Italian Tartufo

Ashbabe's Note:

"Tartufo" is Italian for truffle. The original "truffles" were created just after the French revolution by French chefs and were chocolate confections made to resemble like their prized fungi cousin in the Perigord region of France. These sweet confections were given at Christmas time as gifts. Sometime around the Victorian era is when the frozen truffle came about when the idea of molding ice creams into various shape like flowers, fruit, and other foods became popular. It has been only during recent times that ice cream "truffles" or "tartufos" have made a renaissance, of sorts. Typically, in Italy, a tartufo is a vanilla ice cream ball that has a cherry and some nuts in the center. The ball is then dipped in chocolate and can be covered with nuts or chocolate shavings. (Cook time is Chilling time)

• Total Time: 5 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 5 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 10

Yield: 10.0 Tartufo's

• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 2 teaspoons instant espresso or 2 teaspoons coffee
• 1/3 cup water
• 4 egg yolks
• 10 maraschino cherries
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons rum
• 2/3 cup chocolate, coarse chop

Directions:

1. Soak cherries in rum.
2. Sift sugar; cocoa, and instant coffee together and place in a heavy sauce pan.
3. Add the water and mix well.
4. Bring to a boil and cook until everything is well mixed.
5. While syrup is cooking, whip the egg yolks until light and fluffy.
6. Reduce the speed of the beaters to the lowest level and add the hot syrup in a continuous fine stream.
7. Continue beating until the mixture is thick and forms a ribbon pattern when the beater is pulled away.
8. Chill well. (about an hour).
9. Whip the cream with the 2 tablespoons of rum until stiff.
10. Fold into the chocolate mixture.
11. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
12. Arrange foil lined paper cups in a muffin pan.
13. Fill each cup 1/3 of the way full.
14. Place a cherry in each cup then fill the rest of the way.
15. Freeze at least 4 hours (preferably overnight).
16. Before serving pipe whipping cream on top if desired.
17. It will keep in the freezer for about a month wrapped tightly in aluminum foil.

Reviews

[Hodgi]

My six year old wanted me to make this because he had a tartufo once in a restaurant. I was a bit sceptical not because of the recipe, but because ice cream recipes just don't work for me! This recipe not only worked for me, but I made it as a treat for my son's 7th birthday and all the kids wanted more! Great recipe, thanks for posting it.

[OneQuackedChef]

WHOA! Is this a Rich dessert, but it's wonderfully amazing too! I made just 2 little changes to this recipe. 1st instead of using the muffin tins I used a semi circle mold that I had on hand (they look so pretty rounded, have to see if someone took pictures) and 2nd I coated these little darlings in chocolate, first I put the melted chocolate down on the cookie sheet (that was lined in parchment.. no mess!) and I placed the tartufo on top of the chocolate and then spooned more chocolate over them for a nice even coating, Put them in the freezer until it was ready for service and then a drop of whipped cream and a cherry on top, they barely melted at all and looked just as good as they tasted... Magnifico Ashbabe. Made this recipe for my nephew's Christening Party and it was a Super Hit!!

[Beautiful BC]

This is quite a sweet treat. I do think it would be better suited to being served in a lovely glass goblet rather than foil muffin cups. It has much more of an icecream texture than the heavy/thick truffle texture I expected because of setting up in muffin or cupcake cups. It was starting to melt even as I took the photo's so really would not hold up to being served this way for a dinner party, which is more when I would serve such a dessert. I loved the crunch of the coarse chopped chocolate. I used a 85% dark chocolate and it was perfect with the creamy sweetness of the main part.