Cranberry and date chocolate truffles are a dreamy, delicious and dairy free bite. Made with nuts and coconut flour, they’re packed with good fats and fibre for a healthier version of a chocolate truffle. With a festive feel, I highly recommend them as a tasty Christmas treat!
Originally published 2016 | Updated post Dec 2022 (*no significant recipe changes)
Why you’ll love these Cranberry and Date Chocolate Truffles
- An easy treat that can be made ahead of time. Who needs the extra stress of having to make something right before it’s needed? These chocolate truffles can be made in advance and will keep perfectly in the fridge or even the freezer. Perfect for Christmas time when you’re crazy busy or as a ready-to-go snack all year round.
- Flexible and customisable recipe. You can use up a whole range of different nuts in this recipe, flavour it with different extracts (vanilla, orange, hazelnut even!) and also change the coating. So long as you keep the base quantities the same, you can adapt this recipe to suit what’s on hand.
- Deliciously healthy snack or dessert option. These cranberry and date chocolate truffles are actually delicious. They taste sweet and well, chocolatey! But, they are also packed with healthy fats and fibre. A stack of healthy ingredients packed into one little ball.
Ingredients and substitution tips for Cranberry and Date Chocolate Truffles
- Medjool dates. These are soft, chewy dates with a caramel-like flavour. Do not substitute different dates, as the recipe won’t be the same.
- Mixed nuts. I tend to use walnuts, cashews and Brazil nuts when I make these, simply because I can buy this mix in bulk quite easily which is really economical. It’s sold in my local health food store as a mix of broken nut pieces. However, you could also use other nuts including almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts and hazelnuts.,
- Cacao powder. You can swap this for unsweetened cocoa powder.
- Coconut flour. I do not recommend substituting this ingredient as it has quite a unique texture and flavour.
- Ground cinnamon. If you don’t have this, it doesn’t make a huge impact on the recipe and it will still work!
- Honey. This can be swapped for another liquid sweetener such as maple syrup or date syrup.
- Vanilla extract. Used to add aroma and flavour, it really does add a pop to the recipe, but the truffles will still work if you don’t have vanilla extract.
- Dried cranberries. Yep, pretty essential to use these!
- Orange extract. Absolutely and totally optional, if you don’t like orange flavour/extract, then definitely don’t use it.
For coating the truffles, you will need desiccated coconut, ground almonds (i.e. almond meal) and/or dark chocolate. I like to use a combination so I end up with some variety!
See the recipe card for quantities.
How to make truffles with dates and cacao
Making this recipe is super duper simple.
Step 1: Place nuts in your food processor and pulse a few times until they’re broken into small pieces.
Step 2: Add the other truffle ingredients EXCEPT the cranberries and pulse again to get a sticky crumbly mixture.
Step 3: Towards the end of the blending process, add in the dried cranberries. Once the cranberries are in, just pulse a few times until the cranberries are broken up a little but are still visible in pieces.
Step 4: Scoop out heaped teaspoons of the mixture and roll into balls.
Recipe Tips
- When you are blending the truffles together in the food processor, don’t over blend! Some of the nuts will still be visible and look like a fine crumb-flecked through the dough; this is normal and you don’t need to keep blending until it all disappears.
- And once you add the cranberries, only pulse a few times to break them up a little. Then you still get yummy chewy pieces of sweet cranberry all through the mix.
- My tip for dipping the truffles in the melted chocolate is to use a skewer (metal or wooden, either is fine). Stick the skewer firmly into the truffle ball and voila, you have something to hold on to while you coat the ball.
If you make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram over at @moniquecormacknutrition 🙂
Want more easy bliss ball and energy ball recipes? Try these!
Cranberry and Date Chocolate Truffles
Cranberry and date chocolate truffles with medjool dates and cacao powder. Easy to make for a healthy Christmas treat. Gluten and dairy free.
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Servings: 25 balls
Calories: 159kcal
Ingredients
- 300 grams Medjool dates (about 20)
- 300 grams mixed raw nuts
- 40 grams cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder (1/3 cup)
- 70 grams coconut flour (1/2 cup)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 tbsp honey or other liquid sweetener
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 2 tsp orange extract – OPTIONAL
Instructions
- Place nuts in your food processor and pulse a few times until they’re broken into small pieces.
- Add the dates, coconut flour, cacao (or cocoa) powder, honey, vanilla, cinnamon and orange extract (if using) to the food processor bowl and process until the ingredients break down and start to come together as a sticky dough. Some of the nuts will still be visible and look like a fine crumb-flecked through the dough; this is normal and you don’t need to keep blending until it all disappears
- Towards the end of the blending process, add in the dried cranberries. Once the cranberries are in, just pulse a few times until the cranberries are broken up a little but are still visible in pieces. (So make sure not to add the cranberries until the mixture is quite well combined).
- Scoop out heaped teaspoons of the mixture and roll into balls. Roll them immediately in your preferred dry ingredient (desiccated coconut, ground almonds, etc) or if you’re going to coat them in chocolate, set them onto a tray lined with baking paper (you’ll coat them all at once after you’ve finished rolling).
- The truffles coated in a dry ingredient and now done and you can keep them in an airtight container in the fridge, or pop them into the freezer for a longer life.
- To coat the truffles with chocolate, first place the tray of un-coated truffles into the freezer for at least an hour. (This is so the chocolate will set really quickly and easily when you coat them.) When the truffles are almost finished chilling, melt dark chocolate over a double boiler (place a glass bowl over a saucepan of water that’s gently simmering on the stove; do not allow the bowl to touch the water). Once completely melted, remove chocolate from the heat. Get the truffles out of the freezer and one by one, coat in the melted chocolate and then put back on the lined baking tray for the chocolate to set. You might need to melt the chocolate again as you go.
- You can also decorate the chocolate coated truffles with some crumbled nuts, seeds or coconut; sprinkle the toppings on as soon as the ball is coated so they stick to the melted chocolate.
- These truffles will easily last two weeks in the fridge, or you can freeze them if you’d like to keep them a few months.
Notes
*You can use cacao powder or cocoa powder in this recipe. Cacao powder is not as “processed” as cocoa powder in that cocoa is usually heated and roasted longer (cacao does undergo some processing). But as long as you’re using 100% cocoa powder it’s not an issue to use it.
**If you’d like to keep this recipe vegan, use brown rice syrup, maple syrup or coconut syrup instead of honey.
Nutrition Facts calculated based on 25 balls (1 ball = 1 serve) and rolled in desiccated coconut.
Have you made this recipe?I love seeing your creations! Take a photo and then tag me @nourish.everyday on Instagram!
Nutrition
Calories: 159kcal (8%) | Carbohydrates: 20g (7%) | Protein: 3g (6%) | Fat: 9g (14%) | Saturated Fat: 3g (19%) | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Sodium: 9mg | Potassium: 201mg (6%) | Fiber: 4g (17%) | Sugar: 12g (13%) | Vitamin A: 20IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 20mg (2%) | Iron: 1mg (6%)
Hi 😊 I made these today and I tweaked them a bit for xmas, added some sultanas and soaked them and the prunes in rum overnight, they turned out so yummy like chocolate rum n raisin balls.
Thank you for this delishous recipie
Hi Caroline, your modifications sound absolutely scrumptious and perfect for Christmas time! I will have to try some rum-soaked fruit in there myself 🙂
Confess that I love making these sorts of desserts which are also a much appreciated hostessy gift or thank you or just a treat for my family..
I adore chocolate with orange and cranberry. I will try your recipe and I’m sure it’ll be fabulous! All the ingredients on hand too.. Oh oh!
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Carol! I think these make such a nice gift indeed; I often take little bliss balls into work and everyone always loves them 🙂 And yes choc + orange + cranberry is awesome right!
These are so pretty and would make a perfect Christmas gift!
Thank you so much Kelsey! Yes I love giving these as gifts too, they’re so easy to package up! 🙂
this sounds like a delicious combination!
Thank you so much Theresa! Cranberry + chocolate is pretty tasty I agree 🙂
Oh man are these right up my alley!
Haha mine too! So nice to have a treat like this stashed away at all times 🙂