SMS Hazelnut Truffles

This week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's recipe was chosen by Annie of Living Life Foodcariously. Hazelnut Truffles... one of my favorite food combinations! I think the first time I fell in love with chocolate and hazelnuts was when my college roommate and I went to France for Spring Break our senior year (I know- France and not Cancun?!). I bought one of the Ritter Sport bars from the grocery store that was just around the corner from the hotel we were staying in and was completely enamoured by it! How excited was I when I found the bars a couple years later when a Trader Joes opened near my parents' house. It seems like they are available everywhere now- one of the benefits of globalization!

The only reason I gave hesitation to this recipe was working with chocolate in the middle of a heat wave. It has been ninety and humid for the past week on the East Coast- not exactly ideal conditions for rolling truffles! But I could not pass up on the recipe. For once I actually had all the ingredients I needed at one time. A lot of people seemed to have a difficult time finding hazelnuts in the grocery store, so I made a point of stopping at the nut shop at the farmer's market. They have a great selection of nuts at very reasonable prices- I found blanched hazelnuts in two pound bags for around five dollars. A steal from what I have read!

I threw everything together during nap time on Saturday and rolled them out on Sunday morning. They were a breeze to make and the rolling went pretty fast using my cookie dough scoop. Since it was so hot, I decided to roll them using rubber gloves. I am not sure why I thought this would make a difference, but it made clean-up a lot easier if anything else. I would definitely consider it for next time! I really dislike having sticky hands...

I am a little short on taste-testers this week since my husband has the stomach flu and my daughter does not like dark chocolate, but my mom and I absolutely loved the truffles! I dropped off the rest of them to my daughters' day care this morning so we'll see what the teachers thought this afternoon. Overall, I thought it was a great recipe, especially considering how easy they were to make, and I will definitely keep this recipe in mind for the holidays. Truffles make a wonderful hostess gift when you are doing the holiday circuit. The only change I may make is to use milk chocolate instead of dark next time. I had also wanted to dip them in white chocolate after rolling them out, but the white chocolate I had on hand looked a little old so I ended up throing it out.

Thanks Annie for picking such a delicious recipe! I would have kept them all for myself if I weren't trying to recover from having the stomach flu! You can check out the recipe on Annie's blog. And be sure to see what all the other Sweet Melissa Sundays bakers thought.