Holidays and truffles go hand in hand. Assorted truffles are the perfect party favor, present, or desert for your dorm mates! Most truffles have a creamy ganache center, and are dipped in a hard layer of chocolate casing, which can be decorated however you choose. Ganache is made by heating heavy cream, and stirring it into finely chopped milk or dark chocolate. The ganache is cooled, then formed into balls and dipped in pure melted chocolate. This recipe is time consuming, but fun. It's a great study break for you and your friends on a holiday night!

Most people have a few staple food items in their dorm rooms, like chocolate bars, peanut butter, and chocolate-hazelnut spread. We are no different. It seems only natural that our kettle double boiler should be used to create a delicious treat that combines all three flavors.
This masterpiece is modeled after a standard peanut butter cup, but the added Nutella brings in a different type of nuttiness and sweetness to the classic combination. 
This particular set of ingredients is a good mix, but if you aren't a nut person or if you want to get creative, the same method of layering chocolate can be used with any filling (ie. raspberry preserves, or roasted almonds.)
Feel free to adjust the type of chocolate, as well. We used very dark chocolate, because we are purists, but a nice hazelnut chocolate bar would go wonderfully with a Nutella filling...
Enjoy!

Ingredients(makes 4 PeaNutella cups):

• About 2 Cups of Melted Chocolate
• Filling of choice, we used (4 spoons) peanut butter (f)
• Nutella (4 dollops)
• Aluminum Foil for the cups

Instructions:

1. Push squares of foil into the cap of the peanut butter to form the cups
2. Melt half of the chocolate and pour it, in even amounts, into the foil cups. Shake each cup to even out the chocolate layer

3. Place the chocolate cups in your mini-fridge/freezer until the chocolate is hard

4. Spread a spoonful of peanut butter over the chocolate and then add a layer of Nutella. Make sure to leave the edges of the chocolate uncovered.

5. Melt the second half of your chocolate and pour it over.


6. Put all of the cups in the fridge again until cooled and then enjoy!




When made with dark chocolate, these can be a little overwhelming. This can be a wonderful thing for people who like strong, nearly dehydrating desserts. For the more standard sweet-tooth, however, we suggest using milk chocolate instead or replacing the filling, maybe with mint frosting or a fruit preserve!

What better way to bring in the holidays than with homemade peppermint bark? 
For those of you who don't know, peppermint bark is a treat made out of 3 types of layered chocolate (milk, white, and dark) and topped with crushed up candy canes.
The candy is very popular this time of year, and we thought it would be fantastic to find a way to create our own, dorm friendly, version. 
As an added bonus, peppermint bark is a great recipe to demonstrate the effectiveness of our double boiler method. 
So here goes...

Directions:
 1. Fold a sheet of aluminum foil into an open rectangular box (the base should be as long as the original chocolate bars, and just a bit wider)

 2. Break up the milk chocolate and place it in your double boiler

 3. Stir the chocolate as it melts, keeping it over the kettle until there are no more chunks

 4. Pour into aluminum foil and spread evenly over base

 5. Put in mini-fridge (freezer recommended) for 5 minutes while you melt next layer of chocolate

 6. Add layer of white and return it to the fridge 

 7. Layer on the melted dark chocolate and then sprinkle the crushed peppermint over

 8. Let bark cool for 10 minutes in the fridge before eating

 9. Cut into chunks and share with your friends!