This is the step where things start to look like chocolate truffles. I make bigger truffles than most folks. I've tried both smaller, and larger. The reason I go with this size is to make them be a satisfying treat, or a stand alone dessert course. I also like the ratio of chocolate coating to ganache at this size. A smaller truffle is mostly chocolate shell, a larger truffle the shells tend to disintegrate when bitten. This is my "Goldilocks" size, just right.
The handling of the dark ganache and white is a little bit different. The dark chocolate ganache must be worked cold, while the white ganache is allowed to approach room temperature.
I've tried doing this with gloves, but I go barehanded unless there's a cut on a finger or something like that. This means that hands must be very clean. Because the ganache I make tends more toward the liquid end of the scale, I keep a large bowl of ice water handy to reduce the melting on my hands. Also, those clean hands need to be absolutely dry. Even a droplet of water can ruin the dipping process. I use a two or even three towel sequence when I dry my hands. The chilled block of ganache gets a coarse chop.
Working as quickly as you can, take and form the ganache into balls that are slightly bigger than a ping pong ball, but smaller than a golf ball. I use this standard baking pan, which is lined with plastic wrap as my guage. It will hold six across perfectly. I'm not looking for exactly round, or exactly the same size (but close to same size, the end result should be about eight finished truffles to a pound), the small differences in shape and size are part of the charm in a completely hand made item. If I notice the ganache is starting to melt on my hands too much, or that I'm rolling a liquid coating to a more solid core, I put the unrolled ganache and the already rolled ones back into the fridge and give them about fifteen minutes. Hands are washed, scrubbed, rinsed, and iced again, then dried, dried, dried. I can't stress enough that from this step of the process on through the finish, WATER IS THE ENEMY.
Another plus to this particular pan is that it perfectly holds four dozen balls of ganache, which is the batch size of my tempering bowl. These get closely covered and chilled overnight again to set them firmly in their shape.
The white ganache is can be handled much less carefully. It is far more malleable than the dark. I allow it to sit at room temperature for about a half an hour, it doesn't require a beginning chop, I just snatch up what feels like the right weight, roll it, pan it, cover closely and refrigerate again overnight.
Rest up. Tomorrow, we dip.
