Organic Cocoa & Tangerine Whey Protein Truffles

You will by now have undoubtedly come across numerous recipes incorporating the dried date as a means of providing the irresistible sticky sweetness that's normally achieved through the addition of sugar in one or other of its various syrupy forms. So the concept of this recipe is hardly new, but the harmony of flavours between the bitter cocoa and zesty orange, backed up by such caramelly sweetness provided by the dates...mmmmm....er, where was I? Oh yes, I was going to say that despite such delightfully toothsome tastes, these are actually rather good for you, which is what makes this such a delightful recipe. You're looking at the shape of things to come on this blog: tasty high protein clean eating, pure and simple. Sharing recipes so tasty and moreish that by all rights they shouldn't be very healthy at all...but by jove they really are.

Right enough blabbering from me, on with the recipe!

Notes

1. Feel free to use any other nuts you may have in your cupboard...they all seem to work equally as well.
2. Another protein powder could be used in place of the whey protein provided the consistency isn’t too thick or too thin.
3. You can use other types of dates, though do bear in mind you may need to adjust the amount of tangerine juice accordingly.

Directions

1. Grind the almonds in a blender, or if you've bought them pre-ground then completely disregard this first step.
2. Add the cocoa and organic whey protein to the ground almonds, then stir until evenly mixed.
3. Remove the pits from the dates (unless they're already pit-free) and give them a good whizz in a food processor until they form a gooey paste.
4. Grate the zest from half a tangerine and squeeze out 2 ½ tbsp of juice.
5. Add the date paste, tangerine zest, and juice to the other ingredients.
6. Add everything to a food processor and give a whizz until it all clumps together. If your food processor isn't up to the task, I find mashing it all together with fork followed by a good old fashioned bit of finger mixing works equally as well.
7. Press the mixture by hand into a ball.
8. Now we're going to pour a load of cocoa onto a flat surface, onto which we're going to form our lovely truffles. In our case a bread board did the trick.
9. Now mould the ball into a rectangle about 2cm thick, 12cm long and 8cm wide. Then slice into 10 sections with a knife.
10. Grab a section and roll between your palms until you're satisfied it's adequately ball shaped. Repeat for the others.
11. Lastly, we're going to roll these truffle balls around in cocoa until they're evenly covered...et voila!
12. Eat at your leisure!

So there you have it, easy peasy! If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below.