This recipe makes 50 bite sized mole truffles
Ingredients
250g raw almond butter
50g pumpkin seeds – soaked, rinsed and dehydrated
75g raisins + 100g soak water
50g maple syrup
2 tsp tamari
1 1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds – ground in a mortar and pestle
2 ancho chilis – de-seeded and soaked with the raisins
2 tsp chipotle pepper – de-seeded and roughly chopped
35g cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla extract or powder
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tbsp cinnamon powder
pinch cayenne pepper or smoked hot paprika (optional)
225g dark chocolate / high quality raw dark chocolate of your choice, melted
Method
- Soak the chipotle, anchos and raisins in enough water to cover for 4 hours or until soft.
- In the Vitamix, combine all ingredients (including the soak water) except the melted chocolate and blend like fury, using the tamper stick to help you. Don’t add more liquid as it will change the recipe completely in the end, however if you choose to add more liquid then you will need to also add a bit more chocolate to keep the consistency right.
- Turn the mix out into a large mixing bowl, pour in the melted chocolate and whisk it all to combine. At this stage you could also add some textures, like cacao nibs or chopped pumpkin seeds, if you wanted textured truffles
- Cover with cling film, press the film right on top of the mix so it doesn’t create a skin while it cools. Set in the fridge or freezer. Best thing to do is leave it in the fridge overnight as this allows it to slowly set and the flavours will develop more, in fact, over the coming days the flavors will continue to develop.
- Finally, with cacao dusted hands, roll the truffles into balls.
- You can eat them just as is, dusted in cacao powder out of the fridge or freezer, or you can enrobe them.
To Enrobe – click here for a step by step video on how to enrobe
Using pre-made chocolate
- Choose a chocolate that you enjoy. Health-wise, the darker, the better. I even use 100% cacao paste sometimes as the cake is so sweet, the thin chocolate shell doesn’t need to be.
- Chop it up into small pieces—the smaller they are, the faster they will melt. Pop 1/2 of the pieces into a stainless steel mixing bowl.
- Fill a sauce pot about 1 inch with water.
- Put the bowl of chocolate on top; the bowl should not touch the water or it can burn the chocolate.
- Bring water to a simmer and stir the chocolate constantly, over a low simmer, until it has melted evenly.
- Once the chocolate is melted, remove from the bowl from on top of the pot and add the remaining 1/2 of the chocolate you chopped up.
- Stir that chocolate through until it’s all melted.
- The truffles shouldn’t be straight out of the freezer—if they have been frozen, allow to come to cool room temp before enrobing. If they are coming right from the fridge, let them sit at room temp for 10 mins before enrobing.
- Set yourself up so that the cake balls are set to your left (reverse if you are left-handed). Put a fork and your bowl of melted chocolate in front of you, and a tray lined with greaseproof or a Teflex lined dehydrator tray is set to your right.
- Drop one truffle into the bowl of chocolate.
- Use your fork to push it into the chocolate and then fish it out—avoid dragging it up the side of the bowl.
- Tap the fork on the side of the bowl and swipe the bottom of the fork along the edge of the bowl to remove excess chocolate.
- For aesthetic reasons, take your time to ensure you have removed as much excess as possible, otherwise you will end up with a puddle under your finished truffle.
- Drop your enrobed truffle onto the prepared sheet.
- If your chocolate starts to get too thick while you are working with it, simply give it a tiny bit of heat on the double boiler ( or in your dehydrator ) again as before, just to loosen it up.
- Once all truffles are enrobed and garnished, set the tray in the fridge for about 5 minutes and then allow to set the remainder of the way at room temp.
