Susuwatari Gremlin Truffles

***Some susuwatari went out of the cage and found the candy!!! And it's passed midnight....***

*** Once they are back in the cage something is changing...and now they are white and wicked!!***

*** They madden the other ones, now all of them want candy!!!***

*** The candy craving is too strong......With the axe they break the cage and now they are completely free***

*** RUN!! there is just one way to win this battle...its time to play hard and......eat them!!!***

(hehehe, I'm not the best storyteller ^^') *There you have a caption of the film so you can see how adorably cute these originally are!

I love all Studio Ghibli films. The first one I saw was "Spirited away" and I remember the feeling it left on me, like an imprint. My favourite characters were Haku, No-face and the soot sprites, also known as susuwatari; they are the cutest thing ever!!! just little balls of coal dust running around, and going mad for some candy!!! I also love the film "My neighbor Totoro" (Totoro is soooo fluffy!!) and when I saw them in that film too, I just fell completely in love with them!

So this dessert is centered on them, but with a wicked twist; since they have this craving for candy, and since I love the movie "Gremlins" I made a mix of both things and I got my Susuwatari Gremlins!! So I think it's better to keep them in a cage, just in case things start to get out of hands..........

But even if they seem real, you have nothing to fear, because they are just White chocolate vanilla truffles and dark chocolate truffles! If you want to make this cute-creepy-delicious and deceptive dessert, keep reading!

(P.S: I had to make them in my student apartment, so forgive the lack of professionalism of some photos and "techniques"; I just had a pair of pics taken at home, but I hope you like it anyway!!!)

Step 1: Step 1: Making the Truffles

The first thing to start this dessert is making the truffles. For that, we will make a batch of white truffles, and another batch of dark truffles. Keep in mind that these will be pretty big once they are finished, so you won't get a lot of truffles per batch.

Ingredients (White chocolate truffles)

-100g of white chocolate (I bought lindor because it's a very rich chocolate, and it was on sale at the supermarket, but it will work with any chocolate brand)

-30ml of whipping cream

-15g of butter (room temperature)

**This will make like 4 big truffles

For the making process:

1. In small saucepan, pour the whipping cream and over low heat, heat until cream comes to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

2. In a glass bowl combine the white chocolate and butter and place this white chocolate mixture over a pot of warm water on low heat (water should not touch bottom of bowl), what is called "Baño maría". Stir the mixture frequently just until almost melted.

3. Add the whipping cream to the mixture, and combine with the almost melted chocolate mixture. Stir until the everything is melted, homogeneous and smooth.

4. Chill at least 4 hours, covering tightly when cold. This way the mixture (which is like a similar white chocolate ganache) will set firm enough to make the truffles.

5. Once the time has passed, using a tablespoon, form balls of about 2,5-3cm diameter from the cold truffle base. Start rolling the small spoons of ganache between your hands until a ball is formed. Wrap each of them in cling film, and place them in the fridge or freezer again and let them cool until you need them.

Ingredients (Dark chocolate truffles)

-200g of dark chocolate (I bought lindor too)

-50ml of whipping cream

-50g of butter (room temperature)

-3tbsp of icing sugar

-1tbsp of cocoa powder

**This will make like 9 big truffles

For the making process:

1. In small glass bowl, pour the whipping cream and the chocolate, and place this mixture over a pot of warm water on low heat (water should not touch bottom of bowl), what is called "Baño María". Stir the mixture frequently just until almost melted and set aside.

2. In a glass bowl combine the icing sugar and butter until everything is integrated. Then, add the cocoa powder and keep stirring until the mixture is homogeneous.

3.Take the chocolate mixture (slightly cooled but still melted), and start pouring it over the butter mixture, slowly, and stirring frequently until both mixtures are fully combined.

4. Place this mixture over a pot of warm water on low heat (water should not touch bottom of bowl), what is called "Baño María" again. Stir the mixture frequently and once everything looks smooth and silky, set aside.

4. Chill at least 4 hours, covering tightly when cold. This way the mixture (which is like a similar chocolate ganache) will set firm enough to make the truffles.

5. Once the time has passed, using a tablespoon, form balls of about 2,5-3cm diameter from the cold truffle base. Start rolling the small spoons of ganache between your hands until a ball is formed. Wrap each of them in cling film, and place them in the fridge or freezer again and let them cool until you need them.

Step 2: Step 2: Sculpting Susuwatari "fur"

This is the most time consuming part of the dessert, along with making the cage (we will get to that soon). After trying some different methods to achieve its messy look, this is the way I found more effective:

Ingredients:

-Chocolate sprinkles (like the "spaghetti" ones)

-Bright White Candy melts (chocolate)

-Black Candy melts (chocolate)

**You will also need piping bags, toothpicks, styrofoam or some kind of base to stick the toothpicks and a flat brush

The steps are pretty simple but it takes some time to make all the susuwatari fur.

1. Start grabbing a truffle (after some time has passed and they are hard enough) from the freezer and, choosing the chocolate sprinkles one by one, "stab" in each one of them, like if they were thorns coming out of the susuwatari body. Insert a toothpick (as in a lollipop) into the truffle and nail it onto the styrofoam base (See pictures)

2. Melt White candy melts (if you grabbed a white chocolate truffle) or black candy melts (if you grabbed a dark chocolate one), and with the help of a flat brush, start stippling the chocolate all over the truffle, covering the "chocolate thorns", but still maintaining its spiky shape.

3. Let the chocolate covered truffle cool, and remove it from the toothpick; cover the hole the toothpick left with some more chocolate and let it harden.

4. With white melted candy melts, pipe 2 big ovals that will make the eyes onto the black susuwatari; if you are making a white evil susuwatari, do the same but make some triangular forms in order to make its eyes look more evilish.

5. With some more black candy melted chocolate, pipe a tiny dot onto the white eyes of black susuwatari. To make white susuwatari's pupils, pipe some elongated shapes onto parchment paper (like cat or crocodile pupils) and let the chocolate harden. I also made the mouth of an evil white susuwatari, so feel free to improvise here.

6. Place the truffle back in the refrigerator, and repeat the process with each truffle.

Once you are done with all of them, it's time to assemble White-evilish-susuwatari eyes. In order to do that we will use:

- 1tbsp of Icing sugar

-4 drops of corn syrup

-red food colouring

**you can also use red candy melts, but I didn't had any red coloured chocolate so I had to improvise.

1. Mix the sugar and the corn syrup until you get an homogeneous super-thick mixture. Add the red food colouring and mix again. You will get a very thick yet pipeable mixture that will harden with cold.

2. With the help of a brush, paint the white susuwatari eyes with this mixture (see pictures), and place the black chocolate elongated pupils we made before onto the red eyes.

3. Put them into the fridge until it's serving time.

**For making the arms just pipe some black candy melts onto parchment paper and let it harden until serving time.

Step 3: Step 3: the Cage

Once the truffles are assembled, it's time to start creating the cage. We will make individual walls with royal icing and then we will glue them together.

Ingredients:

- 1 egg white (pasteurized)

- 200g of icing sugar

*optional: flavouring (vanilla will be great with chocolate)

The making process is very easy:

1. Place the egg white in a glass bowl, and with an electric mixer with a whisk, start whisking the egg white until a soft foam is formed.

2. Add the icing sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until you get a glossy mixture. Add then the flavouring.

3. Keep mixing and adding the remaining icing sugar, until you get a "Toothpaste consistency".

4. Transfer the royal icing into a piping bag, with a tiny rounded nozzle; mine was too big but it was the only one I had available at my student flat.

5. For the cage creating process you will need to have a design previously made of how you would like your panels to look (I draw mine, but you can find some great designs online). place it under a piece of parchment paper and start piping following your design (see pictures). in order to get a great structure you have to create a lot of points of contact between each "pipe" of icing.

6. I decided to make 7 panels (1 extra for precaution purposes; to have a replacement if another panel breaks), but you can make as many as walls you want your cage to have.

7. Let the panels dry overnight; once they have dried completely you will be able to remove them from the parchment paper safely.

8. Taking 2 dried panels vertically, use the royal icing as a "glue" or "cement", and pipe it onto their sides; stick them together into the desired position and let them dry. Repeat this process with all the panels.

9. Once the cage structure is made, put some more royal icing over all the "connection" sides and decorate the bottom to assure the stability of the cage.

10. I painted with pearlescent white edible paint the "cemented" parts of the bottom and the sides, to give it a more realistic look.

Step 4: Step 4: Making the Candy and the Axe

So, the reason why the white susuwatari are white and evil is because they ate candy passed midnight. And as evilish balls they should have an axe to scape from this cage.

For the candy I used:

-Modeling chocolate (pink)

-pearlescent white edible paint

**you can also use the real candy they crave about but this was easier to make for me.

1. Roll some balls of modeling chocolate. Start pinching them to get the spikes, and let it harden.

2. Paint with the edible paint.

See? super easy.

For the axe we will follow this steps:

-Grey fondant

-Brown fondant

-Silver edible dust

1. Make the blade with grey fondant, thinning its edge and let it harden.

2. Roll a cylinder to make the handle and let it harden slightly. Make a hole in it and glue the blade.

3. Paint the sharp edge of the blade with silver edible dust.

Step 5: Step 5: Put Them Into the Cage!!!

So now the GREATEST part of the process, putting them into the cage!

1. For that, place the cage onto a nice plate, and very VERY carefully start placing inside the cage black-cute susuwatari. Be very careful, because the cage is very delicate and it may break if you are not careful #royalicingstruggles

2. Once the black susuwatari are placed, start with the white ones, making sure their blood-injected eyes are visible.

3. Very carefully, take the susuwatari arms you piped onto parchment paper before, and with some melted chocolate attach it to the black susuwatari THROUGH the panels of the cage.

4. Place your sculpted pink candy onto a cup, and you can start. Place the axe next to the cage when the story requires it :D

5. The last step is recreate the gremlin story!!

*There you have a caption of the film so you can see how adorably cute these originally are!

I hope you liked this instructable, the truffles are very tasty and they melt in your mouth!!! I will answer any questions, so don't hesitate if you want to ask! :D