Persian Tahini and Orange Zest Truffles
Picture this, it’s a gorgeous winter’s day, the sky is blue and the air cool, you have been down in the garden doing a little bit of weeding, after all it is a full moon so not much else to do, and you keep being lured by the perfume of blood oranges in your orange orchard to create something orangey. Yes, my friends I am sure orangey is a word or it should be!
I have made these truffles before and the recipe comes from Sayuri Tanaki’s from Sayuir’s Raw Food Cafe a super book I picked up in Bali a few years back. Now I have made an adjustment or to be more precise a reduction to the sweetness of these lush little delights. Though I have a sweet tooth if something is to sweet my teeth hurt, I know, who would have thought the sweet monster would ever be quelled yet here I am reducing sweetness.
Now just as an addition to the aforementioned word orangey did you know there are such things as an orangery or orangerie – perhaps you did! Orangeries date back to seventeenth century Britain. They were used primarily by wealthy landowners to house orange and other citrus trees in the winter to protect them from winter. Some organgeries even had underground heating kept going throughout the winter with coal. Luckily for us, our oranges do just fine in a cool temperate area and though the frosts can be harsh it doesn’t snow.
We love citrus and grow blood oranges, seville oranges several types of mandarins all maturing at different times to keep us stocked with juicy vitamin c, a couple of different limes, lemons, grapefruit and one lonely little cumquat. Even if you only have a small garden grow some citrus they do just fine in big pots and there are miniature versions out there in nurseries. In this recipe, I used blood orange zest but any will do.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup (155g) of tahini
- 1/2 cup (110g) melted cacao butter
- 4 tbl of honey
- 2 tbl of blood orange zest
- 1 tpn of vanilla essence or half a vanilla pod scraped
- 5 tbl of water
- a large pinch of salt
- 4 tbl of lucuma powder
- extra lucuma powder for rolling truffles in
Method
- Add all the ingredients in a high speed blender until well combined.
- Transfer into a container and refrigerate for a couple of hours until set.
- Roll into small balls. Put them back into the fridge to set the surface.
- Roll in lucuma powder and palce in small patty paper cups.
