Chocolate Chestnut Truffles with Apricots, Pistachios and Spices

It’s that wonderful time of the year again, so let’s celebrate with these deliciously creamy and rich chocolate chestnut truffles with yummy dried apricots, pistachios and mix of gorgeous warming spices.

Though easy to cook, chestnuts may seem like a lot of work. Especially when it comes to pealing the skins off. But no need to dismiss the lovely chestnuts just yet as there are ways to make even the pealing part smoother and easier.

So without further ado let’s go to this chestnut recipe!

Ingredients you’ll need for about 30 chestnut truffles

  • 600g of raw chestnuts
  • 20 fresh pitted Medjool dates
  • 100ml coconut heavy cream
  • 100g pistachios
  • 20 dried apricots
  • a pinch of ground spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves
  • 150g dark chocolate
  • 1tbsp of cocoa butter or coconut oil

Let’s make the truffles:

First, we have to prepare the chestnuts and for the chestnuts to peal off easier, roast them in the oven instead of boiling.

Rinse the chestnuts under water and dry with a towel. Then cross cut each chestnut making a small x on one side of the fruit. Cut deep enough to crack the outer skin but not too deep to go into the heart of the fruit as those would be harder to peal then.

Roast them in a preheated oven at about 200 – 220C for some 20 minutes which really depends on the size of the chestnuts. They are done when the part of the skin you cut cracks open. Take them out and leave to cool just a bit, then take the towel again to protect you from the heat and simply peal the chestnuts, both skins should come off easily.

Once the chestnuts have cooled down, pop them into a blender, add the dates, coconut cream and spices and blend it all to get a smooth, creamy texture. Fold in finely chopped pistachios and dried apricots and leave aside to cool completely and set so you can roll some truffles.

And while the batter for truffles is setting, melt the chocolate over a steam and once melted mix in a tbsp of cocoa butter or a coconut oil to add thickness and shine. Then simply coat the truffles with the chocolate. Another cool trick is to pour melted chocolate over frozen truffles, that way the chocolate coating sets instantly and in a few minutes the truffles are ready to be served!

Whatever you choose to do, have fun and happy cooking!

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