Chocolate Truffles

These truffles are the perfect pick-me-up snack when you’re feeling like something sweet. They’re easy to make and keep for a long time, making them the perfect dessert to store in your freezer for unexpected company – if you can resist them long enough. I'm not proud to admit it, but I’ve been known to eat these truffles for breakfast.

CHOCOLATE DATE TRUFFLES

Ingredients:

15 large dates, pitted

1 cup raw almonds, chopped

5 tbsp. cocoa powder

2 tbsp. coconut oil, room temperature

2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate

Optional Flavoring Suggestions:

Orange Juice/Zest

Coffee Extract

Mint Extract

Hazelnut Extract

Suggested Toppings:

Unsweetened Shredded Coconut

Cocoa Powder

Chai Powder

Rolled Oats

Mixed Nuts

In a small double boiler**, melt the baking chocolate and coconut oil. In a food processor, mix the dates until they form a gooey paste. Add the almonds, cocoa powder, and melted chocolate and coconut oil to the food processor and mix until combined. Add any optional flavorings. Remove the food processor’s blade and place in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Then, form 15-20 small round balls in your hands and coat each truffle with one of the suggested toppings. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes before serving. 

**If you don’t have a double boiler, boil water in a small pot and place a medium-sized metal bowl on top of the pot. Place the chocolate in the bowl and allow it to melt. Using the double boiler method allows you to melt chocolate without it burning or seizing.**

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Cannoli

There are some foods that I’ve always loved, but have been terrified of making for myself. Whether it’s French macarons or sprouted bread, I’ll gladly shell out money for someone else to take the trouble to beat egg whites until their arms hurt or lord over a farm of sprouting wheat berries and lentils.

            There’s also the issue of “healthifying” these recipes. Often, the ingredients that we want to change are the ones that give the dish its defining characteristics. I mean, have you ever tried to make sugar-free, vegan marshmallows? (It goes about as well as you might expect.)           

So naturally, we thought that making cannolis would go down in same disastrous way. And since buying premade shells was obviously out of the question, we had resigned ourselves to live cannoli-free for the rest of our lives.

So you can imagine our surprise and delight when we found this recipe with easy to follow, step-by-step instructions on how to create those delicious, flaky shells. The following recipes are not complicated, but the assembly takes a little bit of finesse. Our best advice is to invest in a stainless-steel cannoli shell form. It’ll cost you no more than 6 dollars on Amazon and (unlike us) you’ll save yourself from breathing toxic plastic fumes all night (the things we’ll do in pursuit of the perfect picture). If you’re dying to try these sugar-free cannolis and just can’t wait for the UPS guy to arrive, cut the dough into small chips, deep fry them, and use the mascarpone filling as a delicious dip.

Atlantis wanted to make a cameo.

CANNOLI

INGREDIENTS

CRUST

1 1/3 cups white flour

2 tbsp. butter

1 pinch salt

white wine (sweet or dry)

vegetable oil

FILLING

16 oz. mascarpone cheese

18 dates

1 tsp. almond extract

3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, minced

METHOD

CRUST (Adapted from Food.com)

In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour, butter, and salt. Add enough wine to create a stiff but workable dough. Roll the dough into a ball and let it stand for about 1 hour.

After 1 hour, roll the dough until it’s ¼ inch thick. Cut the dough into 5x5 inch squares. Place the tube in the diagonal middle of the square and wrap one corner around the tube, then wrap the other so it overlaps the first. Press to seal the seam.

Pan-fry each shell until golden brown, turning as necessary to keep any one side from burning. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely before removing shell from the tube. Fill with mascarpone cheese.

FILLING

In a food processor, blend dates into a paste. Add almond extract and mascarpone cheese and pulse until smooth. In a medium bowl, mix the cheese with the minced baking chocolate. Fill shells.

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Chocolate Beet Cake

First off, we’d like to apologize from our long hiatus from The Two Pears. Ever since Julia went back to school, it’s been hard for us to figure out a system to cook, photograph, edit, and write collaboratively while we’re 100 miles away from each other.

But this weekend, we took a trip back to New York to celebrate our Dad’s birthday. Since we were finally in the same kitchen, we took advantage of it and cooked and photographed for three days straight. So get ready for a ton of Two Pears posts in the coming weeks!

We made this cake for the first time after I came home from Copenhagen. We were celebrating Poppy’s 93^rd birthday and all of us were craving something rich and chocolaty. My mind immediately went to Green Kitchen Stories’ Chocolate Beet Cake, a recipe I had wanted to try since I first saw it back in April. When Mom suggested a chocolate mascarpone frosting to glaze the top, we needed no more convincing.

This cake is actually such a hit among people of all food preferences that we’ve made it many times since Poppy’s birthday. Last month, I made one for my housemates and even my pickiest friends were instantly obsessed with the moist, dense chocolate cake and its rich, creamy chocolate frosting. They didn’t even care when I revealed the cake’s secret: 2 full cups of shredded beets.

We’ve kept our recipe pretty similar to the original, but we’ve replaced the maple syrup with dates and added some ground oats. Making the cake vegan is easy too! Just replace the 3 eggs with ¾ cup of unsweetened applesauce and 1 ½ extra tsp. of baking powder.

So next time you have to make a cake for any reason, remember this recipe. Your guests will thank you as they come back for seconds.

GKS’S CHOCOLATE BEET CAKE

2/3 cup safflower oil/olive oil/coconut oil

10 dates

3 oz. baking chocolate (unsweetened)

2 cups raw beets

3 eggs

1 cup whole wheat flour

½ rolled oats

2 tsp. baking powder

5 tbsp. cacao powder

zest and juice of ½ orange

CHOCOLATE MASCARPONE FROSTING

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

6 dates

2 oz. baking chocolate

2 tbsp. cacao powder

2 tbsp. coconut oil

orange zest

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the safflower oil and baking chocolate and allow to melt slowly. In a food processor, blend the dates, raw beets, and rolled oats and blend to combine. In a large bowl, combine the melted chocolate, contents of the food processor, eggs, whole-wheat flour, baking powder, cacao powder, and orange zest and juice

Grease a 9-inch circular pan with coconut oil and sprinkle with shredded coconut to prevent sticking.

Bake in the oven at 350F for 25 minutes. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

FROSTING:

Melt baking chocolate in a saucepan with the coconut oil. In a food processor, combine the cheese, melted chocolate, cacao powder, and the remnants of the orange zest. Frost and enjoy.

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