Salty licorice chocolate truffles

Hi, my name is Saga and I'm addicted to salty licorice.

Salty licorice is hugely popular in Scandinavia, and it is by far my favourite type of sweets. I really do get cravings for it, and I cannot have it at home without devouring it immediately. Anytime anyone comes to visit me from Scandinavia, they have to bring salty licorice to me. When the cravings gets to bad, I also usually go to Scandinavian kitchen at Great Titchfield st or Totally Swedish on Crawford st for a hit. Cyber candy in Angel and Covent garden also have salty licorice, but the most impressive store is a new sweets shop in Covent garden on Long Acre, Sugar sin. It is owned by two Swedish sisters, and they have an impressive range of Scandinavian sweets that you can pick n mix. The shop is so cute, with old-fashioned sweets jars. I highly recommend a visit if you like sweets, and in particular if you share my addiction of salty licorice.

Sugar Sin. Picture borrowed from Hop Interiors, where you can see more pics and read an interview with the owners of Sugar Sin.

I love the combination of salty licorice and chocolate, it is a match made in heaven combining to great things into one! My favourite one is Fazer's Salmiakki, with a soft salty licorice centre encased in milk chocolate. Marabou Black, with milk chocolate and splinters of salty licorice, is pretty good too. Inspired by these two, I decided to try to make my own chocolate truffles with salty licorice. After a quick googling I found a recipe at Söta saker, that I tweaked by adding milk chocolate and adding more salty licorice. The result was delicious! I will definitely make these again.

Salty licorice chocolate truffles (20 truffles)
100 g milk chocolate, chopped
100 g 60% dark chocolate, chopped
1 dl double cream
1-1.5 dl salty licorice (I used Turkisk peppar), crushed

Start by splintering the salty licorice. Place the salty licorice caramels into double plastic bags, and place onto a tea towel. Using a hammer, crush the caramels. You want a quite coarse powder with some larger pieces.

Heat up the cream, and pour into a bowl over the chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has completely melted and you have a soft even mix

Stir in the salty licorice. Reserve 1-2 tsp of the finer powder for decoration. How much salty licorice to add is a matter of taste, I added quite a lot.

Pour the truffle mix into a small square tray lined with baking paper. The truffle mix should be approx 1 cm high.

Sprinkle with the licorice powder, then leave the tray in the fridge for about one hour

Transfer the now hardened truffle to a cutting board and remove the paper. Using a sharp knife, cut it into 2 x 2 cm square truffles

Store in the fridge until serving