Russian Tea Room Raspberry Vodka Truffles

I grew up in Philadelphia, and one of our favorite family outings was to take the train to New York. We'd visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art or MOMA or take in a matinee. Whatever we did, the Russian Tea Room was a 'must stop' on our trips. My memory: two little girls in white gloves in their Spring 'toppers'.. very 'vintage' dining in the elegant tea room. The Russian Tea Room had the most wonderful exotic food, well to me as an inexperienced omnivore at that time. So I was thrilled when I recentlycame across a copy of the Russian Tea Room Cookbook.

If you follow my blog, you know I collect cookbooks, usually theme cookbooks, but also cookbooks of famous places and restaurants. So here's a chocolate recipe from the Russian Tea Room Cookbook (by Faith Stewart-Gordon with Starla Smith; illustrations by Paul Cox) for Raspberry Vodka Truffles. Since there's vodka in the recipe, a disclaimer: we never had these at the Russian Tea Room. We were too young. We usually had blinis... my favorites!  But since this is a Chocolate Blog, I thought I'd share this recipe. I've made them, and they're really fabulous.. and easy! And, it's Berry Month, so these are perfect!