Chocolate Truffles

I was gonna write about me being a terrible Willy Wonka, but
got distracted by that oompah loompah who looks exactly like
Neil Patrick Harris.

Well, that's it. The olympics have ended. Which means that you've spent 17 days wishing you were in better shape than you were, all while sitting on your couch and eating chips directly out of the bag. It also means that the Paralympics are about to start! Which means you'll get excited for a second thinking that you must be a better athlete than some of them! That'll last 5 seconds, when you'll realize that overcoming crazy physical adversity to still attain a crazy high level of achievement in a sport is something you could never in a million years do. The bad news is, you're totally right. A couch dwelling chip-eater like yourself isn't destined for athletic greatness. The good news is, that means you can pretty much stay on that couch forever, and eat whatever you want. Even balls of chocolatey goodness topped with deliciousness, and rolled into a bite-size ball of awesomeness! Or take-out. Whichever's faster, because the opening ceremony is about to start.

Ingerdients:

1 lb. Dark Chocolate

1 cup Heavy Cream

2 TBSP Butter

1/2 tsp Vanilla

1 largish-sized human's pinch of Salt

Toppings!

The first thing you're gonna need to do is chop your chocolate into oblivion. You don't want any large chunks. This will get a never ending supply of chocolate smudges conveniently stuck to your knife, cutting board, body, clothing, and walls. You may have to move. But you'll end up with little chocolate bits, which you're gonna plop in a glass bowl. Now take your cream, butter, and salt, and bring all that nonsense just barely to a boil. Take it off the heat and immediately dump it on top of your meticulously melted chocolate. Whisk the crap out of your rapidly melting chocolate until the whole thing is smooth and uniform. Add in the vanilla, and stir lightly to combine. And that's it! Except totally not! Now we play the waiting game. Shove your bowl of chocolate goo (Ganache, to you people who either are culinarily inclined or have watched way too much food network) in to your friendly neighbor refrigerator, and let it cool for about an hour.

You may gain 3-5 delicious pounds by looking at this picture.

Line a flat surface with parchment paper/ Take your somewhat cooled goo and spoon a shapeless blob, roughly a tablespoon large, onto your parchment paper. Repeat until you run out of goop. Take your flat surface full of shapeless chocolate blobs, and shove the whole thing back in the fridge for another hour. (You may have noticed that this recipe has a whole bunch of waiting around time. I haven't noticed, because I'm an experienced cook-type person, and as such may-or-may-not have consumed a large quantity of culinary-grade liquor). Take your tray of solid goo balls out of the fridge, and roll them into vaguely spherical spheres. Any part of you and your home that wasn't previously covered in chocolate will be now, but that's cool because you're moving anyway. Now it's time to contemplate toppings. Because you have pretty much unlimited options. Just fill up a bowl with a topping, and roll a truffle in it until you, surprise, get chocolate all over everything! Stick the truffles back in the fridge for a couple minutes, and try again. I went with four toppings, sprinkles, cinnamon and sugar, cocoa powder, and crushed peppermint candies. But the sky's the limit! Are my flavorings better than yours? Sure, but don't let the fact that you haven't outclassed a professional (Gross exaggeration) at their own game get you down. You've got the Paralympics for that.