This recipe was inspired by Hanneke de Jonge who writes the blog Culinea. I had the pleasure of meeting Hanneke last year as she was one of my fellow competitors at the Tasty Talent national cooking competition, which I won. We keep bumping into one another at various cookery festivals these days and it's always a pleasure to catch up.

Hanneke has many and varied recipes on her blog and her recipe for the truffles can be found here http://www.culinea.nl/recepten/chai-chocoladetruffels/ 

I, however, decided to put my own spin on the recipe and make a masala chai tea base using whole aromatics, rather than ground spices. I also used 54.5% callebaut chocolate beads, rather than milk chocolate and used butter in the ganache base which is more traditional. It lends a nice sheen to the end result. 

1 slice of fresh ginger thickly cut
3cm piece whole cinnamon
3 green cardamon pods lightly crushed
3cm piece lemongrass
4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 vanilla pod
3 cloves
3g assam tea leaves
100ml double cream
20g salted butter
230g 54% chocolate 


Place the ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, lemongrass, bay leaf, cardamon, peppercorns, cloves and assam tea into a pan with the cream and butter
Allow to infuse on a medium heat for 10 minutes
Strain the cream, remove the aromatics and place the cream back into the pan with the chocolate beads on a low heat 
Stir until the chocolate has melted
While the mixture is still warm, pour into silicone moulds and place in the fridge until set

Alternatively
Place the chocolate into a bowl and leave in the fridge to cool for a few hours until almost set
To form the truffles, take a small piece of the ganache and form into a small ball with your hands, 
Repeat until you have done so with all the mixture, you can dust the rolled truffles with icing sugar if you so wish