A Word of Advice, and Scrumdiddlyumptious Truffles

I’m back! Phew, I am so so SO relieved – after some serious computer woes – to be online again. Listen, I’ll tell you this for free. If you learn anything at all from me this year, let it be this. (It has nothing to do with food.) Here we go…

Back. Up. Your. Computer. Files.

That’s it, sounds simple, but lots of us never (or hardly ever) do it. I could have saved myself a large amount of angst last week if I’d been onto it with backups. So my New Year’s resolution is a no-brainer.

But we’re not there yet (New Year). It’s silly season, and silly season to me means many things, including catching up with people who we don’t get to see very often, sharing good food and the odd vino. I love having some little treats ready for when people pop around. Especially truffles. So of course I had to design some plant-based, raw, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan ones. That makes it sound like they’d be no fun at all, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think we’d be seriously stretching it to call these healthy – but they do have some great ingredients in them, they’re absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious, and they make fantastic gifts. Like many great recipes, they were invented when another recipe (chocolate icing for a slice recipe) failed. These are pretty addictive – don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Scrumdiddlyumptious Truffles

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 tablespoon almond butter/cashew butter

3/4 cup cacao or quality cocoa powder (I used Equagold), sifted

1/4 cup ground chia seeds

Flavours: 1/2 teaspoon freeze-dried raspberry/strawberry or passionfruit powder (I used Fresh As)

1/4 cup dried fruit (optional; currants or goji berries are good)

To decorate: shredded coconut, extra freeze-dried berry powder, or finely chopped/ground nuts

Gently melt coconut oil and maple syrup together and stir in nut butter. Place cacao/cocoa powder and ground chia seeds in food processor or blender, and slowly pour in combined coconut oil, maple syrup and nut butter. Mix on low speed until well combined, then stir in (by hand) your choice of flavouring and dried fruit (see below for suggested flavour combinations). Mix well.

Place mixture in fridge for around 20 minutes, until firm enough to handle. In the meantime, prepare materials for rolling truffles. You will need the garnish in a shallow dish (chop/grind nuts if using), a teaspoon or melon scoop, a bowl of cold water to keep hands/utensils moist, and a tray lined with baking paper.

When mixture is solid enough to be rolled into balls with wet hands, get working fast. Use a heaped teaspoon of mixture per truffle. Roll and coat each truffle in garnish, then place on tray and refrigerate until set. If mixture has become too firm to handle, allow it to sit at room temperature again for a few minutes. It’s a messy job – embrace the mess!

Notes: Makes around 25 small truffles (if you don’t accidentally eat too much mixture during the production process!). Must be kept refrigerated.

Particularly good flavour combinations:

Raspberry powder and a couple of drops of lime juice, rolled in strawberry or raspberry powder

Passionfruit powder and goji berries, rolled in ground pistachio nuts

Strawberry powder and currants, rolled in shredded coconut

Let me know if you come up with an especially wonderful flavour combination of your own!

There is a printable version of the recipe here.

 In other news, in the next day or so I’ll be sending out the last Nibl mailing list newsletter for 2013. There’s going to be a pre-Christmas deal running for workshop/demo tickets and gift vouchers, only available to those on the mailing list. So if you’re thinking of coming to an event next year, or want to shout someone else a gift voucher, you might want to hop on over here and fill in the boxes quick-smart!