Alice Medrich, mistress of truffles, refines recipe with relish (2024)

In food, as in fashion, everything old is new again. Cool girls are unironically wearing Teva sandals with socks, just as nerds did in the ’90s, and truffles — at least, truffles made using chocolate master Alice Medrich’s recipe, adapted over the decades — have been resurrected.

Medrich has been making chocolate truffles since she learned the recipe from her Parisian landlady back in 1972. In her Berkeley home, there’s a black-and-white photograph of that Paris kitchen; cramped and charming, it’s the size of a small bathroom, crammed into the eaves of the building.

After returning to the States, Medrich sold her chocolate truffles at the now-defunct Pig by the Tail, a charcuterie shop on Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue across the street from Chez Panisse, and later at her own shop, Cocolat. That other Alice (Waters) serves an adaptation of Medrich’s truffles at Chez Panisse to this day.

In the 40 years she’s been making them, the recipe has evolved, as many good recipes do. The original version called for raw eggs, which she corrected for when she began selling them to the public. Later, inspired by the influx of interesting artisan chocolates, Medrich began tinkering with the original formula.

“There are choices of chocolate that didn’t exist when I first started making these,” says Medrich. In her kitchen, a drawer — 3 feet across and a foot deep — is filled with chocolate from makers around the world, although Medrich often uses hometown favorites Guittard and Scharffen Berger.

“The percentage of cacao in chocolate is critical to the success of a recipe, but most home cooks are ignorant about its importance,” Medrich says. “You’d never see a recipe that simply called for 8 ounces of beef, but you see plenty of recipes that specify '8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate.’ It’s just as unspecific and potentially disastrous.”

For the truffles, Medrich uses a chocolate that is 60 to 64 percent cacao. “There are lots of brands to choose from, so just use one that you like the taste of, since the chocolate is front and center in this recipe.”

Previous iterations of these truffles were made by simply whisking together the ingredients, then pouring them into a pan, but Medrich’s current version get their impossibly silken texture by blending the ingredients together in a food processor until emulsified, a subtle but perceptible change that gives the mixture a pudding-like appearance.

One more change: Instead of rolling the truffles into balls, as she’d always done, Medrich now cuts them in squares before dusting them with cocoa.

A more modern look for a modern truffle recipe? “No,” she says with a laugh. “I just got tired of getting my hands dirty.”

After 40 years of truffle making, Medrich’s got it all figured out.

Alice Medrich’s new book

After decades bypassing alternative flours in the grocery list, Alice Medrich finally could ignore her curiosity no longer.

Using her decades of baking experience as a starting point, she began experimenting with non-wheat flours, from teff and sorghum to coconut flour and cornmeal, and collected the results in her just-published book, “Flavor Flours.”

Organized into chapters according to the flour used, the cookbook, her 10th, demystifies the flavor and texture properties of the flours, with recipes that range from a dinner-party-worthy chocolate-chestnut souffle cake to a raisin-studded dark and spicy pumpkin loaf for all-day snacking. Classic favorites like brownies, cookies and basic cakes are also part of the mix.

“Flavor Flours,” by Alice Medrich (Artisan; October 2014; 368 pages; $35).

Alice Medrich’s House Truffles 5.0

Adapted from “Seriously Bittersweet,” by Alice Medrich (Artisan, 2013). Note that you will need an instant-read thermometer for accuracy.

3 egg yolks, at room temperature

16 ounces (455 grams) 60%-64% chocolate, coarsely chopped

10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Boiling water

1/3 cup premium unsweetened cocoa powder (natural cocoa or Dutch process)

Prepare the ingredients.

Line an 8-inch square pan with foil; set aside. Put the egg yolks in a small stainless steel bowl and put the bowl in a larger container of very hot tap water. Set aside to let the egg yolks become slightly lukewarm.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate, butter and salt in a heatproof bowl set directly in a much wider skillet of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. It should feel quite warm, but not too hot to touch when you stick a finger in it.

“I don’t like traditional double boilers,” says Medrich. She prefers the method described above, which allows you to see the water and better control its temperature, and prevents the buildup of hot steam, which can cause the edges of the melting chocolate in the bowl to burn.

Scrape the mixture into a food processor. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the processor bowl.

Prepare the fudge.

Bring ½ cup water to a boil in a microwave or small saucepan. Immediately pour the hot water steadily into the egg yolks, stirring constantly with a spatula. When the yolks and water are blended, the temperature should be at least 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

Pour the mixture through the strainer into the food processor. Tap the strainer against the bowl to encourage all of the liquid to flow through, but don’t press on or mess with any bits of cooked egg that might be caught in the strainer. Pulse the mixture a couple times just to blend. Scrape the sides of bowl and then wait until the mixture cools to 108-110 degrees, the temperature at which the mixture will best emulsify.

Process until the mixture is thickened and satiny smooth like pudding. The sound of the processor will change as the mixture thickens and emulsifies — listen for it — and the appearance will change from shiny and slightly greasy to matte and silky.

Scrape the mixture into the lined pan and refrigerate until firm, at least a few hours or overnight.

“If you don’t want to use a food processor,” Medrich says, “you can just whisk the chocolate and egg yolks-water mixture together, then pour into the pan.” It’s what she describes as “Truffles, Version 4.0,” and yields delicious results, though the truffles aren’t quite as silken in texture as the food processor version.

Shape the truffles.

Remove the truffle pan from the refrigerator and use the foil liner to lift and transfer the truffle sheet to a cutting board. Invert the sheet and peel off the foil liner.

Put all but 2 tablespoons of the cocoa in a medium bowl, then put the 2 tablespoons of cocoa into a fine-mesh sieve; dust the cocoa over the truffle sheet.

With a long knife, cut the truffle sheet into squares 1 inch or smaller, and toss them in the bowl of cocoa powder. Pour them into an empty bowl, then back and forth between the two bowls until they are coated with cocoa.

“I used to roll the truffles into balls,” Medrich says. “But it was the messiest and most time-consuming part of the process.” Now she favors a square truffle. Tossing them between two bowls is the cleanest, easiest way to coat them; using your hands is messy and a utensil could dent the delicate squares.

Store and serve.

Store the truffles, tightly covered, up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer. Remove the truffles from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before serving. Be prepared to sift a bit more cocoa over them as necessary.