I was on Newbury Street in Boston today and stopped into Teuscher (pronounced Toy-sher) Chocolates of Switzerland. The Boston shop is one of the 14 Teuscher boutiques that can be found in North America.

So I was in there today chatting with Stefan, the owner of the Boston shop, and he told me that it's the 60th anniversary of the creation of my favorite Teuscher truffle! This house specialty is still made with the exact same recipe as it was in 1947, when it was created by founder Adolf Teuscher. (Teuscher has been around for about 75 years.)

Teuscher's Famous Champagne Truffle: Starting from the middle and moving outward, this truffle has a light-colored, creamy Don Perignon Champagne center surrounded by a dark chocolate ganache, dipped in milk chocolate and then very lightly coated with confectioner's sugar. The ganache is creamy yet very light and airy. Not overly dense or rich as to cover the gentle taste of the Champagne. The combination of the Champagne cream and the ganache is refreshing, even palette-cleansing in a way; this is a unique attribute for a truffle, since the heavier ones can linger on your palette (for good or for bad) for quite a while.

Tasting this truffle, I'm reminded of the last Champagne truffle I tried, which was made by XOX of San Francisco. I didn't like that one at the time but couldn't decide why - I remember describing it as "muffled," but this is just it, XOX's stiffer, denser style of ganache (that I really loved in a couple of their other flavors) drowned out the delicacy and fresh airiness that I associate with Champagne. Champagne truffles are tricky - very few chocolatiers really get it right. Stefan also mentioned that, with the exception of Jacques Torres, Teuscher is the only chocolatier that uses real Champagne. Jacques Torres uses Taittinger Brut La Francaise in his. Teuscher uses Don Perignon.