I've historically found a lot of "raspberry flavored" things pretty disappointing. Raspberry lollypops? Raspberry slush? Anything with raspberry extract? Even raspberry jam is a lot worse than just squishing up some frozen raspberries because a lot of the best raspberry flavors are lost to in heating. But freeze-dried raspberries totally change this!

While I normally find truffles too much trouble and instead just eat ganache with a spoon, the holidays are a good time for food that requires a bit more investment. The kids and I made some chocolate raspberry truffles. For the filling we did:

• 300g dark chocolate
• 250g heavy cream
• 50g freeze-dried raspberry powder

Mix the chocolate and cream and microwave, stirring until it's melted. Then add the raspberry powder, mix, and put it in the fridge to harden. Once it's fully cooled down it will have the consistency of play-dough and you can roll it into balls or (better!) wrap it around chunks of frozen raspberries. You can't get it to stick to the raspberry, since chocolate is hydrophobic, but it will stick to itself. Then it's back to the fridge or freezer until it's hard again, and later you dip it into melted dark chocolate.

The raspberry powder is key here because it gives you good raspberry flavor without adding any water, where water or juice in your filling will keep the outer layer from coating it properly.

Refrigerate until you're ~ready to eat them, but they'll taste better if you take them out of the fridge at least an hour before so they can come back up to room temperature.