These White Chocolate Coconut Truffles are delicious and a bit different from the usual dark chocolate truffles to follow a fine dinner. A tray of both would be rather smart, though. For Christmas a garnish of dried cranberries would be beautiful. For Easter perhaps top with an edible violet.
The coconut element makes these a rather exotic treat and perfect with tea or coffee at the end of an Indian meal, for example.
White chocolate is really not proper chocolate at all. It’s made of cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids. The melting point of cocoa butter is high enough to allow white chocolate to remain solid at room temperature and that is an advantage when you have a platter of truffles on display for any length of time.
Ingredients:
300ml double cream
300g white chocolate, broken into squares
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g-100g desiccated coconut (optional), plus more for rolling
Method:
Put the double cream in a small pan and heat to a simmer. Add the vanilla.
Put the chocolate pieces and the coconut in a bowl. Reserve some coconut for rolling.
Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate and stir until completely melted.
Cover the bowl and chill for 1 hour or until firm.
Take small amounts of the chocolate mixture and roll between your palms to make truffles. Roll the truffles in coconut. Put the truffles on a lined tray and return to the fridge until needed.
These White Chocolate Coconut Truffles can be removed from the fridge in advance as they are better at room temperature.
Tip: The basic mixture can be formed into truffles and chilled before being dipped into dark chocolate to produce a surprising two-tone truffle. Decorate these with a little silver or gold vark for a truly decadent finish. Vark is made by pounding silver into sheets, a few micrometres thick. Yes, its real precious metal but totally safe to consume.
Recipe by Chrissie Walker © 2018