Starting off this year with a lovely, light, easy recipe. Truffles are a dessert pretty much everyone loves, and they can be decorated in many different ways, thus adjusted to any occasion or celebration you might have. Cinnamon and honey are a combination I've learnt to love only recently, but it works fantastically with the deep cocoa flavour.
One other good thing about these truffles is that they can be very easily made completely vegan - by using plant-based milk, agave syrup, and vegan butter, of course. As for the decoration, I went with the icing sugar decoration, but you can decorate in any way you wish. They are really delicious coated in dark chocolate, but milk chocolate works really well, too.
Ingredients
100 grams high quality unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla
50 ml whole milk
3 tablespoons raw honey
75 grams unsalted butter, divided
Preparation
Sift the cocoa powder with the cinnamon, and set it aside. Take a heavy-bottomed saucepan, and pour in the milk, along with the honey. Place the saucepan over medium-high heat, and cook, without stirring, until the honey dissolves in the milk. Add in 50 grams of butter, and keep stirring so it does not burn. Make sure the mixture does not come to a boil. Once the butter has melted, remove from the heat, and add in the cocoa powder, and the vanilla. Stir with a sturdy spatula or a wooden spoon until the batter comes together. It will seem very dry at this point.
Add in the remaining butter, and mix to combine. Once everything is well-blended, let the batter cool down to room temperature, then place it in the refrigerator for an hour. It will firm up considerably, but that is fine. When the mixture has cooled and set, remove it from the refrigerator, and cut it with a sharp knife into 16 equal pieces. You can knead it briefly, so the heat from your hands melts it slightly, and makes it more pliable, but that is not mandatory. Roll each portion into a truffle, and then decorate the truffles to your liking. Serve well-chilled. Yields 16 truffles.
