Making Truffles with Jessica Foster

In honor of Halloween and the ridiculous amount of sweets I’ll be eating this week, I thought I’d highlight my absolutely favorite chocolatier on the planet, Jessica Fosters Confections. I’ve been obsessed with Jessica’s choclate well, for years now, and I wanted to capture her art in action. Josh Gruetzmacher was in town for a wedding and captured these gorgeous images on film…

Jessica specialized in handmade truffles indused with a variety of unique and unexpected flavors.

Some of my favorite flavors? Milk chocolate madras curry, and dark chocolate earl gray…

Unlike most chocolate you buy at the store, all of Jessica’s chocolates are based on 3 simple ingredients, cream, butter and chocolate.

Aside from traditional truffles, Jessica also makes mint infused truffle sticks that are super refreshing and very addictive (Josh and I may have had a few during the shoot…).

The sticks are made be pouring out white chocolate and letting it set, then the choclate is cut into sticks. The white chocolate sticks are painted with milk chocolate and tossed in granulated sugar.

On the market for homemade caramels? How about ones made with no corn syrup? She makes those too. And her caramelized almonds dusted with coco powder are way too good. They never last more that an hour in my house.

Interested in trying your hand at chocolate truffle making? Here’s a recipe from Jessica for how to make liquor infused chocolate truffles:

-12oz milk chocolate, chip or bar, cut into small pieces

-1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

-1 oz butter

-2 Tbsp your liquor of choice (Fra Angelico, whiskey, Cointreau)

-melted chocolate for dipping

-cocoa powder for dipping

Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl. Heat cream and liquor in a small pot. Let it come to a boil and pour over the chocolate. Stir to combine and then add the butter. This will create your chocolate ganache. Once butter has melted, stir the ganache regularly until it cools. Create quarter size balls of ganache using a scoop or a spoon (a piping bag also works). Chill as needed to form fairly round balls (approx. one hour). In another bowl, melt chocolate for dipping. Dip balls of the  set chocolate ganache into the melted chocolate, and then drop into the cocoa powder. Roll around to coat evenly, enjoy!