complicated truffles

COATING VARIATION Prepare as above -- coat with two layers of tempered white chocolate. Make a ganache: heat cream with split vanilla bean until boiling. remove bean. Add chocolate. mix until smooth. add butter, zest, cognac. (They have a step in here to chill and then soften again which I don't do.) Beat on high in mixer 30-60 seconds until lightens in color. (don't over beat it will get grainy and your work is ruined.) Pipe out little balls with a pastry bag. Chill. make the balls perfect and roll in the sugar and let them sit to for 30-60 minutes to form a thin crust (I don't bother with the sugar)Now coat: Temper chocolate. Coat all balls with a thin layer of chocolate. (dab some chocolate in palm and roll ball around messy but works). Mix the cookies and almonds into the chocolate. Give all the balls a second coating. (i've tried to use dipping forks - the coating is too thick) Variation: Make a dark carmel from the sugar, water and lemon juice. cool, chop up in your blender until fine. Then proceed as above, adding caramel to other truffle ingredients while cooking the mixture. Temper chocolate, coat each ball once. Then coat each ball again and after coating roll in cocoa. Variation: Make dark carmel from sugar, water, lemon juice when you take it off of the heat add the hazelnuts. Cool, chop up fine and proceed as above. For the coating, temper chocolate. Make 1 coating on each ball. Add nuts and cookies to tempered chocolate, make another coating on each ball. Recipe by: mrd@... (Michael DeCorte) Posted to MC-Recipe Digest V1 #537 by kmeade@... (The Meades) on Mar 22, 1997