Vegan Truffles in 3 Flavours: Tahini Temptress, Paprika Paradise and Strawberry Gum Seduction

This is our second contribution to the Death By Chocolate Blog Hop - as the fabulous hostesses were very kind and allowed that we could have a special consideration for this hop and post one recipe each (since we have 2 authors on this blog). This was a huge relief really because chocolate is probably my favourite thing ever and if I had had to fight K-bobo for it things would have got messy (in a melted chocolate everywhere kind of way - kind of like they did anyway.... as you'll see from pics below).

K-bobo has already contributed the incredible Black Forest Shots to the hop, so I thought I would go with a more traditional way to die consuming chocolate - decadent creamy truffles. There really is no end to the flavour combinations you can create with truffles, and they take little effort whilst looking and tasting mighty fine. K-bobo came up with the frankly genius idea of smoky paprika truffles, and I just couldn’t resist trying my new strawberry gum (the ground leaves of a eucalyptus tree with an amazing strawberry passionfruit flavour) and combining two of my favourite things: tahini and chocolate. And the result? These truffles pretty much Blew.My.Mind.

Strawberry gum might seem like a bit of an obscure ingredient, but it can be bought from some fruit and vegie shops or quite easily online here at Herbie's Spices. Trust me it is well worth getting - the flavour and the aroma are incredible

Ingredients:

250g of dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
¼ cup of soy milk
¾ tsp of ground strawberry gum
¾ tsp of smoky paprika
2 Tbsp of unhulled tahini
¼ cup of toasted sesame seeds, for coating
Cocoa powder and sweet paprika for dusting.

How to make:

1. Heat the soymilk in a small saucepan until small bubbles appear and steam rises off the pan.
2. Take off heat, add chocolate and stir vigorously until the chocolate has melted and the ganache is smooth.
3. Divide the ganache into three small containers/bowls or as I used, ramekins:
4. Add the smoky paprika to one of the containers and stir until combined. Add the strawberry gum to the second container and stir until combined. Leave the third as it is, cover the containers and chill in the fridge for eight hours or overnight.
5. Time to roll some truffles!

Strawberry Gum Seductress:
Remove strawberry gum ganache from the fridge. Place about ¼ cup of cocoa powder on a small bowl, and using a teaspoon or a melon baller (these are perfect!), place a spoonful of the ganache into the cocoa, tossing it in the cocoa until covered. Then dust your palms with some of the cocoa and roll the ganache piece into a ball, and place on a serving plate/whatever plate you like. Repeat until you run out of ganache.

Paprika Paradise:
follow the instructions above, adding 1 tsp of smoky paprika to the dusting cocoa. When the smoky paprika truffles are rolled, sprinkle the tops with some sweet paprika for colour and added flavour.

Tahini Temptress:
Now we get to the double sesame amazingness! K-bobo perfected the technique for these, so I’ve included step by step photos of her making them like a champion. First, toast your sesame seeds in a small pan, stirring them over a low heat until browned, and transfer them to a small bowl. Allow to cool completely. Then dust your palms with a little cocoa and take a spoonful of the mixture, this time without dusting it in cocoa. With your fingers, mould the spoonful of mixture into a pancake shape, like this:

Then get a pea sized amount of tahini and place it in the middle, like this:

Now carefully fold in the edges of the ganache until it is sealed, and very gently roll into a ball with your palms (your palms will get pretty chocolaty with these!). Lastly, place the rolled truffle in the bowl with the toasted sesame seeds and gently roll until covered in seeds. By the end of making of making the double sesame truffles, your hands should look like this (cue chocolaty jazz hands!):

8. Enjoy your truffles!

Makes approx. 35 truffles