Chocolate and Meyer Lemon Truffles for Valentines Day.....

I love watching food blog recipes change as the months go by. Factors such as the seasons, holidays, sporting events and trends make reading my list of blogs the coolest unpublished cook book I own. Just now there's so many great ideas for the Superbowl and then straight after that Valentines day will be taking center stage on many blogs. I'll be smoking some pork butt for my Superbowl party and adding some delicious home made barbecue sauce, making some of the tastiest pulled pork sliders around.

This post is all about chocolate though and I had been lucky enough to find a Williams Sonoma gift card in my Christmas stocking which was screaming to be used. I ended up buying some 72% bittersweet chocolate with the intention of using it for some kind of Valentines day recipe. I've also been trying to work my way through a boatload of Meyer lemons (and a promise of more coming) hence my previous posts, but wasn't sure if chocolate and lemon would work together, especially such bittersweet cacao. I grew up with a mantra of, if you don't try you don't get so I melted down my not so inexpensive chocolate with the plan of making some truffles. A quick search also made me feel better that this combo had been tried before and seemed successful. I made my ganache and added the zest of a whole lemon to the cream beforehand. That was it and I stuck it in the fridge to firm up.

One item I really like to keep in the kitchen now is vinyl medical gloves, not to be kinky I use them mainly for handling my caramels! You can get them at the grocery store for a couple of bucks, buy some! Rolling these truffles into balls is a really messy affair but with the gloves-easy! Seriously can you imagine a surgeon poking around inside you without any gloves on, ooft nasty!
I let the ganache set overnight and then rolled it into bite sized balls putting them back into the fridge to harden for about fifteen minutes. Another quick roll in my gloved paws followed by a roll around in some cocoa powder and they were done.

The chocolate and the lemon were good together although the chocolate being quite bitter, which suits my taste, kinda overshadowed the lemon flavor. A luxurious treat for Valentines day eaten alongside a deep Cabernet  may send you into a euphoric state...just don't blame me.

Recipe for the ganache:

1 cup of heavy cream
10 ozs of fine bittersweet chocolate chopped finely
1 Tbsp of lemon zest

Heat the cream and the zest on a very low heat until the edges start to bubble. Add the chocolate and stir gently until the ganache becomes smooth and uniformed. Transfer to a container and let cool. Keep in the fridge overnight. Leave at room temp for an hour or so before rolling into balls.