Puddini Bonbons

Our answer

Nigella's Christmas Puddini Bonbons (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) are made with melted chocolate, sherry, golden syrup and crumbled Christmas pudding (or you could use rich fruitcake). The truffles should set at cool room temperature, but you need to use a good quality dark or bittersweet chocolate (preferably with 70% cocoa solids). However if they were very soft we suspect that the chocolate was either slightly over heated and split, or some water mixed with the melted chocolate causing it to seize. The chocolate usually turns a bit grainy and has fat separating out and may not have set easily if mixed into truffles.

If you are melting chocolate then it is a good idea to stop heating the chocolate while there are still a few small lumps of unmelted chocolate left in the bowl. Leave the chocolate to stand for a minute or two and then stir until smooth. If using a bowl over a saucepan of hot water then make sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water and the bowl fits snugly over the saucepan so that no steam can get into the melting chocolate. Also the water does not need to be boiling, just hot and barely simmering. Split or seized chocolate is still safe to eat and the truffles should set if they are put in the fridge. However they should be stored in the fridge and eaten chilled.