Chocolate truffles

‘My truffles – or ‘ruffles’ as they are known by the children – are easy-on-the-eye balls of delight that literally take minutes to make. Dairy-free, gluten-free, and free from refined sugar, they’re packed full of good things like nuts, cacao and coconut oil. And best of all, they taste utterly divine. Seriously, seriously delicious.’ This gorgeous recipe is courtesy of Jess from The Mother-in-Law’s Kitchen , a food blog full of exquisite recipes and beautiful photography. Prep time: 50 mins Total time: 50 mins Ingredients (m akes 20 balls): TRUFFLE BASE (Makes 300g or approximately 15-20 balls) 50g raw cacao paste, roughly chopped (a good quality 85% dark chocolate will do just fine) 50g ground nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, or a mix) 50g freshly hulled nuts, skins on (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazils, whatever you fancy) 100g Medjool dates, pitted and roughly chopped 3 tablespoons maple syrup/honey 3 tablespoons of melted coconut oil TRUFFLE BLEND (Each blend recipe is for 100g of the base mixture. Just double, triple etc if you want to use more) LIME AND COCONUT(per 100g of base mixture) Zest of 1/2 lime Juice of 1/2 lime Coating: unsweetened desiccated (shredded or flaked) coconut SALTED VANILLA AND CARDAMOM (per 100g of base mixture) 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt Ground seeds of 2 green cardamom pods (crushed in a pestle and mortar, seeds ground to a powder and outer pod husks removed) 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla essence Coating: raw cacao powder/cocoa powder RASPBERRY (per 100g of base mixture) A handful of fresh raspberries, in season (otherwise, skip this part) Coating: raspberry powder Instructions: Place all the ingredients for the truffle base in a food blender and blitz until the mixture comes together to form a paste. Divide the mixture into 3 portions of 100g, if you are using each of the blends to make a truffle selection. Otherwise, divide as you wish or don’t divide at all if you are sticking to one flavour. For lime and coconut truffles, thoroughly mix in the zest and juice of half a lime using a fork. For the salted vanilla and cardamom truffles, mix in the ground cardamom seeds, the sea salt, and the vanilla. Stir well with a fork. You don’t need to do anything yet for the raspberry truffles… It’s all about the finishing touches. Refrigerate each mix for 30 minutes. Remove from the fridge and, using damp hands, take tablespoon-sized amounts of each mix and roll into balls, remembering which blend is which. NB: If you choose to make the raspberry truffles using fresh raspberries, you can flatten the tablespoon-sized dollop of truffle mix and place a raspberry in the centre, before rolling the mix around the red berry. This way each raspberry truffle has a whole fresh raspberry seated within, which is, well, divine. Sprinkle a heap of each of the coatings onto individual plates. Roll the lime and coconut truffles in the desiccated coconut, the salted vanilla and cardamom truffles in the cacoa/cocoa powder, and the raspberry truffles in the raspberry powder. You can serve these straight away or carefully store them for at least a week in an airtight container in the fridge. Even better, they freeze really well and, here at The Mother-in-Law’s House, we have been known to nibble one straight from the freezer. 3.2.1255