Vegan Chocolate Almond Date Truffles

Your sweetie will swoon over these Vegan Chocolate Almond Date Truffles this Valentine’s Day. Serve a plate of them for dessert, or just have one to satisfy your sweet tooth. They’re super easy to make, and they’re healthy, too! These luscious vegan truffles are dairy-free and gluten-free. 

Vegan Chocolate Almond Date Truffles

I love these date truffles, because they are soft and chocolaty, without being overly sweet. They’re so easy to make that you’ll feel like you’re cheating. It’s easy to customize them to suit your tastes. If you don’t like almonds, you can use another nut or coconut. You can add a little liqueur instead of almond extract. And you can roll the truffles in other types of coatings, such as hemp seeds, sesame seeds, or cocoa powder.

How to Make Date Truffles

These truffles are super easy to make. You’ll need a food processor to make them.

• First, you grind the almonds in your food processor.
• Then, you add the rest of the truffle ingredients and process until the mixture is smooth.
• Next, you roll the mixture into small balls, about 1-inch in diameter.
• If you like, you can roll your truffles in cacao nibs, sesame seeds, and unsweetened shredded coconut. 

I use medjool dates in this recipe because they’re soft and caramel-like. Soaking them makes them even softer and easy to blend. If you can’t find medjool dates, you can use deglet noors, but they’ll have to soaked for about 2 hours ahead of time, because they’re tougher. 

Essential Vegan Desserts

For the past few months, I’ve been taking Fran Costigan’s Essential Vegan Desserts course with Rouxbe. I did Rouxbe’s Plant-Based Professional course a two years ago, and I absolutely loved it. Eager to learn more, I signed up for Fran’s class as soon as it was offered. While I consider myself to be pretty good at coming up with savory recipes, I struggle with creating my own dessert dishes. Baking has always been too much of a science for my artist’s brain.

The course teaches the fundamentals of vegan baking, and I have learned a lot. There are a lot of little details that I didn’t know before. Did you know that muffins and cupcakes should be baked on the top rack in the oven so they come out with nicely domed tops? Because of the homework, I’ve been eating a lot of sweets, and my freezer is stocked full of baked goods.

For the course’s final assignment, students are tasked with throwing a dessert party and making five different types of bite-sized vegan treats. I decided to have a Valentine’s Day chocolate party. I made a few of Fran’s recipes for the project, but since I’m taking the class to be able to create my own dessert recipes, I also came up with several of my own treats. These Vegan Chocolate-Almond Date Truffles are one of my creations.

These little treats are perfect to serve your sweetie (or yourself!) this Valentine’s Day.

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Vegan Chocolate-Almond Date Truffles

Your sweetie will swoon over these Vegan Chocolate Almond Date Truffles this Valentine’s Day. Serve a plate of them for dessert, or just have one to satisfy your sweet tooth. They’re super easy to make, and they’re healthy, too!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword date truffles, healthy truffles, raw truffles, vegan truffles

Prep Time 20 minutes

Yields 16 1-inch truffles

Calories 48 kcal

Author Dianne

Ingredients

• ½ cup raw almonds
• 1 ½ cups medjool dates about 12, pitted and soaked in water for about half an hour
• 1/3 cup raw cacao powder or natural cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• pinch of sea salt

For Coating (Optional)

• 2 tablespoons chopped cacao nibs
• 2 tablespoons toasted almonds chopped
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut

Instructions

1. Place the raw almonds in a food processor, and process until they’re crumbly, resembling a fine meal.
2. Add the dates, cacao powder, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sea salt. Process until well combined and smooth. The mixture should stick together easily. If it’s too dry, add a little water, a tablespoon at a time.
3. Spoon the mixture into a bowl. Scoop out the mixture by the tablespoonful and roll into 1-inch balls.
4. Place the coatings in to shallow dishes, and roll the truffles until well coated.
5. Cover and refrigerate until ready serve.

Other recipes you might enjoy include:

• Tahini Truffles
• Avocado Chocolate Mousse
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Mini Tarts
• Sunbutter and Chocolate Pretzel Pie