Green Cake Truffles
These green cake truffles are easy to make and require no baking. Perfect to celebrate St Patrick’s day, the truffles can be made with all-purpose or spelt flour and are whipped up in just minutes.
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Get into the spirit of all things Irish with these green St Patrick’s day chocolate truffles.
Jump to: |
| St Patrick’s day truffles |
| Colouring food in a natural way |
| – green food |
| – yellow food |
| – brown food |
| – red food |
| Using berries to colour food |
St Patrick’s day truffles
We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s day in Sweden, but then I guess, why would we? It’s not even a huge thing in Great Britain (unless you’re Irish, or like to frequent Irish pubs). My Grandad was from Northern Ireland, and I’ve never even celebrated. It’s different in the US, though. They are incredibly proud of their Irish heritage, and celebrate St Patrick’s with gusto.
These St Patrick’s day chocolate truffles will light up the eyes of any lurking leprechaun (or even your own kids). They are no-bake, too, making them fairly quick and simple to bring together. The ingredients are cupboard staples, and there is nothing more involved than blitzing everything together to form a dough.
The trickiest bit is probably dipping the truffles in chocolate, but if you let your kids help you, they will have so much fun. You can also decorate the truffles however you like. I happened to have large green sprinkles the same colour as the truffles, which worked so well.
Colouring food in a natural way
I first published this recipe for green cake truffles about eight years ago and used food colouring. At the same time, I also made brownies topped with green frosting, again using store-bought colouring. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Of course there isn’t.
However, since the recipes were published, I’ve been on the look out for more natural methods. But you do you. Use food colouring, or have a read of my alternatives. If you are excited about the possibility of making natural food coloring, then check out the awesome tutorial by The Things We’ll Make. Fascinating stuff. Of course, we can also colour food by adding brightly-hued ingredients to it. Let’s take a look at what we need to achieve certain colours:
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Green Food
If you want green food, but don’t want to use artificial means of creating colour, matcha is a great option. I used the natural green tea to colour both my matcha white chocolate layer cake and matcha coconut cream cake, with fabulous results. I think the colour was more vivid and darker, too. Spinach is another great way to naturally colour your food. Add some to your cheese sauce to make a vibrant pasta dish.
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Yellow food
Saffron is amazing. Not only how it tastes, but the hue it brings with it. The deep golden yellow, as seen in my cranberry and white chocolate bread, is nothing short of stunning. Turmeric, the spice often found in Indian cuisine, is an alternative way to colour your food yellow. I often use it when I make boiled rice: just add a touch of turmeric to the water before cooking.
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Brown food
Using coffee in food is perhaps one of the most common ways of adding a little hue. A touch of instant coffee was all it took to elevate the flavour and appearance of my coffee overnight buns.
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Red food
Beetroot is a simple way to colour your food red. Beetroot powder is often used to colour red velvet cake.
Using berries to colour food
Berries are a great, natural way to colour food. Not only do they make cakes and frostings look beautiful, but they also taste great. Blackberries turn food purple. Blueberries give off a dark pink, with strawberries and raspberries a paler pink. Here are some of my favourite recipes where berries have been used to create gorgeous food:
- Blueberry white chocolate mud cake (with berry frosting)
- Raspberry and blackberry cupcakes (with berry frosting)
- Lime and blackberry mud cake (with blackberry icing)
- Strawberry swirl pound cake
- Meringue with raspberry whipped cream
- Blackberry iced finger buns
St Patrick's Day Truffles (no-bake)
Ingredients
- 100g (¼ cup + 3 tbsp) butter (softened)
- 110g (½ cup + 1 tbs) brown sugar
- 50ml (3 tbs + 1 tsp) milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 175g (1½ cups) spelt flour (see note 1)
- 1 tsp green food colouring (see note 2)
- 200g (7 oz) milk chocolate
Instructions
- Place all ingredients (apart from the chocolate) in a food processor and process until everything comes together as a smooth dough.
- Roll into balls (as big or as small as you like) and place on a tray.
- Pop into the freezer for around 15 minutes to harden up.
- When the truffles are ready, melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie or carefully in a microwave.
- Dip each truffle in to the chocolate.
- Place back on the tray and sprinkle with something sweet and green (optional).
- Put in the fridge until the chocolate has set. Enjoy!
Notes
- You can use the same amount of regular flour instead of spelt.
- I used store-bought food colouring for this recipe. However, if you would prefer to use something more natural, read the information in my post.