Lavender Truffles
aka "Kit's Truffles" because she ordered them through an E2 fundraiser about 800 years ago and is being Very Patient.
Like a lot of recipes, this one just sort of happened. You know, you find a recipe, you make it a bunch of times, you sort of forget how it goes and get the wrong amount of cream, you look at your other recipes and start to wonder why they all ask for totally different amounts of cream, you stand at your laptop trying to find the original recipe on Epicurious even though you are standing literally ten feet from where you keep the recipes, you give up and realize you are actually only SIX feet from the cookbook shelf, you dig through it all but now you can't find the original recipe there either, you find a different recipe for mint truffles and use that, but you don't feel like waiting for the lavender to steep so you just simmer it for ages and you want to make more so you add more cream than you probably should and you forget the vanilla completely....
Bang, new recipe! (And damn Emeril for ruining "bam!" for the rest of us. New recipes make a "bam!" sound, damnit!)
INGREDIENTS:
All the chocolate chips in your house, at least the ones not already in use. In this case, that was one bag of milk chocolate chips, most of a bag of semisweet, and a small sack of Guittard ones from the bulk aisle. Fortunately, my roommate invested in a kitchen scale! They weighed in at almost exactly two pounds.
A hearty fistful of lavender picked (cut) from the backyard in the dead of night while my cat stared at me like I was crazy. "What the hell are you doing to the flowers? Are you going to eat those? Seriously? You're fucking kidding me, right?"
Two cups of organic cream, or 473 ml, half a pint, whatever measurements you want to use. Cream GOOD.
One stick of butter, also known as half a cup or... I don't know what the rest of the world would call this. Just a fistful of butter, ok? Butter courtesy my roommate, who is asleep and has no idea. Thanks, Sessa! I will trade you one stick of butter and/or some truffles. No, both.
And now for the step-by-step directions!
Step one: Get a bunch of lavender, from your own plant, or a neighbor's plant, or a farmer's market. If you get it from a florist, ask them about pesticides and wash it and stuff. These are not Pesticide-Lavender Truffles. That would taste weird. Not like flower-flavored candy! This shit is totally normal!
Insert one helpful cat. "What's going on here? Can I eat that? I want to eat that. Can I have some chocolate? Can I have some lavender? IS THAT CREAM?!" Quick, distract him! Pet his ears! Pet his ears! "Fuck yeah! Cream? What cream?" Now we scratch up under his chin... yep... we're good. The cat has been disarmed: it is now safe to return to your candy-making activities.
Step two: I like to tie some twine around the flowers, stick them in a medium=sized pot, and pour the cream directly on them.
Turn the heat on medium-low and let the cream simmer for a while. It is as bad as a cat about disobeying people and boiling up all over the place looking for a way out. Don't let it! You can use the flowers to stir it when it starts to get too sassy.
Step three: I let the stuff simmer for about twenty minutes, till it smelled all nice and lavendery, and then I poured it through a sieve (to catch all the loose flowerlets that fell off) into the bowl of chocolate chips.
You can use the bunch of flowers as a spatula, or as a mop! Squeeeeeeze all that cream out of them. Yummy lavender cream!
Step four: Now you have the chocolate chips and the hot cream, and you add the butter. I cut it into rough chunks so it would melt faster. And then I had to move it to the stovetop and stir it over low heat, carefully holding the metal bowl in an oven mitt so I could keep all your fingers. YMMV.
Step five: Now place in the fridge to chill for an hour or so... or, if you are like me, find a way to wedge it into your freezer. Lick the chocolate off of the computer.
Six, the last, finalest, most final step: Using a melon baller (if you want it to be especially easy anyway), scoop the hardened chocolate truffles out. Give them a little roll between your hands if you want, and then in a little bit of cocoa - or dip into more melted chocolate, or some ground-up nuts, or coconut, or powdered sugar, or even let them run around naked like little tiny jaybirds until you pop them into your mouth. They have a fantastic lavender aftertaste and a powerful chocolate flavor throughout. Even if you are letting them run free, I recommend dusting your hands with a little cocoa powder every so often if you are rolling them in your palms, to avoid getting entirely mucky. And more chocolate is almost never a bad thing.