Hmmm

Not sure what I did wrong with Karen's recipe for chocolate truffles - I'm usually pretty good with cooking & have had great success with making the no-bake cheesecake.

What happened is that the texture is kinda grainy & it never fluffed up at all.

I used splenda only, instead of 1/3 cup splenda, 1/3 cup sugar twin. Could this have caused a problem?

I slowly brought the cream to a light boil. Melted in Hersey's unsweetened baking chocolate - I read that Bakers is to grainy - could the Hersey be the problem?

I waited until the chocolate mixture was completely cool - I didn't refrigerate it, did it need to be really cold? It was room temperature when I tried to beat it with my mixer - we have the A/C on, so it's about 70 f in the house.

When I beat the mixture - for over 5 minutes, it just got "gloppier" and never fluffed up . . . did I not wait long enough?

Any ideas or suggestions appreciated. I do have a LC store that carries chocolate bars made with splenda - but each bar is $1.99, so I'd be nice to make some chocolates at home.

TIA

It won't fluff up like whipping cream, but turns lighter and increases in volume. When it reaches that point, stop the beating.

How this works is that whipping cream will whip when cold even if there are other things in it like chocolate. The chocolate makes the mixture heavier, so the volume of fluff won't be the same as if whipping cream only, but there is still a rise.

If you overbeat it, the same thing will happen as when cream is overbeaten - it separates and turns into butter.

The truffles will taste fine, but the texture may be a little off. It will be less noticeable if they're frozen.

You could chop the truffles up into small pieces and fold them into the No-Bake Cheesecake batter and invent chocolate chunk cheesecake!

Karen

I did refrigerate the mixture last night & after a couple hours it was hard & mostly like a chocolate truffle.

Maybe next time I'll try a better type of chocolate & let the mixture get a bit colder . . . it just looked a lot different than I expected, but it tastes pretty good!

I might just have to add it to the no-bake cheesecake - that sounds good!

Thanks again.

Good! If it's like a truffle, then all is well.

I think it's well worth the expense of getting a really good chocolate lke the ones I mentioned in the recipe. Grocery store chocolate just doesn't cut it in the texture department.

Don't let the mixture get cold to the point of solidifying or you won't be able to beat it. After its cool, you can put it in the fridge for about 5 minutes, giving it a stir every minute to put a little chill on it.

Karen