Mini Red Currant Chocolate Truffle Cakes

A decadent dessert to celebrate my friend Becky's new apartment. I'm a good friend.

Of course, then it was too hot in my apartment and we went out to celebrate with drinks and I didn't bring them with us. So I'm not that great.

But I'm bringing them to work today to share with the OTs and SLPs I eat lunch with, so I'm a good colleague at least.

My favorite candy bar is Green & Black Organic's Hazelnut and Currant Dark Chocolate. It may be one of the best things ever. I've made oatmeal cookies based on this idea--dried currants, chopped dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts. I really spend far too much time trying to figure out how I can have more of that chocolate bar (and that flavor combination) in my life.

Enter a recipe from Heidi Swanson and a CSA delivery with red currants. I turned my favorite flavor combination into a decadent dessert. Red currant-infused cream, just sweet enough chocolate and a crunchy nut topping.

The only issue was the recipe was supposed to be made in a small spring form pan lined with parchment. I decided to make miniature cakes using a silicone cupcake pan that we had lying around.

I'm not actually a fan of silicone bakeware. Yes, it's light weight, which is marvelous if you're the type of person who has lived in 8 apartments in 7 years, but it is a bitch to clean. You will never get cake out of the crevices on those bad boys. It doesn't matter how hard you scrub. But we have one because when we first started dating D mentioned to his parents how much I liked to cook and how he felt bad that there were limited resources for me to use when I came over. So his mom sent him a package full of kitchen things (and some teacher-y things)--mixing bowls, salad servers, a wooden spoon, a spatula, approximately 3lbs of stickers (I'm not being hyperbolic here, you could definitely measure the collective weight of the stickers in pounds, not ounces), some foxtails, AND the silicone cupcake pan with cupcake papers.

Now I have them. And have found a use for them. They may be terrible as bakeware, but they're excellent as non-stick mini truffle cake molds. I encourage you to get some and use them as such, but not for baking.

I'm sure all sorts of berries would work for these. I'm also sure you could add some liquor. I didn't this time, but come winter there will be some of these with Bailey's calling my name. 

Mini Red Currant Chocolate Truffle Cakes
Adapted from a recipe at 101Cookbooks and inspired by Green & Black Organic Chocolate bar

6 oz unsweetened chocolate
3/4 c heavy cream
1/4 c sugar
3/4 c red currants
scant 1/4 t fine grained salt
additional red currants
chopped hazelnuts or walnuts (optional)

Special equipment: 6 cup silicon muffin pan

Prepare the muffin pan by placing a few currants and a few chopped nuts in the bottom of each.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

Heat cream, sugar and currants over low heat, mashing the currants a bit with a fork, until the cream begins to steam and your milk has turned a lovely shade of pink. Whisk in the chocolate into the cream, slowly. If you improvise a double boiler from a bowl and a sauce pan like I do, this is difficult, but doable. Make sure everything in completely incorporated.

Spoon the chocolate mixture into the prepared muffin cups. Chill a few hours or overnight.

Makes 6 mini cakes, each will serve 1-2 people, depending on your tolerance for heavy cream.