Ever since we visited York’s Chocolate story a couple of months ago, and heard of “Wasabi KitKats” in Japan, we have been most intrigued to sample them and see the wonders of Japenese chocolate! So when Yutaka asked us this week to create some Easter Truffles using their Japenese ingredients, we were both excited and a little curious.
I would admit that I am a boarder-line chocoholic and will sample most flavours of choccies. I am also the only sushi fan in our household (at the moment), so these especially fascinated and appealed to me. The base of the truffle is rich and simple to make – the flavours are then added and left to chill. They look fantastic when finished off and the taste on the whole was lovely. With Easter on the horizon and chocolate on everyone’s minds, here’s how to make them, our verdict and some tips!
YUTAKA Easter Truffles
Before you begin, note that these are quite time consuming and very messy to make! The kids loved the process though, and they have been the perfect activity to do during the school holidays, as you keep coming back to them at each stage of the process. The kids have been helpful, very involved and loved sampling them at the end too.
Ingredients (Makes 30 – 36 truffles):
For the truffles you will need
200g dark good quality chocolate
60ml double cream
80g unsalted butter
Truffle cases
Place chocolate, butter and cream in a glass bowl over a pan of water and heat through slowly until smooth whilst whisking. Remove from heat and divide into 5 equal portions, adding the various flavourings to each individual portion as below. Place in the fridge to set – overnight if possible. (Mark each bowl so you know which flavours you are dealing with).
So for the flavourings, and whilst the chocolate was melting, we measured them out into 5 bowls. We had Yuzu, Wasabi Furikake, Sushi Ginger, Miso paste and Shaoxing Rice Wine.
Miso Caramel – think salted caramel with a twist
These take 1st place in our opinion – They were rich and tasty and the kids said “mmmmm soooooo yuuuummmyyy”!
For the caramel flavour you need to make it using:
75g sugar
25ml water
50ml double cream
1 tbs Yutaka Miso
100g dark chocolate – gently melted for coating
Put sugar and water in a heavy bottomed saucepan, stir and leave on a medium heat, stirring occasionally, until caramel in colour. Carefully add double cream (it will hiss a little) and whisk whilst off the heat, add miso paste and whisk thoroughly until smooth. Add 2 tbs of miso caramel sauce to the remaining truffle mixture. The remainder of the sauce saved and used over ice cream for a delicious dessert.
Yuzu – a hint of citrus
Our second favourite. Again the balance of the rich truffle, this time with white chocolate was so tasty. The citrus hit was very subtle, and in fact could have probably handled a little more. They were lovely.
2 tsp Yutaka Yuzu
100g white chocolate – gently melted for coating
Pickled Sushi Ginger – chocolate & ginger with the surprising tang of pickle
The kids didn’t like these, but I did. They were gorgeous, but then again the mix of dark chocolate and ginger is always a good combo. They were a powerful taste in the mouth but really nice.
2 tbs chopped Yutaka sushi ginger
Cocoa for coating
Wasabi Furikake – milder than chilli with the added crunch of sesame
Sad to say these were a no go for us. They looked great but weren’t that nice at all…I dont know if we used too much of the Wasabi Furitake, but the flavour was too over powering and we each spat it out (sorry Yutaka).
2 tbs Yutaka Wasabi Furikake
Drinking chocolate for coating
Shaoxing Rice Wine – a warm, boozy hit
In theory these looked like everything you would expect when you think truffles, but as an Lds family, and T-total, I am afraid we never sampled them so can’t say for sure if they were delish or not – perhaps if this sounds like your thing, you could start here with them? The Shaoxing Rice Wine carries a powerful alcohol scent to it!!
2 tbs Shaoxing rice wine warmed
Vermicelli for coating
In conclusion I think that these were a great idea and “experiment” to carry out with the kids. It’s a fab sensory experience, smelling each of the ingredients and then discussing how it might taste upon completion. The process of rolling the truffles was super messy, and making 5 together became very time consuming, made for lots of washing up, and at times was a little confusing. But all in all the finished product looked great and tasted good too (mostly).
I would deffs make the Yuzu, Sushi ginger and Miso ones again, and even wrap them as gifts for people. Perfect for Easter? I’d say so, yes.
*Yutaka gifted us the ingredients for the purpose of this post