Teaching myself how to cook means I’ve messed up a lot of recipes.
The worst was a lemon pasta dish I tried to make a few years ago. I still don’t know what went wrong – but neither Nick or I would eat it. We hate wasting food, but there was no way we were going to take more than one bite. It went into the trash, along with recipe, and I’ve never gone near a lemon pasta since.
Sometimes, recipe mess-ups are a bad thing.
But every now and then, an accident happens that turns out to be the best thing ever.
You’d never know it from these pictures, but I was trying to make bark on Monday while I was over cooking with Mrs. Doughmesstic herself. We decided to have a cooking day and bounce ideas off each other. Everything was going great until I realized that my bark would not set!
I knew what the culprit was: the pumpkin. I added too much.
You know how you try to add just a little bit of pumpkin to recipes and it totally changes the texture? That’s exactly what happened with these. The pumpkin kept the white chocolate from completely setting, but after Susan and I tasted it, we knew it could be – and needed to be – changed into something else.
And if you can’t have pumpkin spice latte bark, isn’t the next best thing a pumpkin spice latte truffle?
We took the pumpkin + white chocolate + spice mixture and rolled it into 1-inch truffles, then dipped them and drizzled them with dark chocolate. Also – don’t look too close to those drizzles. Susan made me practice by doing two rows myself and they were definitely wavier than hers. I can make desserts – I just can’t decorate them!
I was super happy with the truffles, but I knew I would be. I love coffee and pumpkin.
The real test was whether Nick would like these. He’s a big fan of coffee, but not so much with the pumpkin.
Thankfully, he gave them two-thumbs up. If I can get Nick to eat something with pumpkin in them, that means I did a pretty good job.
And these are definitely like real truffles – they are rich. Sweet. But the deep dark chocolate, warm spices, and roasty flavor of the espresso will keep you coming back for more.
Want to see what Susan made during our pumpkin extravaganza? Check out her recipe here. And believe me – it’s a good one. I tried it and loved it!
Pumpkin Spice Latte Truffles
Makes: 40 truffles
- 10 oz. white chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp instant espresso
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
- Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave (stirring after each 30 second increment) or in a double boiler until the chocolate is smooth.
- Stir the pumpkin, cinnamon, vanilla, instant espresso, and nutmeg into the white chocolate.
- Spread the mixture onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and place in the refrigerator to cool.
- Once the mixture has cooled, remove from the fridge.
- Taking 1 rounded teaspoon at a time, roll the truffle mixture into a round and place on the baking sheet. Once all of your truffles are made, place them back in the refrigerator for 5 mintues.
- Melt the dark chocolate chips in the microwave, cooking for 1 – 2 minutes, stirring after every 30 seconds until the chocolate is completely smooth.
- Take the truffles back out of the fridge and dip the bottom of each one in the melted dark chocolate. Place them back on the parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and return to the fridge until the dark chocolate has set.