Truffles may sound hard to make, but they're not. They're a coated ball of solidified ganache.

Ganache is chocolate melted in heavy cream, the same ganache you'd use as fondue or a cake drizzle.

Once the ganache has chilled and solidified, it's scooped up, rolled into balls, then dipped in melted chocolate, or rolled in cocoa powder, candy sprinkles, shredded coconut, chopped nuts or more. The options are nearly unlimited.

This truffle recipe is made with heavy cream, Ghirardelli White Chocolate bars, dairy butter, peppermint extract and food coloring (optional). It's not as hard as it may sound.

Use a double boiler to melt together the butter, chocolate and heavy cream to prevent scorching. Low temperature only, don't boil the water in the double boiler.

Break 3 chocolate bars into pieces and put in small pot with 2 tablespoons butter and 1/3 to 1/2 cup heavy cream. Warm slowly, this will become the ganache you'd later roll into a ball.

If using candy melts or a cheap brand of chocolate, use less heavy cream. Good chocolate brands are more dense and need more cream to prevent being too hard.

Less heavy cream makes a harder truffle. More cream makes a softer, more squishy truffle. Pick which amount of cream to suit your choice of softness.

Truffle (ganache) Ingredients:

Three 4-ounce Ghirardelli white chocolate bars, broken up

1/3 to 1/2 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons dairy butter

1 to 3 tablespoons Peppermint Extract

A teaspoon Vanilla Extract (optional)

Warm on lowest heat setting. Don't worry about stirring now as the solids haven't melted yet.

After warming for 30 minutes to 1 hour on lowest heat setting, stir the mixture, it will take about 5 minutes of stirring to dissolve the chocolate and mix everything.

When the ganache is blended and smooth, add 1-3 tablespoons Peppermint Extract, 6 drops green food coloring, 6 drops yellow food coloring (optional). Continue stirring until blended and smooth.

Food coloring is optional but pretty. Vanilla extract is also optional but elevates the flavor.

Cool the ganache covered until it's room temperature. Once at room temp, chill covered in fridge overnight to ensure it has completely solidified. If hand rolling into balls, allow the ganache to come to room temperature on the countertop first.

Alternately, the ganache can be poured into a parchment paper lined square pan to harden. With this method, the chilled, solid ganache is lifted from the pan by grasping the parchment paper edges and lifting it out. Ganache can then be sliced into squares.

Once either cut into squares or rolled into balls, choose how you'd like to coat them.

The ganache can be rolled in candy sprinkles, nuts, crushed candy canes, or whatever you'd prefer. Roll them in the coating now while they're sticky, then chill covered in the fridge. Dress them up any way you'd like after they're chilled.

For Coating In Chocolate:

If dipping the ganache balls in melted chocolate, freeze or chill them first so they'll hang onto the melted chocolate better.

When preparing the melted dipping chocolate, be sure to add at least 2 tablespoons of dairy butter to it, (or heavy cream), and mix in well as it melts with the chocolate. (Not margarine). The butter or heavy cream prevents the melted chocolate from solidifying into a hard shell on the truffle, yet remain solid.

A fork works fine to dip the truffles in. Quickly dip them once in melted chocolate, then place them on a parchment paper lined pan and chill until set. Or place the dipped truffles on a wire rack, then chill. Don't keep the ganache ball too long in the melted chocolate as that can melt the ganache into the dipping chocolate. Work quickly.

I recommend watching videos to see how truffles are made. There's many to choose from! That visual aid is wonderful for explaining what I fail at explaining very well.

For storage, they do well placed in mini cupcake liners, then placed in a sealed container. Or they could be stacked on top of each other in a container, with a sheet of parchment paper between one layer and the next, as they could glue to each other.

Allow the truffles to come to room temperature before serving as they melt in the mouth wonderfully that way. But for storage, placed in a sealed container makes them last a while longer. They can be frozen.

Peppermint Extract and Mint Extract aren't the same flavor. Use only Peppermint Extract for this recipe.

Important Notes: Brand name chocolates have more pure chocolate than the cheap brands. Texture, quality and flavor are the biggest differences. Brands such as Ghirardelli, Lindt, Godiva, etc, will make a firmer texture, with rich chocolate flavors. Cheap brands won't taste as rich, are softer, less dense and melts too easily. It's best to use good chocolate to avoid disappointments.