to make cocktail chocolates!

A further benefit of adding alcohol is that it will greatly increase shelf life by inhibiting
mould growth. Remember that most concentrates still contain some water so you will
probably have to replace some of the cream with the concentrate.
Click to see the full range of alcohol concentrates available from Keylink.