Salt ‘N Peppa? Let’s Talk About Sex-y Truffles

Mmmmm….savoury truffles. Actually I had no idea whether or not this would be a good idea, but I’ve had it on my list of things/ combinations that I’ve been wanting to give a go for quite some time, and recently decided that the time is now. Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today and all that jazz? Clearly I watch way too much “Chopped” where weird combinations in the dessert round are my favourite order of the day. I always pause it once the mystery basket of ingredients is revealed and try to come up with what I would do with these crazy combos. Then I proceed to get inordinately snooty and self-righteous as I yell at the contestants on-screen deriding them for what I think are terrible ideas. “Pssshhhht….Stop whining about that chili powder, you should obviously be combining it with chocolate in some way. Truffles. Ice cream. Brownies. Sure I paused forever and took my time thinking about what I would do. And sure I was under no pressure whatsoever, but, you know, you’re a professional, I shouldn’t have to tell you how to do your job.” 😉

Anywho, the more I thought about this, the more I thought that it at least had the potential to be a good idea. I  mean salted desserts are already a thing right? And I’ve made chocolate desserts with cracked black pepper in them before. I admit that I was at least mildly concerned however that the double dose of savoury might be a little too much (or possibly a lot too much? I didn’t want to see Kevin making a valiant attempt to not make a vomit face, so I wanted to make sure these would have the best chance at life possible). What to do? I said to myself. Well, I know pepper and strawberry is a good combo. Can I incorporate that somehow? In the words of Obama, yes we can. I decided to roll these little chocolatey blobs of goodness in a powdered red fruit blend to add a little more “desserty-ness” to these. Not only will it make them look much prettier, but it’ll add that extra oomph of flavour that I’m hoping for (also, the “Super Reds Powder” that I used is choc full of antioxidant goodness, so, you know, healthy?). Was it a success though? You be the judge (and then feel free to award me the $10,000 prize for awesome use of disparate ingredients. I promise I won’t complain 😉 ).

I’m lying, I really can’t let you be the judge here. I absolutely loved these. LOVED!!!! I thought they’d just be ok, but even looking at these photos again is making me want one right now. If you’re the kind of person who likes spicy (read: cayenne pepper) infused chocolatey things and you like salty-sweet combos, then I very strongly suspect you will like these too. If you don’t love spicy infused things, you might still like them because these are actually quite a bit milder in the spice department (also, I opted to use pink peppercorns which I find to be a bit milder in flavour, so I promise that the pepper is not insane. You always have the option to halve the pepper used, or even omit it entirely if you’re too much of a wuss to go all in 😉 ).