Then they’re rolled into perfect circles:

Sometimes I fold in a nut or a coconut cube after scooping but before rolling; this is done by, well, squashing the ganache so it can wrap around the nut, like this:

I would like to state for the record that hazelnuts are the best thing that have ever happened to mankind.

Anyway, once rolled, the little ganache balls are ready to be dipped in chocolate. First you coat them well with tempered chocolate to add dimension with a snappy outer coating:

I sometimes always get a little messy, especially when I dip them two at a time:

They go directly into their respective coatings, while the tempered chocolate is still wet (in this case, cocoa powder from Laduree in Paris, mixed with cinnamon):

Toasted coconut is another option:

Then they go into the fridge to cool. And that’s it!

Here’s what the vanilla bean ganache looks like when it’s being scooped; notice the air bubbles forming.

And here are the little measured balls of vanilla-bean ganache.

This is what dark-chocolate ganache looks like when it’s getting the scooping treatment:

Here’s the coconut getting scooped; it has a different texture because it’s dairy-free; I use coconut milk instead of cream and butter.

Coconut balls!

Once weighed out, the calets look like this (no snacking!):

Or, if you have a block of chocolate left over, the chocolate starts like this:

The reason the chocolate looks dusty is because the cocoa butter (the cocoa fat) has risen to the surface, or “bloomed.” The calets above might have bloomed a little, but mainly I think they’re dusty-looking from having been bonked around a lot on the way over from Belgium. Anyway, if you lightly rub the surface of a block of chocolate that has been bloomed, the cocoa butter melts and leaves a clean sheen:

If you’re starting with a block of chocolate, you must chop it up in order to make ganache:

Ganache is made by heating cream and pouring it over chocolate. To make truffles, butter and sometimes corn syrup are boiled with the cream:

When I make Earl Grey truffles, I cook the tea leaves in the cream, then steep them for a few minutes before straining them out over the chocolate:

Then it gets poured over the chocolate and sits for a few minutes so the chocolate melts. Here’s what the Earl Grey tea cream looks like over chocolate (the tea has stained the cream):

After that, it gets whisked together with spices or liqueurs, depending on which flavor is being made:

After cooling completely, it gets labeled and put into the fridge to harden for the next step:

Next up: scooping the ganache…