Truffles, Macaroons, NZ, Oh My!

In May I found myself across the pond in a land of sheep and greener pastures (for real, these pastures were fantastically green, lovely rolling hills too, just a stunning place). I didn't have my usual pantry items to turn to when snacking struck, but I managed to find some terribly expensive coconut oil, cocoa powder and lovely Manuka honey that came with me everywhere in my travels. It's no secret that I'm addicted to Chocolate. Or if it was a secret, it was a really boring secret. Anyway, one day while working (yes, working on vacation) I was struck by a snacking desire and rummaged through the food bag to see what I could concoct. This is what I had:

Quite solid coconut oil (no central heating in NZ)
Raw cocoa powder
Manuka honey
'Port of Russel' NZ dessert wine / "port"
Cinnamon
Himalayan sea salt with kelp

So I mixed these things together in a bowl and they made a tasty frosting-consistency bowl snack.



The following week I made this again, but added only a dash of dessert wine, this time an NZ Gewurztraminer Riesling and some thin, long dried coconut shreds. They made perfect instant macaroons. The trick is to only add a teaspoon or less of the dessert wine and mix well and if you need more, add a touch, but too much will make them too soft and gooey.






The following week I tried making them without the coconut shreds and the result was beautiful truffles.

Here is the general break down of the stuff:

NZ Chocolate Honey Truffles

All ingredients are approximate.

½ - ¾ cup coconut oil (cold, but any hard nubs broken with a spoon or fork. you don't want it to melt at all, just make it more combine-able with the other ingredients, like you would soften/whip butter with a fork)
½ cup cocoa powder
2-4 tbsp raw honey
couple generous pinches of sea salt
dash of cinnamon
dessert wine (start with 1 tsp and add more if needed after stirring thoroughly)

Mix all ingredients together into fairly stiff batter. Form into balls and coat in cinnamon, cocoa, coconut flakes, chili, or whatever you want. If the balls are too soft to roll, place the batter in the fridge for a bit to stiffen, then take out and roll (about 1 tbsp per ball)

Cinnamon & Chipotle Chili Powder for Rolling








Place in fridge to harden. If you use too much coconut oil they will be really stiff after refrigeration, but it's all a matter of trial and error, my recipes aren't exactly accurate - I just dump the ingredients from the bags into the bowl and mix. Sorry about that.

Yum Yum!