Strawberry Rhubarb White Chocolate Truffles

A big birthday bash for a milestone anniversary: my wife and her BFF were planning a joint party earlier this year. I happened to read this article about a dinner party concept where guests don’t initially introduce themselves, but just collaborate to make a meal. That sparked the idea to have an epic cooking gathering at our house.

“The Influencers Dinner” is something that behavioural scientist Jon Levy has been talking about since 2018, and he’s even written a book about it. Dr. S used that idea to produce a DIY cooking event for 30 people working on a dozen menu items. In the weeks leading up to it, I helped to make custom aprons with heat-transfer vinyl.

Since I had frozen leftover salted caramel from Little G’s bat mitzvah chocolates, I decided to make truffles for the party, to be given away as a surprise at the end. Given that we get rhubarb every week from our farm subscription, I was delighted to find this recipe as it would make for a perfect contrast for the boxes.

I chopped the rhubarb finely (don’t want any stringy bits in the ganache!) and cooked it down with the strawberries and sugar. I overreduced it, finishing with less than 12 oz of puree by volume. After stirring it into the cream and white chocolate mixture, it never really got very firm even after a few hours in the fridge.

My daughter scooped small portions, shaped them into rough balls, then rolled them in freeze-dried strawberries pulverized with icing sugar. We kept these in the fridge for a week, before putting them into boxes. The texture of these weren’t to my liking: slightly “chewy” and not firm enough. But we enjoyed the tanginess and pink hue though.