Alexander Seeded Chocolate Truffles
I love the crisp outer and soft inner of these truffles. The Alexander seeds play on the pleasure of bittersweet, giving these dark chocolate treats a wonderful and surprising twist.
If you want to find out more about this plant, take a look at my Alexanders blog, there you'll also find a dozen alexander seed recipes. This recipe is made my first making Aromatic Alexander Seed and Lemon Drizzle cake - you'll find instructions for this below too!
Alexander Seeded Chocolate Truffles recipe
I'd been thinking about the pleasure of bitter-sweet for a while - dark chocolate being the perfect example. There must be some way I could combine alexander seeds with dark chocolate I thought. This is what I came up with.
They've bee tasted again and again on my foraging courses and continue to be gobbled up with appreciation and enthusiasm - phew! So here, at last, is the recipe.
Alexander Seeded truffle recipe
Makes 20
Ingredients
- 150 g Alexander seed cake, without lemon drizzle (see below)
- 125 g creamy soft cheese (mascarpone or other)
- 120 g dark cooking chocolate
- ½ -1 tsp roughly ground Alexander seeds (optional extra)
Break up the cake into small pieces, without making fine breadcrumbs, mix with the cream cheese and ground alexander seeds. Cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper and roll the mixture into balls, about 2.5 cm diameter and place on the paper. Place the baking tray in the fridge for an hour.
Next prepare the chocolate. Dipping the mixture in chocolate takes some time, so it best not to completely melt all the chocolate at once, but in two batches, here’s how. Place a heatproof bowl over a small saucepan with a little water in. Break up the chocolate into pieces and place in the bowl.
Heat the saucepan over a low heat and remove from the heat when just half has melted. Take the cake balls from the fridge and, using a teaspoon, dip them one by one in the chocolate, turning them to make sure they are completely covered then placing them back on the greaseproof paper. Place the chocolate back over the heat to melt the remaining chocolate (remove just before it melts completely) and continue until all the balls are coated and leave to harden. Will keep for a few days.
Aromatic Alexander seeded lemon drizzle cake
This cake is an essential ingredient for Alexander Seeded Chocolate truffles. Looking like a poppy-seed cake, the slight bitter of the seeds go nicely with lemon, especially if you prefer a sweeter edge to your treats.
Alexander seeded cake recipe
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
- 100 g butter, room temperature
- 80 g unrefined caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5 g (1 tbsp) dry roasted Alexander seeds*
- 75 g plain flour
- 25 g wholemeal flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
Lemon drizzle (optional and if you're not using for the truffle recipe)
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 50 g unrefined caster sugar
Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F. Grease a square 20 cm cake tin (or equivalent) and line with baking parchment. In a bowl, by hand or with an electric handheld whisk beat the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Grind the Alexander seeds in a seed grinder or strong pestle and mortar till small but not dust. Sift the flour and ground seeds in gradually along with the vanilla extract until a smooth mixture forms. Distribute the cake mixture into the tin and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin and use for chocolate truffles (above).
Alternatively, while the cake is cooling in the tin, mix together the lemon juices and the 50g of the sugar to make the drizzle. Prick the warm cake all over with a skewer or fork, and then pour evenly over the cake. Leave in the tin until completely cool, then remove and cut into squares. Will keep in an airtight container for 3-4 days, or freeze for up to 1 month.
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Tags: alexanders, chocolate truffle recipe, Smyrnium olusatrum, Umbelliferae, umbellifers, wild spices
