Set a medium size saucepan on a low-medium heat, and add the heavy cream, chili, cardamom, and cinnamon. Give the pan a good stir, and let it just barely — and I mean just barely — come to the boil. As soon as that happens, drop the heat to low.

You’re aiming here to slowly bring the cream almost to the boil, then, with the heat on low, for it to just simmer very gently for 5 minutes. You want that simmer to be no more than just visible on the surface of the cream. The watchword here is gentle. Give it too much heat and the cream is liable to ‘split’ as the fat separates. And that must not happen.

Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 30 minutes. Give the pan a few stirs while it’s standing to encourage the chili, cardamom, and cinnamon to release their flavors into the cream.

After 30 minutes, strain the cream into a jug through a fine sieve, and discard the spices and chili. Use a sieve that’s fine enough to ensure that only the flavor-infused cream drains into your jug. Time now to start melting the chocolate.

For this, you’ll need a heat-proof bowl that’s easily big enough to take all the chocolate and all the cream. And you’ll need a saucepan that will hold the bowl so that its base sits about half-way above the bottom of the pan. Good.

Now fill the pan around one-third full with boiling water — but not so full that the water can touch the bottom of your heat-proof bowl. Set the pan on a low heat that just keeps the water barely bubbling. Now rest the bowl in the pan and add the chocolate. You’ll find that it starts to melt in the bowl almost immediately. Give the chocolate a few stirs until its completely melted — that’ll probably take about two minutes or so.

Keep the heat on low — so the water is just moving — and stir in the cream. It’ll take a few minutes of slow stirring to completely combine the cream with the chocolate. And slow stirring matters here because you don’t want the mix to fill with air bubbles — so, stir thoroughly but gently. That’s it, you’ve made your ganache. Turn off the heat and set the bowl aside so that the ganache can start cooling.

After the ganache has cooled for about 15 minutes, set the bowl in your refrigerator for 45 minutes. And now’s a good time to make your praline coatings.

For this, you’ll need a big, heavy-based skillet. I used a 12-inch one that’s about 2 inches deep. Set the skillet on a low-medium heat and add the flaked almonds. You’re looking to toast the occasionally stirred almonds in the skillet so that they start to take on a pale golden color.

Take some care with this — those almond flakes will begin to color surprisingly quickly after about 90 seconds on that low-medium heat. If you’re not watchful with your stirring, they’ll burn and be ruined.

So, the instant the flakes turn a pale gold, sprinkle the caster sugar evenly all over them — but do not stir the skillet. That’s worth repeating — do not stir the sugar into the almonds — just sprinkle it on.

Keep the heat on low-medium — no stirring — and after maybe 90 seconds or so, you’ll see that the sugar is starting to melt. That’s grand — but still no stirring. Again, you need to be watchful here. As soon as you see that all the sugar has melted into the almonds — and caramelized to a dark, golden color — remove the skillet from the heat.

Now give the skillet a good stirring, so that the almonds get coated with the still-molten sugar. Pour the lot onto a big dinner plate that’s easily big enough to hold all the contents of the skillet. Praline done. All you need to do now is let it cool and set hard. That’ll take about 40 minutes.

Once the mix has completely cooled and set, you’ll have a disk of shiny, darkly golden praline that will slip straight from the plate. It’ll be brittle, and ready to be ground, piece-by-piece, to a fine-ish consistency in your pestle and mortar.

Now divide your ground praline into two bowls — one bowl for about two-thirds of the mix, and another bowl for the remaining third of the mix.

That two-thirds of the mix is going to be used — as it is — to coat half of your truffles. The other third is going to be mixed with the chopped white chocolate — to coat the second batch of your truffles.

Once the ganache has been chilling in your refrigerator for its 45 minutes, you’ll find it has turned pretty firm. That’s grand. Time now to start rolling and coating your truffles.

For this, I use one hand to form lumps of the ganache into balls about three-quarters the size of a golf ball — roughly 1 ¼ inches in diameter. It’s easy to do this in the palm of one hand, mainly using your thumb and forefinger with a little guiding help from your middle digit.

Other than forming fairly uniform balls, this hand-rolling warms the surface of the ganache balls, turning it nicely sticky. And a slightly gooey surface is precisely what you want — so the coatings will readily stick to the balls.

I coat the balls as I form them, using my non-chocolatey hand to roll the balls in the coating.

Set the coated truffles on a big plate, and once they’re all coated, pop the plate into your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving them.