Hanoverian specialties

Truffles from Güse

Güse’s round pralines are famous far beyond the city limits and have been handmade since 1921 at Hanover’s only truffle factory. Over the course of three days and eight production steps, this small family business in the Südstadt neighborhood creates around 60 different varieties of these delicious cocoa masterpieces—made from chocolate coating, fondant, and cream fillings—using the original recipes of company founder Emil Güse. These sweet treats are sold at the company’s own shop on Kröpcke in the heart of the city and at the market hall on Karmarschstraße.

Pile of chocolates — Truffles from Trüffel Güse

Hannover's Sweet Temptress

Of course, those with a sweet tooth and foodies know that a truffle praline does not contain a single one of these bulbous mushrooms, which grow well hidden in the forest floor and are often used to enhance olive oils, pasta dishes and salami sausages. The truffle praline got its name because it looks very similar to the rare wild mushroom and because, like it, it is an exclusive treat for all the senses.

Chocolate truffles are elegant confections that resemble marbles in size and shape and are filled with a chocolate-cream filling of varying consistency, known as “ganache.” To create the melt-in-your-mouth filling, butter, cream, and chocolate couverture are melted, stirred until creamy, and refined with all sorts of fine flavorings such as vanilla, whiskey, cappuccino, cognac, or kirsch. At the Güse truffle factory, all of this has always been done by hand in the following eight steps:

1st work step
The best couverture (a very high-quality chocolate), fondant (a specially cooked sugar), butter and a few mysterious ingredients are mixed together to create the truffle core

2nd work step
The mixture is spread onto trays and cooled

3rd work step
Roll out the stiff dough and cut it into small cubes

4th work step
The small cubes are rolled by hand into a round truffle center

5th work step
The truffle core is cooled

6th work step
Now the sliceable truffle core is coated with chocolate coating for the first time

7th work step
After another cooling cycle, the core is coated with chocolate coating a second time

8th work step
The truffle praline gets its characteristic surface by being decorated by hand with stripes or dots or rolled in powdered sugar or cocoa powder

Güse also makes chocolate bars by hand

Sabine Güse-Henschel and her brother Klaus, who have been running the family business together as the third generation since 1987, are not only well-known throughout the city for their sometimes unusual truffle creations—the two also consistently come up with original ideas for their hand-crafted chocolate bars. A few years ago, for example, they asked six of the best chefs from Hannover and the surrounding region to create their very own gourmet chocolate. The result was a unique collection of six handcrafted 50-gram bars, including “Klauke’s Ginger” by Arne Klauke, head chef at the Hotel Luisenhof; “Rasper’s Cherry” by Oliver Rasper, executive chef at NORD/LB; “Reimann’s Rum-Rosine” by Clichy owner Ekkehard Reimann, “Schu’s Leckerli” by celebrity chef Norbert Schu, “Sobotka’s Pfläumchen” by Celle-based Endtenfang Michelin-starred chef Hans Sobotka, and “Weick’s Goji Passion” by Arndt Weick, head chef at the Wichmann restaurant.

Just recently, Trüffel Güse released another small yet exquisite collection of classic Hanoverian chocolate specialties with its Herrenhäuser Gärten Edition—featuring seven bars wrapped in delicate tissue paper, three of which are milk chocolate varieties with orange-sesame, pineapple, and vanilla-caramel; three bars featuring dark chocolate with coffee-cocoa nibs, chili-lime, and spicy ginger; and one bar with white chocolate and a hint of poppy seeds and amaretto.