Easy Christmas Chocolate Truffles

My Easy Christmas Chocolate Truffles Recipe is a basic recipe that can be easily changed depending on what chocolate truffle flavour you fancy.

Give them away packed in cellophane bags with pretty Christmas ribbons and make sure you keep some for yourself! They are that good!

A long time ago, here is where my chocolate business started: with making Christmas chocolate truffles to give as little token presents to my friends and family.

Why make this recipe

• Easy chocolate truffle recipe to make
• You can use regular chocolate to make this recipe
• Don’t need to temper your chocolate
• Lots of options for flavours
• Chocolate truffles make a great gift

Ingredients for chocolate truffles

Double cream

Using double cream makes these chocolates really creamy. If you want to you can use single cream, brandy or Irish cream, but the end flavour will be slightly different.

You can also use plant based double or single cream or lactose free double or single cream if you wanted to make these easy Christmas chocolate truffles lactose free, dairy free or vegan friendly.

Chocolate

You can use any kind of chocolate you like and any type of solid chocolate bar that you get in the supermarket or buy in your local shop. Milk chocolate or any milk chocolate substitutes would be great for children friendly chocolates (obviously leave out any alcohol) and dark chocolate or dark chocolate substitutes are great for deep and rich types of chocolates. Depending on what type of flavour you would like to make, you can select a chocolate bar that’s been already flavoured.

Butter

I normally use unsalted butter with dark chocolate and salted butter with milk chocolate. This is because milk chocolate is much sweeter and the salt content helps to sharpen the flavours in the chocolate truffle.

A tiny pinch of salt will, of course, do the trick too!

Alcohol

This is totally optional, so please don’t feel like you need to add any alcohol to these Christmas chocolate treats. I usually use alcohol based on the flavour I’m trying to achieve. So for example whisky or brandy works great with any cinnamon or mixed spices flavours, whereas rum is better fruity flavours like raisins or cranberries.

Spices

Mixed spice or cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or aniseed are lovely festive spices. You can add less or more, depending on your taste.

Cocoa powder

I’ve used cocoa powder for dusting my chocolate truffles at the end. This is mainly because I’m not using tempered chocolate for this recipe and I don’t want them to stick together and have a unified finish.

What makes this recipe work

The ganache (chocolate centre filling) is slightly firmer than I would normally use for my filled chocolate truffles that I use professional chocolate moulds for.

This is because you need that firmness when you roll your chocolate filling in more chocolate. It’s also a good consistency, so that your chocolate truffles won’t melt too quickly.

Ideas for different variations of this recipe

This is what’s so amazing when you work with chocolate – the sky is the limit! You can change this recipe in any way you like. Here are a few flavour ideas, that I’ve already tried to make for the festive season:

Whisky Chocolate Truffles – Dark chocolate ganache with whisky spiced with cinnamon and white pepper

Irish Cream Truffles – Milk chocolate ganache with Irish cream (instead of the 1/2 of the double cream)

Rum & Raisins Truffles – Dark chocolate ganache with raisins soaked in rum (leave seedless raisins soaking in rum for 2-3 days or use sultanas, currants or any other dried fruit alternatives)

Gingerbread Chocolate Truffles – Milk chocolate ganache with gingerbread spice rolled in crushed gingerbread biscuits

How to make easy Christmas Chocolate Truffles at home

Bring the cream to the boil, then remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate (which you’ve placed in a bowl). Leave for few minutes to melt the chocolate by itself. Gently stir in the butter, cut up into pieces, add brandy and mixed spice (or any other flavouring that you wish to use). Cover the bowl and chill for few hours or overnight.

Line a large baking sheet with greaseproof paper. Using a small spoon or a melon scoop form the chocolate mixture into 20-30 truffles and place on the baking sheet. I normally use catering gloves for this, as it can get a little messy.

To coat the truffles with cocoa powder or something similar, simply add the cocoa powder into a large bowl or a deep baking tray and roll each truffle to coat, making sure that you keep them all round at the same time.

Pro Tip

If you want your chocolate truffles to last a little longer, you can add another layer of chocolate to ‘seal’ the chocolate truffle filling inside and prevent any potential bacteria growth.

Simply melt (this chocolate doesn’t need to be tempered) another 100 grams of chocolate (milk or dark) and using catering gloves, roll each individual chocolate truffle in the melted chocolate and then roll in cocoa powder.

It’s best if you have somebody to help you with this as it can get a bit messy trying to roll the truffles in melted chocolate and the cocoa powder simultaneously. When I do this on my own, I either shake the bowl with the cocoa powder to cover the freshly coated chocolate truffle or use a spoon to throw a bit of cocoa powder on the top of the fresh truffle. I leave them in the large bowl with the cocoa powder until I finish the whole batch and then place them in the fridge to set properly.

To remove the excess cocoa powder I put the whole lot through a sieve and gently shake the cocoa powder I don’t need.

By coating the chocolate truffle with a layer of firm chocolate, you are adding a minimum of a week or 14 days on top of the existing chocolate truffle shelf life.

How to store your Christmas chocolate truffles

The chocolate truffles should be fine for about 7 days or a little longer if you add alcohol to the chocolate mixture.

Make sure you store your chocolates somewhere cold, but not in the fridge. Cold cupboard in your kitchen, away from any heat source is perfect or any other room where it’s a little colder.

I always wrap my chocolate truffles when they are set, either in chocolate boxes, bags or chocolate paper ballotines to prevent them from spoiling and absorbing humidity and flavour from other foods around them.

If you are not ready to gift wrap your truffles or you are thinking of serving them on a plate at your Christmas party, then just keep them in an airtight container in between sheets of greaseproof paper.

Hope you enjoy this Easy Christmas Chocolate Truffles Recipe and if you it, do let me know how you get on in the comments below. And of course, they are so many flavour options with these truffles – I’d love to know which one is your favourite one!

Why not stay in touch…

I hope you enjoy making this recipe and if you do, I’d love to know what you think! Let me know in the comments below or find me on Instagram or Facebook and add the hashtag #cocoaandheart so that I can see your post.

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Magdalena

This recipe was originally written on 2 December 2016 and last tested and updated on 22 November 2021