Black truffle toast makes an excellent side dish for a gourmet entree. It centers on a trio of flavors: black truffles, cheese, and white wine. The main ingredient of this recipe is black truffle butter.

What are Black Truffles?

Black Truffles, like mushrooms, are fungi. The truffle grows underground. You can trace many truffle recipes back to the Perigord region of southwest France. Black truffles were historically dug from the ground using pigs to find them. Truffles were sought out long ago for their complex, pleasing flavors. Black truffles are now produced in many other countries, increasing their availability.

Black Truffle Butter

Butter is an excellent medium for protecting truffles' volatile aroma and flavor. Nowadays, truffle butter is easy to find in specialty gourmet markets. Truffle butter is a wonderful means for the home cook to use and enjoy this flavorful culinary ingredient easily.

 Black truffles pair well with Parmesan cheese, and along with the butter, you can easily make a toasted bread dinner side dish that elevates your meal. You can cream butter, cheese, and a few other ingredients and coat toasted bread with the mixture. The toasted bread is then followed by a quick broil, which preserves the delicate flavor of the truffle.

Emulsifying Ingredients for Making Black Truffle Butter and Cheese Toast

 Parmesan cheese, being hard and dry, is challenging to emulsify. You want this recipe's cheese and butter mixture to melt and not separate. Three ingredients in this recipe contribute to emulsifying. They allow the truffle butter and cheese mixture to melt well and not clump. The ingredients contributing to emulsifying are white wine, mayonnaise, and cheese powder, which contains Disodium phosphate. The white wine contains acid, which acts as an emulsifier. Mayonnaise is an emulsion that helps with the other ingredients along with emulsification. Powdered cheese often contains an emulsifier, either Disodium phosphate or a similar emulsifier, which allows the dry cheese powder to emulsify with the liquid ingredients and then hold together and melt.

Ingredients for Making Black truffle Butter and Cheese Toast

• 3oz black truffle butter

• 6oz finely grated or cubed Parmesan cheese

• 1/4 tsp Sea salt

• 1 tbsp Mayonnaise

• 1 tsp White cheddar powder

• One large French or Italian bread loaf

The ingredients provide enough spread for both halves of a large Italian or French bread loaf.

 Instructions for Preparing the Black Truffle Butter and Cheese Spread

1. Shave the block of Parmesan or cut small cubes until you have 6 oz cheese.

2.  Add the Parmesan cheese and white wine to a food processor. Pulse the processor to combine the cheese with the wine.

3.  Cut the black truffle butter into small cubes and add them to the food processor. Pulse the food processor to combine the ingredients further.

4.  Add the mayonnaise, cheese powder, and salt to the food processor.

5. Pulse to combine a few times. Stop and scrape the food processor walls with a rubber spatula.

6.  Run the food processor in puree for one to two minutes to thoroughly combine the ingredients, stopping occasionally to scrape the mixture from the sides of the container walls.

7.  You will end up with a creamy mixture with some grainy bits of Parmesan cheese.

8.  The best is to refrigerate the mixture for a few hours overnight for the flavors to meld.

Instructions for Toasting and Broiling the Black Truffle Butter and Cheese Toast

1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F and lay the bread slices on a sheet pan lined with foil. Pre-cook the bread for 6 minutes, then remove it from the oven.

2.  Switch the oven to broil, allowing the broiler to come up to temperature as you spread the butter and cheese mixtures onto the warm bread slices.

3.  Spoon the butter and cheese mixture appropriately on each warm bread slice. The bread should have a firm surface from the cooking to allow spreading. Spread the mixture with an offset spatula.

4.  The broiling step must be fast to maintain the Truffles' flavor. Toasting the bread under the broiler only takes one minute on the center rack. The six-minute pre-cooking of the bread and switching the hot oven to broil quickly toast the bread. You can quickly burn the bread if you ignore the broiling the entire time.