Roll a fresh ganache truffle in this and it comes out a soft dusty pink with a matte, powdery finish. It is the same working method as rolling in cocoa powder, but with a colour you can build a whole box around, and the pink comes naturally from beetroot rather than a synthetic dye. 

It is a fine dry powder from Mona Lisa Studio, 59% starch with 16% cocoa mass worked through it, so it handles like a dusting powder and tastes mildly of chocolate instead of carrying the bitterness of straight cocoa. One 250g tub with a snap-on lid, so whatever you sieve off goes back in. 

What Is Truffle Powder? 

A coating powder for rolling and finishing - not a chocolate and not a cocoa powder. Its legal description is a starch based coloured confectionery powder with cocoa, and the proportions are 59% starch, 16.8% sugar, 16% cocoa mass and 8% colour, with natural vanilla flavouring and a little fat-reduced cocoa powder making up the rest. The starch is what makes it a coating rather than an ingredient: it sits on the surface as a dry, even layer. The colour is E162, beetroot red, and the specification records no azo colours and no titanium dioxide. 

How to Use Pink Truffle Powder

Work with it as you would cocoa powder. Let the rolled ganache firm up first, because a truffle that is still soft takes the powder unevenly and shows finger marks, then drop a few at a time into a bowl of powder and move the bowl rather than your hands. Lift them out with a fork or a dipping wire, tap off any excess, and sieve the powder left in the bowl before it goes back in the tub. A dipped ganache takes it as well if you roll while the couverture is still crystallising; once the shell is hard, the powder has nothing to grip. 

Troubleshooting

Air and light are what spoil it. The colour comes from a natural source, so the specification warns that the shade moves a little with heat and light and asks for the tub to be kept closed, out of the light and somewhere free of strong smells, between 12 and 20°C and below 70% humidity. Shelf life is twelve months from production.

Pairings and Ideas 

Pink carries raspberry, rose, lychee, white chocolate, pistachio and champagne. A few ideas to try: 

• Raspberry ganache truffles rolled straight in the powder
• Rose and lychee truffles for Valentine's or Mother's Day 
• Pink and green side by side in a mixed box 
• Dusted through a stencil over a white chocolate entremets 
• Sieved over a set mousse or a cheesecake just before service 
• Used to mark one flavour in a mixed box