Paul A Young’s vegan chocolate truffles

Name: Paul A Young’s vegan chocolate truffles
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: Makes 40 truffles
Cuisine: French recipes
Ingredients: 75g stevia or erythritol; ½ tsp sea salt; 200g dark chocolate (100% cocoa solids), chopped; 2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil; 100g cocoa powder

Portion size: Makes 40 truffles
Hands-on time 20 min, plus cooling and chilling
Difficulty: easy

Dairy-free

Gluten-free

Vegan

Recipe by: Paul A Young

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“These dark chocolate truffles taste wonderful – intense, rich and smooth without being too strong. And they contain no dairy at all, so what you get is the purity of the cocoa.” Chocolatier Paul A Young.

Check out more festive food gift ideas.

Paul’s story: A former head pastry chef for Marco Pierre White, Paul is a groundbreaking chocolatier and a familiar face on TV. He has a chocolate shop in Islington (and sells his creations online) and is the author of three cookbooks. There’s nothing Paul doesn’t know about chocolate.

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Ingredients

75g stevia or erythritol
½ tsp sea salt
200g dark chocolate (100% cocoa solids), chopped
2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
100g cocoa powder

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Method

Put the sweetener and salt in a small saucepan with 200ml water (see Paul’s tips). Over a high heat, bring the mixture to a simmer. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and pour over half the hot liquid. Whizz with a stick blender to emulsify, then add the rest of the liquid and whizz again until glossy.
Add the olive oil and whizz again, then allow the ganache to cool to room temperature before refrigerating for 1 hour.
Use a teaspoon to scoop out 40 pieces of ganache (see Paul’s tips). Scatter the cocoa powder over a high-sided tray and toss the truffles through to coat. Allow the truffles to fully set in the cocoa powder for 5 minutes, then gently shake in a sieve to release any loose powder.
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The truffles will keep (chilled) for 5 days in an airtight container. Take them to someone’s house as a gift, or let them come to room temperature for 10 minutes, then enjoy.

Nutrition

44kcals Calories
2.1g (1.2g saturated) Fat
0.9g Protein
5g (3.1g sugars) Carbs
0.6g Fibre
0.1g Salt

Quick wins & tips

For more vegan options, replace the 200ml water with the same amount of any liquid that isn’t dairy – strong tea of different varieties, coffee, orange juice, red wine, champagne, coconut milk or coconut water, fruit juices and purées, craft beer… Get creative. If your ganache is too soft to roll, melt another 20g chocolate and stir it into the ganache until it’s pliable.

Cook smarter

Stevia and erythritol are natural sweeteners used as substitutes for refined sugar. You can buy both online or from health food shops. You may be wondering why the water doesn’t make the chocolate seize (solidify). A tiny bit of water will indeed cause the fat in chocolate to emulsify around it, but when you add more water, as here, the emulsion inverts and the water surrounds the fat, making it smooth.