Quickly became a family Christmas tradition.

I use two sizes of silicone hemisphere molds. The larger ones are good for filling with chocolate ganache and peanut butter. The smaller ones are better for the peppermint ganache and the cayenne ganache.

For the fillings:

Tips:

1. We want a much stiffer ganache than many ganache recipes on the internet. Also its much easier to make a ganache thinner by adding more heavy cream rather than thickening a ganache thats too thin.
2. Get good chocolate. I use Trader Joes Dark chocolate. Whatever you use make sure it has cocoa butter very high in the ingredients list.
3. You want to be able to pipe them all, so adjust the consistency accordingly. And they will stiffen up when they cool, so sometimes its worth waiting for them to cool to know for sure their final consistency.

Chocolate ganache

• 8oz chocolate
• 8oz heavy cream

Chop the chocolate finely, and heat the cream in a sauce pan until just shy of boiling. Add the cream to the chocolate and let it sit for a few minutes. Then mix it. It should get smooth and glossy within 15-30 seconds of mixing. If its liquidly then add more chocolate and heat in the microwave briefly and mix. If its breaks you can add more cream and mix. This is the same for all the ganaches.

Peanut butter filling

Two ways, either Reese’s cup like interior or you can make a peanut butter ganache.

Reese’s cup

• 1 C peanut butter (with emulsifiers, its easier)
• 1/2 C powdered sugar
• 4T melted butter

Heat and mix, adjust the sweetness using more peanut butter or powdered sugar.

Peanut Butter Ganache

• 8oz chocolate
• 4oz heavy cream
• 4oz peanut butter

Same as ganaches above.

White Chocolate Peppermint Ganache

• 8oz white chocolate (with cocoa butter please!)
• 4oz heavy cream
• 1t peppermint extract (more or less to your taste
• Crumbled peppermint candies (sometimes you can get this in a shaker as a sprinkle, its also easy to crush some candy canes in a bag with a rolling pin.

Mix as above, but do NOT as the crumbled candy until its room temp, or the hot ganache will melt the candy. Which isn’t necessarily bad, it adds more peppermint flavor and tends to dye the ganache pink, but its also nice to have crunchy chunks of candy in the smooth white ganache.

Cayenne Ganache

• 8oz chocolate
• 8oz heavy cream
• 1t cayenne

Heavy the cayenne in the milk as it heats, then add it to the chcolate like the rest.

To make the filled chocolates:

1. Melt more dark chocolate by slowly heating it in the microwave.
2. Use a paint brush (yes really) to coat the inside of the silicon molds. A swirling motion does this well.
3. Put them in the freezer for 10 minutes.
4. Pipe in the filling of choice, do not fill them to the top, just below the top so its not so hard to get them flat by adding more chocolate in step 7.
5. Put them in the freezer til they are solid again (10-15 minutes)
6. With the same chocolate you used in steps 1-2, put that chocolate into a piping bag.
7. Take the chocolates out of the freezer and pipe their bottoms.
8. Put them back into the freezer to fully set.
9. In the mean time prepare the decorations for the top, this is useful to tell them apart, especially if you are using the same shape for multiple flavors.
10. I melt white chocolate and add food coloring to it.
11. Pop the chocolates out of the mold and put them onto parchment paper, working quickly pipe the colored chocolate in a design onto the tops. It will solidify quickly because the chocolates are so cold. You can quickly add sprinkles to them now too if the decor chocolate is still a little soft.

I store them in the refrigerator. Some internet sources claim it will cause the chocolate to bloom, but I haven’t experienced that.

I also haven’t bothered to formally temper the chocolate. I just heat it until its soft enough to move and melt. Seems to work just fine.