Jello vs. truffles

In honor of my imminent 2-day eating ban, I had huge dinner last night: steak, mashed potatoes, and green pepper and mushroom saute. But before that--I made truffles! I've made them before, but only the solid ganache version where you roll them in cocoa powder under the supposition that this prevents them sticking to your hands on the trip to your mouth.

This time, I made a special trip to the local cake decorating store and got a truffle mold.* Ooo, ahh.* I almost got one while I was in Vegas, visiting the land of Sur la Table, but I couldn't think of a good way to pack it. And this way I was able to peruse the rack of concentrated flavorings, which has tempting flavors such as amaretto and blackberry.

Then to the kitchen! I improvised a double boiler with a bowl that I believe started life as a dog food dish, but has seen much use here and in the dorms. I had two types of chocolate: the Trader Joe's pound-o-dark, and the Scharffen Berger elitist bar. The elitist was a pale tan color, since it's been sitting in my cupboard for a year (or two? I don't recall...) and bloomed more than a bank of day lilies. But hey, all things chocolate are fixed by melting! I added in some 99%, too, for that special bitter flavor. I originally had three bars of Scharffen Berger in different grades of sweetness, but I ate the mildest long ago.

The elitist went for lining the mold. The pound-o-dark went for ganache. I had trouble with it--it decided to go all watery and clumpy on me. Adding more chocolate helped smooth it, at least enough so it didn't separate on the spot. I scooped out half to make pure dark chocolate truffles out of, then tried a touch of amaretto.
Meh.
Orange?
Hey...
I revised my plan for dark chocolate truffles to include dark chocolate + orange truffles.

Once they'd set and I'd figured out how to remove them from the mold (one truffle died bravely in my attempts to pry it out with a metal skewer) I tried one of the orange. It was like...like...like a real truffle! I forced one on my boyfriend, who made gratifyingly surprised sounds, and I wrapped up the remainder for my mom, the true chocolate connoisseur. *

Now today I keep looking over at them and then back at my little bowl of pineapple jello. I mean, I like jello. It's the closest thing to real food I'm allowed to eat for the next thirty hours. But the only thing it has in common with truffles is that they both come out of molds.

*EDIT: My mom was not enthusiastic. She felt the truffles were much too dark, with not enough mild flavor for contrast. *sigh*