Pistachio Macadamia White Chocolate Truffles

It is with great pleasure that I bring to you the best vegan truffles I've ever tasted.

I spent years trying to make white chocolate. Tracking down food grade cocoa butter in the UK was hard enough and eventually involved pretending to run a chocolatiers, setting up an account with a commercial supplier and paying the small order fee of £25. When I had the ingredients I made quite a few of what can best be described (and were subsequently used as) deliciously tasting massage bars - not chocolate.

Organica was a major let down for me. Some people love it, but it's not a great substitute IMHO. The dairy free white buttons that have surfaced recently however are awesome.

I've made several things with them so far and a few nights ago attempted a cashew cream ganache for another recipe I'm working on. It sort of worked, but wasn't as good as I hoped. I decided last night on the way home from work to try making macadamia cream instead, something I've not heard of before but hoped would work better.

As such I ended up making macadamia ganache which worked extremely well. I wanted to add another dimension - a bit of crunch, crack and complimentary flavour. Thus they got rolled in dark chocolate then lightly toasted, chopped pistachios.

Ingredients:

• 75g White Chocolate Buttons
• 75g Macadamia Nuts
• 100ml Water
• 75g Dark Chocolate
• 50g Pistachio Nuts

Soak the macadamia nuts overnight in water. This will make them softer and easier to blend. I should mention that this is a wasteful recipe - I needed to use at least this quantity for my my mini food processor to work properly. It does mean however that you can use this amount of macadamia cream to make more truffles.

Blend the drained macadamias with 100ml of water in a mini food processor until you have a mixture that looks a lot like cottage cheese. Transfer to another container and use an immersion blender to get it as smooth as possible.

Strain the mixture through a sieve to remove the larger pieces. Discard the nuts that do not pass through the sieve or find another use for. You should now have a mixture looking like the bellow, which has only fine grit left in it:

Melt 75g white chocolate gently in a microwave (4 mins at 50% in my 850w, stiring halfway through). Mix 25g of the macadamia cream with it and place in the freezer for several minutes, then move to the fridge.

Finely chop the pistachio nuts (rocking a large, sharp chef's knife back and forth over them is much quicker and far safer than using a small knife) and toast for 30 seconds under a hot grill on a baking sheet.

When the ganache has firmed up divide it into 7 or 8 spoonfulls. Roll each in your hands into smooth balls. You find that washing your hands in very cold water first (and drying) helps keep them cool and the surface smooth.

Place the balls in the fridge to firm up. Melt the dark chocolate and if you know how/can be arsed (I couldn't) temper the chocolate after. Tempering will help the chocolate set quicker and give a pleasing crack when bitten into. It also gives chocolate its shine, however as we're coating it this won't be appreciated.

Dip each ball in the melted chocolate and roll in the pistachios. Truffle dipping forks like the one in the photo cost less than a quid in cookware shops and are very useful, but you can use a fork if you've not got one yet (hint hint).

Ensure that you get the balls fully coated in chocolate and that you let excess drain away before coating. After rolling you may find that sprinkling extra pistachio on the surface and pushing gently helps get a full coat.

So many ideas to try and so little time. I am genuinely extremely pleased with how these turned out however and will certainly be making a larger batch next time.