These homemade chocolate truffles are extra creamy with the addition of butter. After mixing the 4 ingredients together, let the mixture set in the refrigerator, then roll into balls. Follow this homemade truffles recipe and the helpful video tutorial below!
Making homemade chocolate truffles couldn’t be easier and after watching the video tutorial below, you’ll agree with excitement! They come together faster then even homemade peanut butter eggs. Homemade truffles are the perfect quick & easy treat for holidays and I’m right here to guide you along. Ditch the boxed chocolates!
Chocolate lovers, rejoice. 🙂
Chocolate truffles are a deeply indulgent chocolate treat made from chocolate and cream. They’re essentially balls of chocolate ganache. And great news: they sound so much fancier than they are to make!
If you’re making these around Valentine’s Day, I love coating them in pink and red sprinkles. Pair with Valentine’s Day cookies and Valentine’s Day cupcakes for a trio of epic February 14 treats!
Only 2 Ingredients in Chocolate Truffles
Chocolate and heavy cream are the only ingredients in homemade chocolate truffles. However, I add 2 extra ingredients for texture and flavor. These extras will turn your regular truffles into the BEST CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES. And after writing an entire cookbook on truffles and candy recipes, I know that’s a fact!
- Chocolate: 8 ounces of quality chocolate is the base of chocolate truffles. Do not use chocolate chips because they will not melt into truffle consistency. Chocolate chips are great for recipes like chocolate chip cookies where we want the chips to stay mostly intact, but here want to reach for quality chocolate bars which are sold as 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle. Use milk chocolate for sweeter truffles or semi-sweet/dark chocolate for extra rich truffles. If using milk chocolate, reduce the cream to 1/2 cup as milk chocolate is much softer than dark chocolate.
- Heavy Cream: Heavy cream or heavy whipping cream is also a base ingredient. Do not use half-and-half or any other liquid because the truffles won’t set up properly. See recipe note for a non-dairy alternative.
- Butter: 1 scant Tablespoon of softened butter transform these into the creamiest truffles you will ever taste. You will never go back!
- Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract adds exceptional flavor to your chocolate truffles.
With so few ingredients, it’s imperative to follow the recipe. After years of candy making, I find the ratio of 8 ounces of chocolate to 2/3 cup heavy cream is the most favorable. Truffles are too firm with less liquid. Stick to this recipe for truffle success!
How to Make Chocolate Truffles in 5 Steps
- Warm Cream: Pour warm cream over chopped chocolate.
- Do Nothing: Before stirring, let the warm cream and chocolate sit in the bowl for a few minutes. Don’t touch it!
- Stir: Stir until the chocolate is melted.
- Refrigerate: Refrigerate until the mixture is set, about 1-2 hours.
- Roll: Roll into balls and coat in toppings like sprinkles, cocoa powder, or crushed nuts. You can also dip the truffles in melted or tempered chocolate. See my dark chocolate coconut rum truffles post for a video on how to do so. And I have an in-depth explanation for tempered chocolate in Sally’s Candy Addiction if you have a copy.
Sticky Situation: These are extra creamy truffles, which are the most delicious variety. The downside to creamy truffles is that they’re sticky to roll. You can wear rubber gloves or coat your hands in cocoa powder, but here is my #1 trick and it makes rolling SO MUCH EASIER. Scoop the truffle mixture into mounds on a lined baking sheet. (Pictured above.) Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes so the mounds “dry out.” After that, they are a little less sticky to roll. You can watch me do this in the video tutorial.
Troubleshooting Truffles
Even though there are so few ingredients and steps, a couple mishaps can happen. Let me help you troubleshoot through the chocolate truffle recipe.
- The chocolate won’t melt: One trick for successful truffles is to chop the chocolate into very small pieces. The finer the chocolate chunks, the quicker they’ll melt. Additionally, the chocolate might not melt because the cream is not hot enough. Make sure it is simmering warm before pouring over the chocolate. If the chocolate still isn’t melting, place the heat-proof bowl over a pot of 1 inch of simmering water and stir until melted. I usually do this.
- The ganache won’t thicken: Make sure you are using quality chocolate, not chocolate chips, and heavy cream. You can also pour the mixture into a shallow dish so it thickens quicker. And finally, keep it in the refrigerator until thickened.
- The chocolate is greasy and separating: If the truffle mixture is greasy or separating, the heavy cream was too hot.
- The truffle mixture is too sticky: See “Sticky Situation” above.
- Rolled truffles are too dry for toppings: Mash the truffle between your palms and re-roll so it’s sticky enough for the toppings.
By the way, if you love chocolate truffles, you will flip for these peanut butter balls, cookie dough truffles, rum balls, and Oreo balls.
See Your Recipe Success!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge!
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Homemade Chocolate Truffles Recipe
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 20-24 truffles
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Shaping
- Cuisine: American
Description
These homemade chocolate truffles are extra creamy with the addition of butter. After mixing the ingredients together, let the mixture set in the refrigerator, then roll into balls. You can coat in your favorite toppings and add lots of fun flavors, too! The mixture gets a little sticky, so refer back to my tips in the blog post above.
Ingredients
- two 4-ounce quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate bars (226g), very finely chopped*
- 2/3 cup (160ml) heavy cream*
- optional: 1 Tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- optional: 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- toppings: unsweetened cocoa powder, sprinkles, crushed nuts, melted or tempered chocolate
Instructions
- Place the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. Set aside.
- Heat the heavy cream until it is simmering. You can heat it on the stove or in the microwave.
- Add the butter, if using, to the chocolate and pour the heavy cream evenly on top. Let the warm cream and chocolate sit for 5 minutes minutes. Add the vanilla extract then stir until the chocolate has completely melted. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface (to avoid condensation) and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Tip: Pour into a flat shallow dish, such as a 8-inch square baking pan, so the mixture evenly and quickly sets.
- Scoop the set truffle mixture into 2 teaspoon-sized mounds. This small cookie scoop is the perfect size. For larger truffles, 1 Tablespoon size mounds. Roll each into balls. This gets a little sticky, so see my tips above.
- Roll each into toppings, if desired. Truffles taste best at room temperature!
- Cover tightly and store truffles at room temperature for 3-4 days or in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: For longer storage, freeze up to 3 months with or without toppings. Thaw in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature, if desired, before enjoying.
- Make Ahead Instructions: Prepare the truffle mixture through step 3. The mixture must chill in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours or up to 3 days. If chilling for longer than 4ish hours, let the mixture sit on the counter for several minutes to soften into scoop-able consistency.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Small Cookie Scoop | 8-inch Square Pan (optional but helpful when chilling the chocolate mixture)
- Chocolate: Use quality chocolate, the kind sold in 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle. Do not use chocolate chips. The higher quality chocolate you purchase, the better your truffles will taste. I love Baker’s or Ghirardelli brands. If you want to splurge, Scharffen Berger is exceptional! Semi-sweet or dark chocolate make a very intense chocolate truffle and milk chocolate yields a sweeter truffle. If using milk chocolate, reduce the cream to 1/2 cup as milk chocolate is much softer than dark chocolate. Do not use white chocolate in this recipe because it’s too thin. Here is a white chocolate truffles recipe to use instead. You can leave out the lime flavoring.
- Heavy Cream: Heavy cream or heavy whipping cream is the only liquid that will melt the chocolate into the proper truffle consistency. Do not use half-and-half or milk. The only non-dairy substitute is canned full-fat coconut milk (not the refrigerated kind). Shake it up and use in the recipe as you would heavy cream.
- Butter and Vanilla Extract: Both are optional, but butter makes truffles extra creamy and vanilla extract adds wonderful flavor.
- Flavors: Instead of vanilla extract, use 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon (depending how strong of a flavor you want) raspberry, coconut, orange, peppermint, or strawberry extract. Or leave out the extract and add 1-2 Tablespoons of your favorite liqueur. I also have hazelnut truffles and key lime truffles recipes too!
- Halved/Doubled: Recipe can easily be halved, but I do not recommend doubling. Instead, make 2 separate batches.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Love this so much! Any advice to salvage if mixture is good in bowl but melts when rolling in hand please many thanks
Hi Evans, did you see the troubleshooting section in the post, and the “Sticky Situation” paragraph right above that? Have a read through those sections for some advice. The refrigerator is your friend here! Hope you love the truffles.
Wanting to try this soon. Can you add flavorings to these truffles (e.g. extracts) or even alcohol (e.g. rum or bourbon)? If so how much would you guess, and would any of the rest of the recipe changes?
Hi Paul, see recipe Notes for more details on flavoring the truffles. Hope you enjoy them!
Can I freeze these and dip them in chocolate so get askmwthing similar to a Lindt truffle?
Sounds like a great idea, Denise! Let us know if you try.
Do you have any tips on the best way to freeze truffles with toppings? Also, which toppings freeze best?
Hi Jessica! We freeze them in a large, air tight container. A zip lock bag would work too. It you have multiple layers in a container, we would use parchment paper between the layers. All toppings freeze well! Though the nuts could lose some crunch, and if you use colored sprinkles, there’s a chance they would bleed their color a bit when thawed.
Hello if i wanted to make different shapes liek using a silicone mold how would I do that
Hi Hailey, you can pour the truffle mixture into your silicone molds in step 3 rather than in the shallow baking pan. Dust the mold with cocoa powder if you’re nervous about sticking.
I absolutely love these truffles! They were unbelievably easy to make. Decorating is my favourite part of any recipe, and these were so much fun to coat.
My favourite unexpected flavouring (and an absolute hit with my friends) was 1tsp cinnamon with 1/8tsp of cayenne pepper. It had the slightest hint of heat, and the flavour took a moment to hit… But it was so, so pleasant when it did.
I do have a question though: are these really safe to store at room temperature for a few days? I’m traveling shortly, and will be in airports for nearly a day. I’d love to make some to bring as a surprise. Do you think these would survive the trip? (I’m worried about the cream.)
Hi Ali, we’re so glad you love these! These are perfectly fine at room temperature for 3-4 days.
Thank you!
Can I use couverture wafers (Guittard) for these truffles?
Hi Jackie, though we haven’t tested it, some readers have used couverture chocolate in this recipe as a 1:1 replacement with no other changes. However since it contains a little more cocoa butter, we would consider reducing the heavy cream a bit– perhaps to 1/2 cup (120ml).
I have been using Guittard 72% and am very happy with the outcome.
I loved the flavor, but the truffles absorb the cocoa powder. What can I do?
Try letting the truffles sit in the refrigerator to slightly dry out before coating them in the cocoa powder. That will help.
Sally, can these be coated in chocolate to have a “shell”?
Hi Kristine, we can’t see why not!
Can I add some sea salt to these before rolling them. I think it would taste really good.
Definitely.
I wonder why when I went to scoop and roll the truffles they crumbled. I kept in fridge for more than 2 hours and even let it come up to room temp.
I have ruby chocolate which is 34 % cocoa. Have you made the recipe with ruby chocolate? Should I treat it as milk chocolate and reduce the cream? The only recipes I’ve seen call for vanilla wafers?!!
We don’t have any experience working with ruby chocolate, so can’t offer much advice. We would love to hear how it goes if you give it a try – sounds delicious!
These went over great. I made half with vanilla and half with fiori di Sicilia.
Mine seemed to soft. I followed your recipe carefully but when I rolled them they were more than sticky. Will they “dry out” somewhat later? Right now they are hard to pick up and rolling them in topping was difficult.
Hi Barb, these truffles are extra creamy, which can make them a bit tricky to roll. You can wear rubber gloves or coat your hands in cocoa powder, but our best suggestion is to scoop the truffle mixture into mounds on a lined baking sheet. (Pictured in the post.) Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes so the mounds “dry out.” After that, they are a little less sticky to roll. You can watch Sally do this in the video tutorial. Hope this helps!
I tried these and read all the notes and recipe a million times before I started. It seemed a bit complex but turned out to be more time consuming than difficult. The sticky notes were very useful. They turned out fantastic and soo yummy. Now I just have to figure out how to package them for gifts. I am thrilled. I have only tried your recipes once before and that was the sugar cookies recipe. That too was a major success. Thank you so very much.
This recipe is amazing, it tastes so good. Thank you so much for sharing.
They came out great. Can I use great quality cocoa powder? If yes, how much, please. Wondering how they’d hold up to put in freezer, defrost, put in boxes for presents? Thank you.
Hi Geri, We use cocoa powder as a great topping to roll the truffles in. These freeze very well.
Is the cocoa powder unsweetened? Your sugar cookies are my favorite.
Hi Kate! Yes, we use unsweetened cocoa powder here for rolling/topping.
I want to try your truffles recipe. However, here in Canada heavy cream is not available. Instead, we have 35% whipping cream. Will that work in your recipe for truffles?
Regards,
Hi Susan, yes, that fat percentage will work well here. Hope you enjoy the truffles!
Any tips on packaging as gifts? For example if I were to ship them out of state, should I be concerned with how they will transfer?
Hi JenlK, the truffles can be left at room temperature for 3-4 days but should be refrigerated after, so you’ll want to make sure they can arrive in that amount of time. Making sure the box is well padded, just like we recommend when shipping cookies, is important!
I’ve made these 2x, and I can’t roll them or even leave them at room temperature because they are so soft. What am I doing wrong.
Hi MAC, did you see the paragraph called “Sticky Situation” above in the post? It has all of my best tips, like scooping the truffle mixture into mounds on a lined baking sheet, then refrigerate for 20-30 minutes so the mounds “dry out.”. Also note that if you are using milk chocolate you need to reduce the cream – see the recipe notes. Hope this helps!
Can I use trader joes pound plus 72 percent dark chocolate? I have read a lot of comparisons to higher end chocolates at the fraction of the price
Absolutely; I love to use that exact chocolate when I have it.
What % of cocoa should I buy if using Ghiradelli dark chocolate bars? Also what size scoop did you use?
Hi Beth, you can use any of the dark chocolate baking bars, depending on how deep/dark you’d prefer your truffles to be. We use about 2 teaspoons, which is conveniently the same size as a small cookie scoop.
My mixture split leaving a pool of oil and a chocolate splodge. Any advice?
Hi Jaine, was it a layer of butter separating from the chocolate? If so, reheating and stirring the entire separated mixture in a double boiler or in a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water will help bring it all back together.
Hey! If I wanted to make Bourbon truffles would this be a 1:1 substitute for the wine truffles you have in your book?
Hi Khelly, while I haven’t tested that substitution in the book recipe, I can’t see why that wouldn’t work. Let me know if you try it.
YUM!!! This recipe looks to be the most indulgent! I want to make Boozy Balls. Would 2 T of liquor change the consistency?
Should be fine! See recipe notes for more flavor details.
When do you start to make the truffles for Christmas giving
Hi Casey, for longer storage, you can freeze the truffles for up to 3 months with or without toppings.
Could you please tell me what brand of chocolate you used in the video? I always use Bakers but the bar you have seems like it would be a better substitute. Thank you
Hi Penny, I used Bakers brand in the video. But Ghirardelli bars are another favorite. I love using Ghirardelli.
You should really put the part about the milk chocolate and using less cream in a more obvious place. What a waste.
I never thought I could make anything this cool/fancy. It was so easy to follow your recipe and my truffles turned out great! I made a second batch using orange extract! Thank you Sally!!
So happy to hear your truffles turned out well, Gwen!