Chestnut Truffles

Chestnut Truffles with medjool dates and dark chocolate, and dusted with cocoa powder or desiccated coconut, a healthy and delicious treat that is vegan, gluten free and low in calories. It's an excellent treat over the festive season when chestnuts are very popular, but also all year round.

With so many rich, overly indulgent treats that we have around Christmas time, some healthier bites sound like a great idea to me. Not that I mind all the delicious traditional festive dishes at all, but some lighter treats can be really welcome.

My chestnut truffles are made with vacuum packed, ready-cooked chestnuts as they are extremely versatile and ready to use, but you can also use roast chestnuts and use them instead.

For the sake of simplicity, I opted for the ready-roasted ones, as they are pretty economical and can give us a sweet treat in no time - it literally takes less than 5 minutes to put these truffles together.

Using ready-cooked chestnuts also means that you can enjoy these chestnut truffles throughout the year, and they are a great treat in January when a lot of people go for veganuary.

Dates are the binding agent here, the truffles would not hold together without them, so they cannot be skipped in this recipe. The dark chocolate gives them a rich touch, without adding too many calories, so a big win here.

Jump to:

• Ingredients needed
• Variations
• Step-by-step photos and instructions
• Expert tips
• Chestnut Truffles

Ingredients needed

• chestnuts - I used vacuum-packed, ready-roasted chestnuts
• dates - I had medjool dates, but any dates would do
• dark chocolate - I used 90% dark chocolate, but use any you like
• desiccated coconut and cocoa powder - for dusting the truffles

Variations

You can leave the dark chocolate out if you don't have any, the recipe will work without as well. Or you can swap the dark chocolate for any other chocolate of your choice.

Chestnuts can be swapped for cashew nuts, as in my Date Energy Balls which use just cashew nuts and dates, and are as delicious.

Step-by-step photos and instructions

1. Add the dark chocolate to a blender or food processor and blitz well to get a ground texture.
2. Add the chestnuts and pitted dates, and blitz again to get a smooth, sticky paste.
3. With wet hands, shape out balls from the chestnut mixtures, and have 2 bowls ready, one with cocoa powder, another one with desiccated coconut.
4. Roll the truffle either into the cocoa powder or coconut.

Expert tips

Make sure you have wet hands before shaping out the truffles, as the chestnut mixture is pretty sticky, and it would be hard otherwise to have neat balls.

It also helps with the desiccated coconut sticking better to the truffles, the cocoa powder is pretty easy to stick.

The truffles last very well at room temperature for a few dates - if they are not consumed beforehand, they really are delicious!

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