Homemade Ferrero Rocher

Step 1

Chop your chocolate roughly - I tend to whack an unopened packet against my workbench to break it up ;) . Place the broken-up chocolate in a glass bowl over a water bath and melt very slowly (I use setting 1 out of 6). Once the chocolate has melted, remove it from the heat, but keep the bowl over the hot water.

Step 2

As the chocolate is melting, place the coconut milk in a small pot and warm it up a little bit. Dissolve the instant coffee in the warmed-up milk. I went for 2 tsp of instant coffee to get a hint of coffee in the truffles. If you don't want to taste coffee, go for 1 tsp instead - this will simply bring out the chocolate flavour more.

Step 3

Slowly add warm coconut milk to the melted chocolate. If it seizes (chocolate becomes grainy and hard), don't worry, it happens sometimes but as we are essentially making a ganache here, that's no problem. Just keep on adding milk and whisking at the same time. At some point the chocolate will return to its glossy and runny state.

Step 4

Whisk in the maple syrup and finally the hazelnut butter. If you happen to have hazelnut (or vanilla extract), add a few drops (you could use both!), but I also made a batch without them and, while they deepen the flavour, they are totally optional.

Step 5

Let the mixture come to room temperature and place in the fridge overnight for it to harden.

Step 6

Before taking the mixture out of the fridge, put aside at least 20 (22 to be safe) hazelnuts and chop the rest quite finely. Spread the chopped hazelnuts on a tray or clean baking sheet.

Step 7

Scoop portions of the mixture. Use kitchen scales to measure out equal sized portions of the mixture first or just eyeball the portions if you don't have kitchen scales. Flatten each portion in the palm of your hand, place a hazelnut in the middle and then close the truffle mixture around the hazelnut. Quickly roll between the palms of your hands (that's one area where permanently cold hands help a lot ;) ) and then coat the truffle in the chopped hazelnuts. I recommend working in small batches as the mixture will get messier to work with the longer it sits around. Transfer ¼ of the mixture to a chilled bowl and place the rest of the mixture in the freezer while you roll the first 5 truffles. Proceed in the same way with the remaining ¾ of the mixture.

Step 8

Store in an air-tight container, in the fridge. These truffles should keep for 5-7 days.