Healthy chocolate truffles – vegan, gluten free

I’ve got a bit of foodie’s block.  I have an opened tin of chickpeas in the fridge and I just can’t decide what to do with them.  Deciding what do to for breakfast is a big deal: oats, buckwheat or quinoa, or shall I have a smoothie?  Banana or melon.  It’s not that I don’t have any ideas – I have loads, but not one idea is exciting me.

Thankfully for this blog, I saw a good friend yesterday, and I always take her a treat.  I can usually rise to a challenge.  I had an idea for chocolate truffles a while back when another friend was poorly.  I made them with nuts, cocoa powder, amongst other things, but when I took them round to her they were all melty.  They tasted lovely, but I wanted something that could be transported without a health warning – you will get very messy eating these.  So I decided to try again.

I knew I wanted these to be a healthy version of chocolate truffles.  I made some when I was younger which were full of double cream, chocolate and booze.  I wanted the base to be sweet potato.  I’ve made sweet potato chocolate cake – or was it brownies? – and they were really good.  When you roast a sweet potato the flesh is velvety-smooth, sweet and delicious.  And also really healthy!

Another thing that goes velvety-smooth is cashew nuts.  If you soak them for an hour or two and whizz them up in the blender they create a really rich nut ‘butter’.  Of course, I needed to chocolate-i-fy them, it goes without saying that I would use raw cacao powder. The packet says that “Cacao is the food of the gods”, the number one source of magnesium, and an incredible source of antioxidants.  Everyone knows the mood boosting effects of chocolate, and this powder is rich in seratonin and anandamide –  what is anadamide? I hear you cry (or maybe that was just me) it is a chemical compound, the name of which taken from a Sanskrit word meaning “bliss or delight”.  I’m happy with that already!

chocolate truffles

They still needed something more, so I put in some dates and a little cocoa butter to solidify the mix.  I coated them in homemade chocolate to try and keep them together.  Cocoa butter has a higher melting point than coconut oil, so I hoped that would stop them from melting too much.  They were still more squidgy than I hoped for – but maybe that’s what you really want in a chocolate truffle.

Healthy chocolate truffles

• 80g raw cashew nuts
• 150g cooked sweet potato flesh (without skin) I recommend roasting a whole sweet potato and using the flesh
• 80g dates
• 10g raw cacao powder
• 1 tsp cocoa butter
• Flavourings of your choice – vanilla, cinnamon, almond extract etc

1. Start by soaking your cashew nuts for 1-2 hours.  They will visibly swell.
2. In a food processor, pulse all the ingredients together to create a paste.
3. Chill the ingredients (if you have time) and then create your chocolate truffles.  I made 12, but you can have them as big or as small as you like.  Heck, you can eat all the mixture as it is – I won’t tell…I’m not judging 🙂
4. Pop them in the freezer for 15 minutes, while you create the chocolate coating

Chocolate Coating

Using an adaption on the recipe from Raw Foods

• 25g cocoa butter
• 25g coconut butter
• 25g raw cacao powder
• agave syrup, honey, or maple syrup, to taste (I didn’t use any)

Melt the butters together, then stir in the cacao powder and sweetener.  Take your chilled truffles and roll them about in the chocolate coating one at a time.  When you’ve done them all you could give them a second coat, and roll them in some toppings: chopped nuts, cacao powder, dessicated coconut etc would all work very well!

Enjoy!

truffles in a jar

Do you ever get food-block?  Do you have any go-to recipes for these occasions?

Tagged: cacao powder, cashew, chocolate, chocolate truffles, cocoa butter, coconut butter, dates, gluten free, sweet potato, vegan