White chocolate caramel macadamia truffles

These truffles came about when I agreed to take truffles to an event, but late at night after the shops were closed I discovered I didn't have the ingredients for my other recipe. 

I couldn't resist a photo for you that includes my ultimate truffle dipping tool, the humble toothpick. I've tried many of the fancy gadgets out there, but find nothing works better for me than a toothpick.

Ingredients

250g crushed Graham crackers (if you have trouble finding this biscuit in NZ, you can subsitute Round Wine biscuits)

1x Philadelphia Cream cheese block 250g.

1 Cup ground macadamia nut

250g Nestle caramel baking bits

125g white chocolate

(milk or dark chocolate to dip)

Method

Melt caramel baking bits & white chocolate together over a double boiler. Set aside to allow to cool. In a food processor, crush biscuits to a fine crumb. Add macadamia nut and cream cheese pulsing to just combine. Add cooled melted chocolate and pulse again, mixture should form a ball. Chill for at least one hour. Roll in to small balls and dip in milk or dark chocolate. Place in foil truffle cups (these are best placed in a mini muffin pan for support whilst setting) and allow to set.

Cake truffles - the ultimate leftover

Cake ball truffles (or cake pops if they're on a stick) are the ultimate way to use up leftovers. Recently I had some left over red velvet cupcakes and some left over cream cheese icing, I mixed the two together, to form my cake truffle mixture. When mixing the two together, visually you are looking for a mixture that looks like "wet sand"

No matter what you choose to roll them in, they look great. They can even be chocolate dipped. On my cake truffles, I've used Kiwicakes own brand non pareils & jimmies (Kiwicakes brand are lovely to eat, they're not super crunchy when used in this way), and tiny heart sprinkles.

I've used these Wilton mini candy cane cupcake papers just in time for Christmas, but you could use any mini cupcake paper you have.

Next time you have a few left over cupcakes or some cake levellings, why not start a container in your freezer for your next batch of cake truffles, cake flavours can even be mixed together if you keep adding leftovers over a few months (use within 3-6 months of freezing). With cake truffles there are no rules, add chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit or anything else you may fancy to your mixture. You are only limited by your imagination

Pecan nut truffles

These delicious pecan nut truffles are so moreish. The Kiwicakes team have declared them "the best new thing they've tasted in ages."

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups pecans toasted and finely chopped
1 cup of Super Wine biscuit crumbs (or Graham cracker crumbs if you can find them in NZ)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Generous 1/4 cup maple syrup
1/8 cup Brandy
1 tsp of vanilla or vanilla bean paste (I used paste)

Use at least 250g chocolate for dipping - more allows you to fill the dipping container, which makes it much easier to dip the truffles. Any leftover chocolate can be used to dip some dried fruit, always a lovely addition to a dessert platter.

With my leftover chocolate I decided to dip dried mango. Because dried mango usually comes in quite large pieces, I cut mine up using scissors and then dipped the cut edge in the chocolate.

I used 30 orange mini foil cupcake papers for the truffles, as I thought they looked great alongside the dried mango slices.

Pineapple Lump truffles YUM!

I made these simple truffles a little while back, after we had a macaron making demonstration at Kiwicakes - our lovely tutor left behind quite a large quantity of dark chocolate ganache, flavoured with pineapple Lorann's oil (if you've never used the lorann's oil flavourings before, you don't know what you are missing - a few drops goes a long way and they are only $3)

Ganache makes awesome truffles, simply scoop out small pieces with a teaspoon once chilled and roll in to a ball. The pineapple flavoured ganache tasted so much like a pineapple lump - it was uncanny. I rolled the truffles in our golden yellow lustre Kiwicake's non pareils, they stick right on the ganache. Initially I was worried a truffle rolled in non pareils would be too much crunch. But they were lovely - our wonderful non pareils are not solid and hard like some brands (are Kiwicake's brand sugar pearls are also easy to bite). I asked every member of the Kiwicake's staff if they liked them with the non pareil coating, they all agreed the crunch was a nice contrast to the rich ganache.

Now I'm thinking rainbow truffles, pink with strawberry or bubble gum, green with key lime or pistachio, blue with blueberry, purple with grape. Oh! the possibilities. What flavour would you try? My truffles are bottled in one of our "MADE WITH LOVE" preserving jars