If you’ve been following along for a while, you may have noticed I like to make food that I can give as gifts. With Valentines Day on the horizon, these Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffles are the perfect treat to give your beloved – or your kids or your besties. Whoever deserves them really. These would also be great for Easter, Mothers’ Day or Christmas.
Try other nuts too, like these candied walnuts!
Why you’ll love these Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffles
They’re easy to make and taste divine and even have a salty kick. Plus, giving a gift of chocolate is fun too
- DIFFICULTY: Easy but there are waiting times for setting, so plan ahead
- MAKE AHEAD: Definitely. These can be made ahead and then eaten for the next week (maybe more)
- STORAGE: store in an airtight container or covered bowl in the fridge. You can wrap them individually or store them in gift boxes too.
Truffles are so much fun to make. To think that you can mix just a few ingredients together and end up with a beautiful and totally luxurious treat. I mean whole business’ are built around truffles (Fererro, Lindt). These are decadent, sweet and a total treat to give someone you love. Or you could just scoff them all yourself while sitting on the couch binge watching Netflix.
What is praline?
Praline is a hard toffee, often but not always, containing nuts. It’s wonderful processed to crumbs and sprinkled over ice cream, pancakes, cupcakes anything sweet really and it’s also really, really good in chocolate truffles.
How to roast hazelnuts
This recipe calls for roasted hazelnuts and it’s very easy to do at home if you can’t find them already roasted. Line a baking tray with baking paper and then scatter your hazelnuts over the top in a single layer. Bake at 180C / 350F / 160C for around 10-15 minutes, giving the tray a shake every so often. You’ll start to smell that glorious roasted hazelnut smell wafting around.
How to peel hazelnuts
If you have hazelnuts that are not peeled, that’s ok. For this recipe, you can use peeled or unpeeled hazelnuts but the skin can be a bit bitter. To get rid of it, just roast the hazelnuts to heat them up, then tip them into a tea towel. Fold the sides of the tea towel over the top of them and rub vigorously back and forth. Most of the skin will come off that way. Now tip them into a colander and give them a good shake over the kitchen sink to get rid of a bit more. It’s ok if there is still some skin on the hazelnuts.
Tools you’ll need
- A heavy based saucepan for making the toffee
- A food processor to process the praline
- A polystyrene cake dummie (optional)
How to make chocolate truffles
Chocolate truffles are incredibly simple to make. They are essentially a soft ganache made from chocolate and cream but sometimes include butter for richness like these ones. They will also often contain some type of flavouring or filling too. For these Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffles, the filling is in the form of praline which is finely processed and mixed through the ganache.
To make the praline, just cook some butter, sugar, honey and cream in a saucepan. As there is only a small amount it is literally just minutes until it turns into a toffee that will set hard.
Add the hazelnuts along with some vanilla and salt and mix it through. The salt is optional and you will taste it at the end but if you want a completely sweet truffle, you can leave it out at this step.
Pour the praline into a lined baking tin and let it set hard which will only take around 15 minutes. Now you put the praline into a food processor and, voila, you have praline crumbs.
To make the truffles, just heat some cream and butter together, then pour it over some good quality dark chocolate. I used 70% cocoa solids chocolate but if you find that too bitter, you can use 50%. Add the praline crumbs and just a pinch of salt (this is just enough to enhance the chocolate flavour, not to make them salty), then let it set in the fridge for around ½ an hour.
To roll the ganache into balls, I use a small cookie scoop to portion it out, then roll it into balls using my hands. Once they’re all done, put them into the freezer for about 15-20 minutes to get nice and firm.
Now you just coat the balls in dark chocolate and let them set. The method I use to do this is to put a toothpick into each one, dip it in melted dark chocolate and then spin them to spin off the excess chocolate. From there I stick the toothpicks into a plastic wrapped polystyrene cake dummie. This is totally optional but it does keep them round. Cake dummies are very cheap and can be purchased online or at cake decorating stores or even craft stores. It just means the truffles will keep their round shape and any excess chocolate can drip off. You could also just sit the coated truffles on a baking tray lined with baking paper but they’ll get a flat bottom.
More truffle coatings
You can coat truffles in more than just melted chocolate. Maybe try these options
- Cocoa
- Powdered sugar
- Sprinkles
- Coconut
- Nuts
- Crushed candy
- Freeze dried fruits (crushed up)
- White chocolate
- Cinnamon sugar
The list is endless.
Anyway, you definitely should try these Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffles and if you do make them as a gift, be sure to make a batch for yourself too.
Other recipes you might like
- KitKat Truffles
- Biscoff truffles
- Toffee Pecan Chocolate Truffles
- Strawberry White Chocolate Truffles
- Pecan Butterscotch Fudge (Penuche Fudge)
- Salted Caramel Fudge
- Homemade Almond Roca (Buttercrunch Toffee)
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Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons (28g / 1oz) unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon caster (superfine) sugar (notes)
- ½ tablespoon honey (notes)
- ½ tablespoon thickened (heavy) cream (notes)
- ½ cup roasted hazelnuts
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ¾ cups (350g / 12.3oz) chopped dark (70%) chocolate
- ⅓ cup thickened (heavy) cream, extra
- 1 tablespoon (14g / 0.5oz) butter, extra (notes)
- Pinch of salt, extra
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Instructions
- Line a small baking tin with baking paper. Mix together the 2 tablespoons of butter, sugar, honey and ½ tablespoon of cream in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring it to a boil and let it bubble for around 4-5 minutes, until the colour turns a light gold caramel colour. Add the hazelnuts, ¼ teaspoon of vanilla and salt and mix well. Pour into the tin and allow to set until hard.
- Break up the toffee and place into a food processor. Process to crumbs (praline).
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces and set aside 1 cup. Place the remaining 3/4 cup into a bowl. In a saucepan, heat the ⅓ cup of cream and tablespoon of butter until the butter melts then continue to heat, stirring until bubbles start to appear. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt and stir through. Pour the mixture over the chocolate pieces. Gently stir until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Add the praline and mix well. Pour into a bowl and place in the fridge to set for 1/2 an hour.
- Roll tablespoons of ganache into balls (I use a small cookie scoop to portion it then use hands to roll them into balls) then place on a plate lined with baking paper, into the freezer to firm up again.
- Melt the remaining dark chocolate in heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
- Poke a toothpick into each truffle and cover a polystyrene cake dummie (notes) with plastic wrap. Transfer the melted chocolate to a deep bowl (if it is not in one already). Dunk each truffle into the melted chocolate, then use your thumb and index finger to spin the toothpick so that excess chocolate spins off. Then turn it upright and poke the toothpick into the cake dummie. Sprinkle it with extra praline crumbs straight away. You may need to reheat the chocolate once or twice as the cold truffles will cool it quickly.
- Once they’re all done, sit them on the cake dummie in the fridge to set. Once set remove the toothpicks, box up and give them to loved ones.
Notes
- I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (4 teaspoons worldwide)
- A cake dummie is a large round of polystyrene that cake decorators use when practising or for displays. You can purchase these from cake decorating supply shops or craft stores. This is not a necessary tool, but it means the truffles will set completely round. You could just line a tray with baking paper and let them set with a flat bottom.
- This recipe uses chocolate to coat the truffles but you can also coat truffles in cocoa (like in this recipe), icing (powdered) sugar, more nuts, coconut, or sprinkles.
- The ganache will soften quickly when being handled, so make sure to move quickly and return them to the fridge or freezer when required to firm up.
- It’s helpful to melt twice as much chocolate as required for coating the truffles. More chocolate will give you a deeper amount to dip the truffles into. Any leftover you can simply re-set and use another time – see my Caramelised White Chocolate post to see how I re-set chocolate into chocolate bars.
TOOLS USED IN THIS RECIPE
- A heavy based saucepan for making the toffee
- A food processor to process the praline
- A polystyrene cake dummie (optional)
FOR MORE HAZELNUT RECIPES, CLICK HERE
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10 Comments on “Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffles”
Is it possible to double the quantities to make more truffles? I need more than 16 for Christmas gifts. Many tks
Hello Oonagh. Yes, you can double this recipe 🙂
I don’t know what went wrong but the fudge didn’t harden 🙁
Hello Mon. How long did you wait? It may be that the cream and chocolate were still warm so haven’t hardened into a ganache yet. Also, did you use a full fat cream and 70% chocolate?
Thanks for the quick response. I mean the praline didn’t harden. I waited for hours (tried leaving in the fridge and freezer). I am using heavy cream 33%. Maybe I should cook longer than 5 min.. ?
ok, so are you adding all the cream to the praline or just the 1/2 tablespoon. It should just be the 1/2 tablespoon and I might need to be clearer about that in the recipe. If you have just added the 1/2 tablespoon, it just means you haven’t cooked the praline long enough so it hasn’t reached hard crack stage.
I’ve never made praline before, but it sounds so decadent. I bet the contrasting texture of the smooth truffles and crunchy chewy pralines is phenomenal!
The texture is definitely a winner in my book. The ganache is so smooth and creamy and that crunch of sweet praline is lovely. Thanks Trang
Sign me up for some of these truffles, Marie!! They look so decadent – I would love one after dinner (every night)!
Thanks Katherine, me too 🙂