Jen and I were pretty much on the same page vis-a-vis Valentine's Day. Granted, it helped that she was in town not for the "holiday" (I'll keep my feelings on contrived holidays to myself), but rather, primarily for a family celebration. But either way, we both independently chose to exchange gifts that reflected a gift of time and effort, not of shininess (or whatever). 

My gift to Jen was homemade chocolate truffles. I'd never made such a thing -- if you haven't noticed, I'm not hardcore into dessert-making. So I suppose that part of this gift was developing a skill she'll be able to take advantage of more than once. 

I kind of like this take on V-Day -- I think I've always tried to be a little subversive about the holiday by doing something simple, but in a way that reflects effort and thoughtfulness. 

-8 oz. of high quality bittersweet chocolate

-4 oz. of unsweetened chocolate

-1 (12 oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk

-8 T. unsalted butter

-Flavoring

-Coating

Clearly, it was in the last two ingredients that my creativity had room to shine. The recipe offered suggestions for "flavoring"; most involved a few tablespoons of a flavored liqueur and some essence of the corresponding flavor (i.e. 6 T. Grand Marnier and 1 T. orange zest). 

Never wanting to rely completely on a recipe, I thought and thought and thought. Finally, it hit me -- among my favorite liqueurs is Domaine de Canton, a ginger cognac delicacy (great in champagne or with a splash of whisky). Add to that a little fresh-grated ginger root, and I figured we had a solid start on our hands.

I started by coarsely chopping my chocolates. For the bittersweet, I'd opted for a solid Godiva; for the unsweetened, I used Baker's, which (usefully) comes packaged with each one ounce segment individually wrapped. 

Next, I went at the ginger, peeling the root then finely grating it. I wanted to prep this stuff first because, as anyone who's worked with melted chocolate knows, it can be fickle and require a lot of attention. Hah. Anyways, I wanted to have everything ready.

Once I was set to proceed, I threw the chocolates into a small saucepan over low heat with the butter (cut small) and the milk. The key here was to stir or whisk constantly to avoid burning the chocolate; I could have sped the process up by using a double boiler, but I don't own one and I was too lazy to MacGyver one up.

For anyone trying to do this at home, this whole "getting cool" part did NOT take two hours, it took approximately forever. Since I was in a rush, I used the freezer for part of this process and the chocolate STILL wasn't where it was supposed to be. Whatevs, time, she was a wasting.

When it was time to start up again, I prepped my coatings. I had put together three options -- toasted walnut, unsweetened cocoa, and cinnamon. Only after I tasted the mixture did I realize it would be a crime to introduce a new flavor at this late stage. And it would be rookie. So, I whisked the cocoa with a half teaspoon of ground Chinese ginger, and put this into a largish cereal bowl.

Using a scoop, I began the awesome and messy process of molding about a tablespoon at a time of the chocolate into a ball, then tossing it with the coating. After about 30 minutes of this, I had FORTY TRUFFLES.

What the hell was I going to do with forty truffles? "Here, Jen: a satchel of truffles. A saddlebag of truffles. A... lot of truffles." How romantic, right?

Instead I gave her a pretty little bag of six (because truffles are the sort of thing that should be given in numbers to savor, not chow, right?). I scored brownie points by giving the rest to her family. POINTS.

Here is the ALMOST final product: 

I say "almost;" in a stroke of creativity I decided to roll them in my palms once more before wrapping, which had the effect of knocking off excess coating and smoothing the ovoid shape a tad. Sadly, I didn't photograph the product after this additional step. But trust me, they looked awesome.

Final thoughts: This was fun. And really not that expensive, which makes me feel dumb for buying 4 or five dollar truffles in the past. And there's room for endless creativity, which is pretty fun -- I might even say this would make a fun date activity. All around -- a keeper!