Chocolate Orange Truffles - Bakemas Day 13

Move over Terry’s chocolate orange there’s a new kid in town!
I’ve become a little too fixated on truffle making recently, I want to make every flavour! I already have quite a few fully formed recipes in my head that I should probably wait to try out and maybe space them out a little in between other food. Although a week of truffle recipes is not the worst idea...

Did your mum always put a chocolate orange in your stocking? I feel like every Christmas there’s always a chocolate orange somewhere in the house so I thought it was only right I made “healthy” chocolate orange truffles. They're dairy free and almost refined sugar free which are kind of music to my ears right now, I did coat them with chocolate (it's dark chocolate though!) but they’re pretty close and you can always opt for the heavy coating of cocoa powder instead. At least these might lighten the load a little for Christmas, although these are disappearing very quickly so I guess I’ll be making more before then.

The real test with these types of things is my dad, he’s always very...cautious when I get him to try a new recipe and the first thing he says to me is why what’s in it that I don’t like. Well, I think I won him over with these, I feel like I could semi confidently say he’s a full supporter of date truffles now which is kind of a big deal and he even said I should make more for Christmas so I think these were more than successful.


You will need
210g/1½ cups dates
Zest of a clementine + ½ clementine
4 tbsp cocoa powder
150g dark chocolate (optional)

Put the dates in a food processor and blend until it forms a smooth paste.
Add in the zest of a whole clementine plus half of the clementine segments into the food processor and blend until smooth.
Add in the cocoa powder and blend once more until everything is incorporated.
Spoon the mixture into a bowl and refrigerate until it’s firmed and less tacky, alternatively you can pop it in the freezer which will be a little quicker.
Roll the mixture into balls and refrigerate to firm up.
Melt the chocolate and coat the balls and put back in the fridge to set.
If you want to go for the slightly healthier option roll the balls straight in cocoa powder and skip dipping them in chocolate.
Sprinkle on cocoa powder, clementine zest or leave plain. Store in the fridge or freezer depending on preference.

Makes 16