The History of a Valentine’s Day Favorite

By Janelle Alberts

You know you’ve hit adulthood when you level up from trading candy conversation hearts on Valentine’s Day to gifting elegant boxes of chocolate truffles. A funny thing about chocolate truffles though—how they got their start was possibly an accident. Also, the story likely includes a screaming pastry chef. In short, the origin of truffles was almost certainly anything but elegant.

Let’s start with the key element of any truffle: ganache. “A classic, classic truffle is chocolate ganache coated in a thin layer of chocolate,” says Alena Kabetkina, executive chef at Red Truck Rural Bakery, a Virginia gem with locations in Warrenton and Marshall that has attracted praise from die-hard fans, like Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama. According to Kabetkina, ganache is a special ratio of hot cream emulsified into melted chocolate, mixed in the correct sequence and with care. It is luscious and creamy and has a melt-in-your-mouth texture and overall glossy beauty that is fairly ironic, considering ganache is French for “fool.”

Legend has it that ganache became attached to the chocolate-cream blend thanks to a bad day in a 1920s bakery for famous French chef Auguste Escoffier. Fuming at his apprentice for accidentally dumping hot cream over chocolate chunks, Escoffier shouted that the apprentice was “un ganache!” (a foolish idiot!). As the story goes, despite the disaster, the concoction’s velvety texture won over Escoffier and essentially became a pastry chef staple ever since. 

Tidy as that origin story is, as with most legends, this one comes with a competitor (or two). French pâtissier Louis Dufour is also credited for whisking a measured ratio of cream with chocolate in hopes of impressing local bakery customers with a new treat for the 1895 holiday season. He let his mixture cool, rolled it into balls, covered it with cocoa powder, and named it after what he thought it resembled most—those mushroom(ish), coal-shaped blobs called truffles. 

Naming such an elegant sweet treat after a rather ugly fungus might sound off-putting to our 21st-century ears, but those savory truffles were, at the time, revered. Writers back then penned poems about them. Nineteenth-century novelist George Sand even called them the “black magic apple of love.” Truffles made a fitting namesake for an up-and-coming bougie ball of chocolate.

Bougie though they may be, Kabetkina suggests that the simple ingredients of truffles make them easy to try at home, so long as you follow a few tips and techniques. “The secret is to melt your chocolate properly,” she says, suggesting a delicate melting of chocolate over a water bath (avoiding any hot steam or water splashing your chocolate), then slowly introducing scalding cream. For an extra Valentine’s Day boost, she recommends adding Virginia-made Mt. Defiance Amaretto. 

However, before laying out her full recipe, Kabetkina shares, “I have even another anecdote about the creation of the truffle.” According to her professional chocolatier lore, it was Chef Nadia Maria Petruccelli who was hoping to stretch her waning chocolate supply by adding cream and sugar to the chocolate. Petruccelli was working in Dufour’s Chambery, France, bakery at the time. 

Whether or not Dufour took credit for Petruccelli’s innovation, or if Escoffier yelling, “You fool!” earns him top billing between the rivaling origin stories is still up for discussion now a century on. Picking your favorite story may be hard, but if you want them to be, truffles can be as simple as the “fools” from whom they get their name. Kabetkina provides an easy truffle recipe to start, with no streaks or cream or grains of chocolate visibly out of place. 

There’s nothing foolish about that. 

Amaretto Truffles

Recipe courtesy of Alena Kabetkina of Red Truck Rural Bakery.

10 ounces good-quality, semi-sweet chocolate, such as Ghirardelli 72% Baking Chips 

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 ounce amaretto (Mt. Defiance is a Virginia-made option)

Cocoa powder, for dusting

Optional: 3 ounces lightly salted toasted almonds, roughly chopped

Bring a pot of water to a gentle simmer. Add chocolate to a heat-proof bowl and place the bowl over the pot of simmering water. As the chocolate starts melting, gently stir with a rubber spatula every few minutes to ensure that it’s melting evenly.

Meanwhile, heat the cream just to a boil. Immediately take the cream off the heat and set it aside.

When the chocolate is mostly melted, take the bowl off the pot and pour hot cream over the chocolate. Allow the mixture to sit for a minute or two.

Using a hand blender, gently combine chocolate and cream to create a smooth glossy emulsion. The ganache is ready once the chocolate and cream are properly combined, and no streaks or cream or grains of chocolate are visible.

Allow the ganache to cool down a little, to about body temperature. Mix in amaretto and chopped almonds (optional).

Pour ganache into a bowl and cover the surface with plastic wrap. Allow mixture to rest at room temperature until the ganache is firm enough to be scooped.

Once the ganache is ready, prepare a small bowl of cocoa powder. Scoop truffles using an ice cream, a cookie scoop, or just a spoon. Drop little balls of ganache into cocoa powder and gently roll them until evenly coated. Place truffles on a plate and allow to rest refrigerated.

Enjoy at room temperature!


This article originally appeared in the February 2025 issue.

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