Browned Butter Cheesecake Truffles for #foodbloggerlove

The imaginative minds behind The Pintertest Kitchen have created an occasion called #foodbloggerlove as a virtual coffee klatche to meet & greet bloggers and exchange recipes. The blogger drawn out of the hat for me is Colleen from

(the "whiskered accomplice" being none other than her beautiful Bengal cat!) If you want to check out more of Colleen's creative genius, you can follow her facebook, pinterest, instagram or twitter accounts.

Well, as luck (or otherwise...) would have it, while we were snooping stalking browsing Colleen's social media, Duncan became intrigued with the esteemed Lady Brenna of Fairfax's picture.

He's taking quite a personal interest in this blog post. (Usually he's content to sleep by the keyboard & occasionally rest his head on the "esc" key...) Dunc joined me for recipe testing today.

We thought we'd make chocolate truffles to celebrate Valentine's Day with Colleen.

I was experimenting with browned butter and cream cheese the other day and was struck by the thought that their flavors would make a mighty fine cheesecake! But it's (supposedly) naughty to eat an entire cheesecake by yourself -- however, if crafted into mini "cakes" like truffles (with added benefit of being slathered in chocolate!) one can get by with selfishly eating them all... And then we decided our little cheesecake ball needed a red heart inside, so we tucked in a dried tart cherry.

So here's how you make them:

Brown 1/4 cup of butter. Let it cool until it's almost solid again, then blend it with 8 oz. softened cream cheese. When that is all smooth, add 1 T. pure maple syrup. Chill mixture.

For the crust you'll need to use 1 cup roasted almonds (they should be unsalted, so if you need to, you can toast your own in a 350° oven for about 10 minutes.) Process the cooled nuts with 1/4 t. sea salt and 2 T. butter until it makes a nice almond butter. Continue processing with 1 c, almond flour, 2 T. pure maple syrup, and 1 T. water. Don't over blend it, just let it come nicely together. Do not chill.

Using about a teaspoon of the cheesecake mixture, form a ball around a dried cherry. (You'll need to work fast, it softens quickly. I had to re-chill it a couple times before I was through.) Freeze balls for at least two hours.

Flatten about a tablespoon of the crust mixture in your hand, then cover the cheesecake ball, rounding as best as possible. Return the crusted balls to the freezer for a couple hours.

Melt your favorite chocolate (I used dark chips today) using your favorite method (I prefer double-boiler.) Since the 53% was sweeter than I wanted, I added a couple ounces of Trader Joe's 72% cacao dark chocolate...

I slathered ensconced dipped those baby cheesecakes and let them harden. Duncan suggested a little decoration, so we melted vanilla chips and thus adorned the truffles.

So, happy Valentine's Day, Colleen & Lady Brenna. We hope we added a little sweetness to your celebration!

We had fun making & tasting (well, Duncan didn't get a taste...) your truffles.

(Dunc wanted to leave you with his photo test: >"< )

*maple syrup from here*

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