Raw Christmas Pudding Truffles
Parry Marsh
- Recipe yield
- 11 servings
- Total time
- 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (or 190 g) of mixed nuts – chestnuts, pecans & Brazil nuts go well in this
- 1 tbsp goji berries – optional*
- Grated rind of half a lemon and half an orange
- 1 scant tsp of mixed spice
- 1 tbsp raw agave syrup
- ⅔ cup (or 95 g) mixed vine fruit or raisins
- 4-6 fresh pitted dates
Instructions
- In a food processor, process the nuts, goji berries, grated rind, and spice, until the nuts are all broken down into small pieces.
- Add the agave syrup and vine fruit/raisins, and process again until the fruit is mostly broken down.
- Do a taste test, and add more agave if necessary, but remember that the dates will be adding sweetness too and Christmas pudding isn’t meant to be too sweet.
- Then, with the food processor running, drop in the dates one at a time, and let each one get processed into the mix. Keep adding them until the mix starts to stick together.
- Once it’s nice and sticky, remove from the food processor, then break off portions of the dough and roll them in your hands to form balls – they should be about the size of a chocolate truffle or a small walnut shell.
- Eat at once, or chill for a while to firm up. You can even pop them in the freezer and eat them straight from there.
- If you want to make these a little chewier, try forming the balls around a couple of raisins, or even pieces of candied peel or crystallized ginger.
- Goji berries are optional but give it a slightly richer flavor and a few chewy bits since they never seem to blend in properly.
- You can make this without agave syrup if you like, but we find the dates and vine fruit don’t quite cut through the bitterness of the spices on their own, especially if your mixed spice contains mace, cloves, or a lot of nutmeg.
- If you don’t have any mixed spice, you can easily make your own: use equal amounts of ground cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg, and ginger.