Bourbon Smoked Chocolate Truffles

Incredibly simple, delicious smoked dessert

Even the clumsy can pull off these bourbon smoked chocolate truffles. Few ingredients, incredible flavors. The only challenge is rolling chocolate into a ball. Can you do that?

Recently I decided to experiment with combinations of smoking chocolate and grilled fruit. You can take a look at the recipe for Smoked Chocolate Mousse with Grilled Berries for some inspiration.

Creating grilled & smoked desserts is something I’d like to expand more upon. I’ve discovered that smoked chocolate is obviously super delicious, but also very adaptable. You can use it for anything requiring chocolate, and it really does elevate the food. Yes, even delicious chocolate chip cookies.

How to smoke chocolate?

To learn more about the specifics of smoking chocolate for this recipe, check out the guide HERE.

Preparing the smoked chocolate

One of the most common questions I’ve had about smoking chocolate is: Will the smoke flavor be too strong, or not enough?

The truth is, you’ll have to experiment and find out for yourself. I recommend using fruit woods, such as apple, for the smoking process.

I’ve found that the magic combo of flavor is 60% dark chocolate, with 20-30 minutes of cold smoking. This is the right amount of bitter flavors paired with sweet, allowing you to adapt your recipe as needed. Using a higher % of dark chocolate may render the chocolate too bitter, as the smoke from the embers will also create a bitter flavor.

Here’s a device for cold smoking I recommend, along with the type of chocolate:

Couldn’t be easier

Yes, I started by telling you this is easy. It is. There’s really only 2 main ingredients but I added 2 more just to amp it up a little bit. Let’s discuss what goes into this.

Mixing the Ingredients

The only effort you have to put into this is heating heavy cream on the stove, and pouring it into a bowl. There’s really no excuse for you. Here’s the ingredients:

• 2/3 Cup heavy cream
• 4oz chopped dark chocolate, smoked
• 4oz chopped dark chocolate*
• 1 tbsp butter, room temp
• 1 tbsp bourbon

You’ll see that I use half smoked chocolate for the recipe. It’s your choice on how much you’d like to use, but the recipe has the right amount of smoke and sweet if you use half and half. Feel free to try a mix of milk and dark, it’s really up to your preference and tolerance for sweet.

Don’t want alcohol? Substitute the bourbon for vanilla.

Prepping the truffles

Melt the ingredients together and spread it into a baking pan, taking it to the fridge to cool. You’ll need the mixture to firm up a bit before you can scoop these and roll them. I’ll share some tips below.

Tips for successful truffles

You can clearly see my truffles are not perfect. Let’s face it, I’ve got clumsy BBQ hands. I’ll share the steps so you have success:

1. Warm up the cream. Heat until just simmering on the stove, then pour over the chopped chocolate, butter, and bourbon
2. Wait for it. Just let the warm cream soften the chocolate for about 2 minutes before stirring.
3. Stir. Use a spatula to stir it together.
4. Chill. Pour it out onto an 8×8 pan, put plastic wrap directly onto the chocolate, and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours at least.
5. Roll. Take them out, roll them into balls and coat in toppings. I chose to use cocoa powder, but you can use nuts, sprinkles, or tempered chocolates.

You see me rolling…

This is where I was really clumsy. The chocolate is so dang messy and melts all over your hands. I actually took them out of the fridge, rolled them, and put them back in the fridge for 20 minutes so they would firm back up before coating them. Try this if you’re struggling.