Nutella truffles

Nutella™ truffles: A dreamy treat for both kids and grown-ups! If your family’s anything like mine, there’s always a jar of Nutella in the cupboard. My kids love it – on toast, in pancakes, even straight out of the jar. (Probably shouldn’t admit to that last one!).

But now we’ve discovered a delicious new way to reinvent this old family favourite – rich and creamy Nutella truffles.

These heavenly truffles look super impressive, but are surprisingly easy to make – so your kids can get stuck in at every stage. They’ll also pick up some useful kitchen skills along the way:

• Older children will enjoy learning how to make a ganache with melted chocolate, butter and cream, and they’ll get practice in how to handle hot liquids safely, and
• Younger ones will have great fun spreading the Nutella onto the ganache, squidging the mixture into little balls to make the truffles, and dusting them with cocoa powder.

And of course, there’ll be the fight at the end over who gets to lick the bowl!

For this kid-friendly recipe, you’ll need only five simple ingredients to make around 25 truffles, all of which are readily available from your local shop or supermarket.

Overall preparation and cooking time is approximately 20 minutes, plus a further 30 minutes’ chilling time for the ganache.

Ingredients

To create these delicious truffles, you will need:

• A saucepan,
• A heat-proof bowl,
• A baking tray,
• Baking paper,
• A wooden spoon or spatula,
• A knife, and
• Paper truffle cases (optional).

And the following too:

• 150ml (5fl oz / slightly less than ²/₃ cup) double (heavy) cream,
• 150g (5¹/₂  oz) dark chocolate (66% cocoa),
• 20g (²/₃  oz / 1¹/₂  tbsp) butter (at room temperature),
• 50g (1 ³/₄ oz / 3 ¹/₂ tbsp), Nutella, and
• 100g (3¹/₂ tbsp / 1 cup) cocoa powder to dust.

Method

This is how to make these wonderful Nutella truffles…

BUT, as hot cream and a hob are involved, always make sure you supervise your kids when making these truffles, and that long hair is tied back.

For the ganache

1. To make the ganache, pour the cream into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. While you’re heating the cream, break the chocolate into small pieces and put them into a heat-proof bowl.
3. When the cream reaches boiling point, quickly remove it from the heat. Pour half of the hot cream into the bowl of chocolate and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until the chocolate begins to melt.
4. Pour in the remainder of the cream and stir again until all the chocolate has melted.
5. Now add a scoop of butter to the mixture and stir well until you have a smooth and silky consistency.
6. Line a baking tray with baking paper, and pour the ganache onto the tray until it is approximately 5mm thick.
7. Leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

For little ones half an hour seems like a lifetime, so to keep them occupied, here are some quick activities you could do while waiting for the ganache to set:

• Make and decorate your own cute little pillow boxes to put your finished truffles in,
• Five fun activities using kitchen tongs to promote fine motor skills Design and colour your own unique letter art,
• Design and make your own board game,
• Draw a comic-book character, and
• Choose an activity or colouring sheet from our huge range of free downloadables.

Alternatively, you could tell your kids a little about the history of chocolate truffles and how they got their name. See below to find out more!

For the truffles

1. To make the truffles,spread the Nutella evenly over the top of the chilled ganache, using a knife.
2. Gently roll up the sheet of Nutella-coated ganache from one end of the baking tray to the other, as you would a Swiss roll.
3. Now slice the roll into pieces that are approximately 2cm (³/₄ inch) wide and then shape each piece into a bite-sized ball.
4. Dip the truffles in cocoa powder and pop them into paper truffle cases.
5. Now stand back and admire!

So there you have it – a mouth-watering treat for both kids and grown-ups in under an hour!

The combination of hazelnut spread and creamy ganache works really well, but why not experiment with your own flavours and finishing touches?

For example, you could try peanut butter instead of Nutella?

Or how about rolling your truffles in chocolate chips or finely chopped hazelnuts for an extra layer of decadence!

These Nutella truffles are ideal for a weekend indulgence or special occasion. They also make perfect gifts for family and friends – simply pop a few truffles into a treat bag and tie with some pretty ribbon.

Alternatively, why not get your kids to make their own decorative pillow boxes to put their home-made truffles in?

If you love Nutella as much as we do, you’ll discover loads more recipes based on this incredibly versatile hazelnut spread in Gregory Cohen’s new book Nutella: 60 Classic Recipes (published by Quarto Press, 2021). It’s packed full of scrumptious recipes for Nutella cookies, cakes, bakes and desserts, with recipes for both beginners and more experienced cooks.

And for the truffle-lovers out there, we’ve got some other tantalising recipes for you to try. Check them out here:

• White chocolate coconut truffles
• Chocolate truffles with three different coatings, and
• Oreo truffles.

The history of chocolate truffles

Have you ever wondered what the origins of chocolate truffles are?

Well the truth is, we don’t exactly know, however, there are a couple of different stories.

Some say that the smooth creamy ganache which is used to make truffles was conceived by the French confectioner Paul Siraudin in 1869.

Siraudin, a former playwright, is supposed to have named some of his chocolate bon-bons after a comic play called ‘Les Ganaches’ by Victorien Sardou. The English translation of ‘Les Ganaches’ is ‘The Chumps’!

Others believe that ganache was created accidentally when an apprentice pastry chef dropped hot milk into a bowl of expensive chocolate. The apprentice worked for Georges Auguste Escoffier, a French chef, and the story goes that when Escoffier discovered the apprentice’s mistake, he yelled ‘Ganache!’ at him, which is a slang term for a fool.

However, when Escoffier noticed the rich, velvety consistency of the cream and chocolate mixture, it  occurred to him that he could use it in some of his creations, for example, cakes, tarts and sauces.

He also discovered that when the ganache had cooled, he could shape it with his hands.

From this, he had the idea of rolling the ganache into small balls and dipping them in cocoa powder to create the chocolate truffles that we know and love today.

So where did chocolate truffles get their name?

A truffle is a type of fungi that’s found underground on the roots of trees. Chocolate truffles were so named due to their resemblance to these small irregular-shaped balls of truffle fungus.

Did you know?

• Pigs were traditionally used to sniff out truffles as they have an excellent sense of smell. However, the problem with ‘truffle hogs’ was that they ate most of them! So today, specially trained dogs (known as ‘truffle hounds’) are used instead, and
• Truffles are considered a luxury food. This is because they’re difficult to grow on a large scale, which makes them incredibly expensive – in the UK, you could expect to pay over £200 for just 100g of truffles!

That’s all you need to know about truffles – now you can make them – here is the recipe card for you to print out if you want too:

If you want more truffle recipes, not just this gorgeous Nutella truffle recipe, then we’ve got quite a few on the site for you to take a look at:

If you want more ideas, there are these from other sites too:

We do hope you like what you see here – why not take a look at all our family recipes on the site if you have a spare moment? You can also sign up to our newsletter too:

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Thanks so much for coming to see us.

Helen

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