Peppermint truffle pops

Bring water to a boil in a saucepan and set the bowl of chocolate over it, keeping water out of the bowl -- water makes the chocolate seize.

Let the chocolate melt, stirring a couple of times to bring the softer pieces up, until there are no lumps.

Lift the bowl off and wipe the base dry.

Stir 40 g of room-temperature cream into 120 g of melted chocolate until even and glossy. Cold cream must be boiled first.

Add a few drops of peppermint oil extract and mix well.

Chill the ganache 2 to 3 hours in the refrigerator or freezer, or overnight for a better set, until firm enough to scoop.

Scoop and roll the ganache into balls, about 15 g each if weighing.

Chill the balls 1 to 2 hours until stiff, then push in the lollipop sticks.

Temper the coating chocolate: melt 100 to 150 g over the double boiler, then bring it down to 29 to 28C.

Check the temperature -- it reads 44 or 45 off the heat -- and bring it down by dropping in unmelted chocolate a few pieces at a time until it reaches 28C.

Divide the tempered chocolate into a large bowl of white and a small bowl for the red.

Mix a teaspoon of melted cocoa butter into the white chocolate until homogeneous.

Spoon the red over the white in a zigzag, with no lumps in either.

Dip each pop straight in, lift it out, twirl it to pull the pattern, and hold it a couple of seconds to let the excess drip.

Stand the pops upright in styrofoam to set, and chill them further if they do not set at once.

Brush the set pops lightly with silver edible dust.