Salted caramel chocolate truffles; a seriously indulgent homemade treat. Amazing for homemade gifts and fab for special occasions. Everyone will go crazy for these delicious bites. Soft, caramel scented chocolate truffles coated in a gorgeous chocolate shell. Seriously show stopping treats. There are a few stages with this recipe, but none of them are difficult, they just require a bit of time. If you plan ahead, this no bake dessert is amazing and well worth the effort.

Making truffles is a lovely recipe to learn and once you’ve mastered them you can do so many flavours and combinations. Even though making ganache is easy there is a trick to it to avoid the base from splitting; which has happened to me a few times. The best piece of advice is to be patient and keep everything on a nice gentle heat and you’ll be fine. 

Ingredients

250g dark chocolate (I use an inexpensive dark chocolate for this, something like Tesco dark chocolate, works so well)

100ml double cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt (plus a little extra to sprinkle on top of the truffles (optional)

1 ½ tsp ground coffee powder

5 tbsp dulce de leche 

To coat the truffles:

230-250g dark chocolate (I always use Lindt, it melts beautifully and you definitely want a good quality chocolate for this part of the recipe, so it has a gorgeous crispy shell for the truffle)

Sea salt to sprinkle on top (optional)

Makes 24 truffles 

Method for salted caramel chocolate truffles 

Finely chop the dark chocolate so that it’ll melt quickly when making the ganache.

In a large bowl pour in the double cream, vanilla extract, coffee, salt and dulce de leche. Then add in the chocolate shards and stir briefly.

In a small saucepan, start to heat a small amount of water which will be used to melt the chocolate. Once the water begins to simmer, put the large pyrex, heatproof bowl, on top of it and melt the ingredients together.  This is such a simple way to make a ganache, which is what truffles are essentially. 

Make the ganache

Every so often stir the mixture. These are very easy to make but chocolate can be quite fiddly, particularly when making ganache so my advice is to keep the heat as gentle as possible, turning down the heat for the water if it is bubbling too much to help get a beautiful ganache. The water should be hot enough to melt the chocolate and combine everything together but not too hot which can make the ganache split, so a little patience goes a long way here. If the mix does split, and you’ll know if it has because the chocolate will look grainy, just stir in a little more double cream and the mix should smooth out again. No problems. 

It should take about 5-10 minutes to make the ganache. 

When the chocolate is all melted and you have a smooth mix, take the bowl off the heat and directly cover the surface with cling film to avoid a skin forming. Chill the mixture in the fridge for a few hours so that it thickens enough to roll into truffles. 

Let’s roll the truffles

Once the ganache has chilled, take it out of the fridge and start spooning out small amounts to roll into truffles. If you want to weigh them, I’d aim for 16g each but you don’t have to weigh them if you don’t feel like it. 

Once you’ve portioned out the ganache, quickly roll it in the palms of your hands to make a ball. 

When you have rolled out all the truffles, chill again in the fridge for a few hours (or overnight) so they firm up enough to coat in chocolate. They will be softer than other truffles because of the yummy dulce de leche which will make them extra delicious when you eat them, but it just means it takes a little while longer to help them set. 

When they are set and firmer to the touch, start to melt the chocolate to coat the truffles. 

Finely chop the chocolate. (I’d recommend dividing the chocolate into two batches to coat the truffles because if you melt all at once it will likely firm up too much before you have coated all the truffles, and you want the chocolate to be silky smooth when it coats the truffles for the best finish.)

With the half of the chocolate you are working with, put about ⅔ into a heat proof bowl. Melt the chocolate gradually in the microwave in about 30 sec bursts. Stirring it occasionally to ensure that the chocolate is melting evenly and not getting too hot (this can make the chocolate go grainy). 

Once the chocolate has melted add in the final ⅓ and stir quickly until it has all melted (popping it back in the microwave briefly if it needs help completely melting). This is a cheat’s way to temper the chocolate for the coating which works well and means you don’t need to invest in a sugar thermometer. 

Let’s decorate the salted caramel chocolate truffles

With a small spoon and fork, take a truffle one by one, and coat it in a layer of chocolate, patting the fork against the bowl to tap away any excess chocolate before placing onto a plate lined with greaseproof paper. Once you’ve coated half of the truffles in chocolate, pour the remaining chocolate into a small piping bag and drizzle chocolate over the top and add a light sprinkling of sea salt. (If you don’t have a piping bag then just use a small spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the truffles). 

Then, repeat for the remaining truffles until they are all coated and decorated. 

Pop the truffles in the fridge. They’ll last for 1-2 weeks in the fridge very well. 

Looking for other no bake recipes? Try our Ruby chocolate valentines truffles or Chocolate peanut butter bites or Fruit and nut fudge