It’s that time of year! Winter seasons, lots of parties, and this year, lots of adult things like getting engaged! These last few months have been so crazy! Natasha and I both have been super busy with work, launching a new podcast, blog brand collaborations, and getting our families together for some happy memories (happy memories require intense planning and stakeholder management, haha). But with all that was different this year, this Christmas soak event has been a great reminder of normality.

Natasha and I love this time of the year because we get to actually interact with our community. Every year we launch a reel for our soaks a month before Christmas, and then through the week of Christmas, we release recipes for the soak. In 2020, we had just one recipe. In 2021 we added the Christmas Carrot cake, and we are launching this Christmas soak chocolate truffles this year. It’s funny, we love making truffles. And somehow, December is the only time that we think of making them. Delhi winters allow for the tempering of chocolate at ambient temperature. But the problem is that we forget how hard new truffle recipes can be every year. It’s taken some time, but this year, our truffle muscle memory kicked in while developing this recipe. We took everything we learned from the last three years of truffle making to develop something that was surprisingly delicious.

These truffles are intense. The recipe is filled with many ingredients that theoretically would make a messy mixture, but the truth is far from that. The rum soak is the base of the recipe. Make sure to mince the mixture as much as possible. Keep the ginger and orange peel in the mix for added spices. The digestives are super dry, but that helps immensely. They soak up all the flavour and slowly turn the sandy texture of the biscuit into a subtle cake. Think of it like an evenly layered cake pop. Brown sugar adds a chewiness. Make sure you use soft brown sugar (like Tate & Lyle) because it isn’t getting cooked. The honey adds a touch of nuance to the sugars, and finally, the added rum keeps the chocolate as boozy as it’s supposed to be! The result is a complex chocolate with a savoy-sweet shell and a rum cake in the center. I loved making these truffles, and I am sure you will too!

If you are taking part in the rum soak, I really want to know what you end up making, so make sure you message me on Instagram and share pics! I hope your holiday season goes well, and as always, happy cooking!

Glimpses from the week

Ingredients

1/2 cup soft brown sugar

1/2 cup rum

1/2 honey

1 cup rum soak

1 teaspoon salt

400 grams digestive biscuits

300 grams of dark chocolate with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil OR 300 grams of compound chocolate, melted.

Method

Start by mincing up your rum soak

Add the finely processed biscuits, rum soak, and brown sugar in a bowl. Mix well.

To the same bowl, add rum and honey. Mix well until you have a pliable mixture

Take a tablespoon of the truffle mix and mould it into balls. Keep in the freezer for 30 minutes

Skewer each ball and roll it in melted chocolate. Sprinkle with some coarse salt.