Vegan Practically

I wanted to make some vegan treats for the Southwestern Ontario Feminism and Philosophy Workshop that we hosted this week at Western. The event was in the late afternoon and followed by dinner out (shout out to Zen’Za Pizzeria in London, Ontario! I adore their plant-based menu), so I wanted to keep it light but good. Not having the budget to order in enough brigadeiros to go around, I decided to give the vegan truffles I made at Christmas time another go.

My Christmas batch was too soft (really disastrously so) but still went over well as far as taste went. A closer look at the recipe after the fact revealed the reason the truffles were more like thick pudding: instead of seven tablespoons of coconut milk I used a whole can. I was sure I could do better.

And better I did (if I do say so myself). They came out luxuriously smooth and creamy now that I have the proportions right. They were as easy to roll into little balls as the recipe suggested they would be. I dusted some with cocoa, rolled others in coconut flakes, and swirled two of them around in some cinnamon sugar. All versions turned out to be crowd-pleasers.

This is an extremely easy recipe to make (if you read it properly). You just heat up the coconut milk in the microwave until it’s warm, not boiling. Then dump in your chocolate and put a lid on the dish for 5 minutes. After five minutes, it’ll be mostly melted enough that if you stir it around it will blend with the coconut milk into a smooth and creamy miracle that you could eat right then and there with a spoon. Put it in the fridge for two or three hours and it cools into a solid form that is soft enough to scoop. Scoop it into little balls and roll them in your toppings (endless possibilities really. At Christmas I rolled some of them in crushed almonds).

I used this recipe from the Minimalist Baker. It appears to have been modified since I printed it in December. Now it calls for 2/3 cup of coconut milk. My suggestion: use 7 tablespoons. The recipe I printed gave a choice between light or full fat coconut milk. I’m happy to see they switched to full fat. It works well, and if you’re making truffles you’re hardly going to be hung up on the fat content of your ingredients.

Also, though you can follow the recipe and grate or chop your chocolate, I just used a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and added them as is. They melted just fine. Whatever chocolate you choose, check the list of ingredients to make sure they are vegan — most semi-sweet chocolate is accidentally vegan. I use the President’s Choice brand for all of my baking and I used it here.

Did I say they were delicious? And easy. And relatively cheap. The double batch I made yielded 30 truffles for about $10.

Bon Appétit.