As the days becoming shorter and the air chillier, the idea of treating yourself to a nice bit of good chocolate seems more appealing than ever. And the darker the better in my book - 100% cocoa chocolate, bring it on!
And yet, I'm not quite into biting into a pure, 100% cocoa solid all the time, so I'd turn it into something a little more palatable - a lot of times dark, chocolate-y chocolate cake, and sometimes chocolate truffles like these. Here, in addition to using sugar- and other additive-free chocolate as an ingredient, the truffles themselves are altogether sugar-free.
The recipe is from Love, Eric: Delicious Vegan Macrobiotic Desserts (Eric Lechasseur, Mugen, 2005). Like all other beautifully-presented, tempting desserts that appear in this book, these chocolate truffles do not use sugar or dairy products, not to mention yucky chemical-loaded ingredients. Instead, they are sweetened with rice and barley malt syrups. set with a help of soy milk and agar, shaped with my own hands (that is why they look so clumsy!), and rolled in pure cocoa powder and roasted chopped hazelnuts. Not sounding very convincing? Well, you have to give it a try yourself, and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I would have had them with a nice cup of strong espresso had I had the choice, but today I made myself some thick green tea instead. I pretty much followed the recipe all the way, but it would also be nice infused with spices or other flavors. In fact, the book offers some interesting combinations of flavors such as Watermelon Thyme Granite and Blueberry and Pine Nut Pie, in addition to straightforward classics such as Tart Tatin and Tiramisu. I've tried a fair share of recipes from the book, which haven't made it to this blog as of yet... maybe sometime, hopefully.
While these truffles eventually made me a little treat for a quiet tea time in the hazy Saturday afternoon, I actually made them to personally celebrate some great news I got today; not that I could actually bring these to them, yet I still wanted to congratulate them, even if it may be nothing but self-complacent and practically insignificant. All for the best.
6 comments:
hello chika! they look charming and delicious, and the book sounds intriguing.
congratulations on your good news, whatever it may be!
Ah, so they are not actually sugar free, just white-sugar free. Sugar by any other name and all that... Still, treacles and syrups do have their own delicious taste to add to the flavour of truffles so I am sure these taste even better than they look! (I think they look lovely, and all the better for not being perfectly spherical!)
Yummy! Who doesn't love truffles.
Stunning photo!
Lovely looking Truffles!
~ Siri
Thanks all for your comments and kind words!
Kiriel du Papillon - it's tricky to define what really is "sugar-free", as most commercially available products labelled as sugar-free aren't free from sugar (as glucose), and even fruits and vegetables contain natural sugar. I simply mentioned that the truffles were not made using regular, processed cane/beet sugar (treacles are made from sugar canes; rice and barley malt syrups aren't). So even if it doesn't mean the truffles were free of glucose or suitable as low-GI food, I still think it safe to call them "sugar-free" here, and I'm not making any dietary endorsement or recommendation.
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