Dark Chocolate Truffles

Dark Chocolate Truffles (Vegan, Delicious)

I’m not really one for celebrating Valentine’s Day. I am, however, one for celebrating chocolate. And, in my book, any reason to make truffles is a good reason. I wanted something decadent and amazing, that has the smooth meltiness of a good truffle, minus the heavy whipping cream.  The best part about these? They taste amazing. The second best part? They are super easy to make. So go buy your favorite dark chocolate, it is time to share the love.

Ingredients

• 1 cup minus 1 tbsp full fat canned coconut milk (I like Native Forest best)
• 300g dark chocolate, chopped (I used a combination of 85%, 72%, and 69% dark chocolate)
• 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp Grand Marnier, optional but encouraged
• raw cacao powder and extra fine shredded coconut, for rolling

Directions

1. Make the ganache. Bring coconut milk to a boil.
2.  Meanwhile, in medium sized bowl combine chocolate, sea salt, vanilla, Grand Marnier. Melt your coconut oil.
3. Pour coconut milk into the bowl, add coconut oil, and whisk until chocolate is totally melted. Need more hot liquid to get all the chocolate melted? Don’t fret. Add a tsp of boiling water.
4. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 3-8 hours, or overnight.
5. Form the truffles. Now this is the fun part. Your hands are about to get really messy. Set up your work station: fill 2 small bowls with a tbsp of coconut and raw cacao. Cover a baking sheet with parchment or foil. Remove ganache from fridge.
6. Using a melon baller or teaspoon scoop out small amount of ganache and form into small balls. Since the ganache will be quite hard you will need to pinch it to make the rough shape of a circle, and then roll it between your hands to smooth it out. In the process, your hands will become covered with melted chocolate, you poor thing. You’ll have to lick some of it off. To prevent the melting situation from getting too extreme, you can run your hands under cold water every ten truffles or so to cool your hands off. Just make sure you dry them completely before forming more truffles.
7. Coating the truffles. You can use whatever you’d like to coat the truffle. I like the raw cacao on some, and extra fine shredded coconut on others. Crushed walnuts, almonds, or pecans would also be fabulous. If you want to go all superfoodie on me, you can roll them in goji powder. Instead of rolling the truffles in the bowls of coating, I usually place a pinch or two of coating in my hands and then roll the truffles between my palms. That seems to work best.
8. Devour.

These are best kept refrigerated and then brought out to room temperature about ten minutes before serving. They will keep, covered, in the fridge for about 5 days, but they won’t last that long.

This recipe makes about 30 medium truffles. I highly recommend doubling the recipe so you can share the chocolatey love with friends, family, and co-workers, because we all know the true meaning of Valentine’s Day is chocolate.

Note: Best served with wine, but you knew that.