I’m not entirely sure what first peaked my interest. I get so many online food blogs and newsletters that I honestly can’t say I know what first brought the concept of chocolate truffles made with olive oil before my eyes, but the thought captivated me. A sort of ganache made with olive oil and dark chocolate. Could be delicious, could be terrible, I had to find out.
Once when I was a kid I mistakenly made Devils Food cake with olive oil instead of tasteless salad oil. I thought it tasted terrible but that was largely because my we used my Uncle Lefty’s olive oil which was very robust and a deep dark green. His oil was so flavorful that my mother would only need 1T to season the salad. I was despondent over my error, I was humiliated but I also remember my brother saying, “I think it kind of tastes good”. In any case, we threw it out.
I googled truffles made with olive oil and found a whole website full of olive oil desserts. Not only were there truffles, but there was also a recipe for brownies…I knew I had to try the too.
Now we have a world of olive oils, a whole palate of flavors. I’m constantly buying new brands of olive oil, some I discard as too peppery and olive tasting for a chocolate truffle. At a recent trip to Ferry Plaza I purchases a bottle of Sciabica Orange Olive Oil, light and fruity, I felt this was the best option to combine with dark chocolate.
Using Alice’s recipe I combined the semi sweet chocolate (my favorite chips are Guittard chocolate chips, oddly difficult to fine, I have good luck at Safeway), orange olive oil, butter, and a pinch of salt (I used Himalayan salt, but any high quality salt would do). Alice, being the purist that she is has you melt the chocolate slowly over a double boiler, this is a woman who has spent about thirty years fascinated with Ganache so her old school technique of melting the chocolate is no surprise to me, however I’m a kind of lazy cook so I popped it in the microwave, heat it on high for minute, stirred a tad, and returned to the microwave for another minute. I ended up with the silkiest ganache I’ve EVER seen. It was just beautiful. I spooned into a rectangular pan, covered it and let it chill for several hours. Once it had set, I let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before shaping it into truffles. The recipe has you roll it in cocoa powder that has been dusted with orange zest from a micro planer. You want the kind of fine zest you get with a micro planer otherwise the moist orange zest will clump the cocoa too much. The mixture quickly starts to melt with the heat of your hands so you want to work quickly as you shape them and roll them in cocoa. Once they are all shaped I returned them to the fridge and let them ripen. They are really wonderful, nothing oily about them at all, just a complex dark chocolate flavor with an orange after taste. They taste better the next day and should be eaten within a week. They are so easy and so good I made them again a week later.
Armed with the success of the truffles I had to try the brownies too. A super easy recipe and this time I did use the stronger more peppery olive oil, I felt it could stand up to the bitter unsweetened dark chocolate called for. The brownies where moist and cakelike with a slightly crunchy top. They were delicious hot and freshly baked, I didn’t like them as much the next day, although the olive oil keeps them moist for several days.
