Well, last night's truffle expedition didn't go precisely as planned. I was at work until 8:00, which meant a later start than I had hoped for. Most of the fillings I made still hadn't set by 2:00 a.m., and the one that did used up all the dark chocolate I had meant to use for coating one or two other fillings. The Torres System, while probably ideally suited to an operation that includes a chocolate-enrobing conveyor belt, wasted too much coating chocolate for me to ever use it again. Hand-dipping remains the way to go. Still, putting the fillings in a pan to set and then portioning them by cutting into regular pieces does take a lot of the mess and waste out of forming the truffles; I'll definitely do it this way next time.

The only truffles I was able to finish were the dark chocolate and mint ones. The rest of the fillings are sitting in my freezer. Maybe I'll finish them for New Year's. Meanwhile, my landladies have about 20 truffles to get them through Christmas.

Happy Holidays y'all. I'll be back next week.