(Grain-Free, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Paleo, Vegan)
A gift from the heart and from the kitchen is the best kind of gift, Valentine’s Day or otherwise. I know you homesteaders and whole-food lovers feel the same way.
I love everything about these truffled walnuts. Let me entice you…
buttery, nutty walnuts
vanilla-bean spiked chocolate
smooth and silky chocolate truffle coating
rustic cocoa powder outside- have I mentioned I love anything rustic…
quite fast and easy to make
Karl and I aren’t really Valentine people, or super-gift-exchangers either for that matter. We’re both painfully practical and prefer to pool our money and buy things together that we really want for the house and the homestead. Those are our gifts to each other. I know, we’re horribly un-romantic.
Being a cook, I have always shown Karl my love and appreciation through food. Baking him something special and more importantly, chocolate, has always been the way to his heart. Like these truffled walnuts, or his favorite healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies. I cook and he eats- we really do make a great pair!
Karl is a little bit funny. Funny like weird. And I mean that in the best way. He will always hold firm that sweet potatoes are absolutely not potatoes. I refer to them as yams to avoid any kitchen confrontations. He also believes that chocolate belongs by itself…not with coconut, cream filling, or nuts. And especially not mint! Pure chocolate is the only way to eat chocolate.
Well, he’s come a long way in the last couple years since eating a completely whole-foods diet. Karl actually loved these truffle-covered walnuts! He’s all talk. He can’t resist chocolate of any kind…
With this recipe, I wanted the chocolate and the walnut to be equal players. I really like this ratio of nut to chocolate. I didn’t want just a truffle with walnuts in it.
These are dairy-free and are made with canned coconut milk and coconut oil. I couldn’t taste the coconut at all but Karl could a little bit. You could absolutely substitute heavy cream for the coconut milk and butter for the coconut oil if you wish. I think they’d also be spectacular that way.
I used a whole bag of Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Chunks (affiliate) for this recipe, but you can use ten ounces of whatever darker style chocolate you’d like. Chips, chunks, or chopped.
Check out my I’m Cheap! page on how to save money on Enjoy Life and other healthy foods!
The method is simple: melt the coconut milk cream and coconut oil in a bowl over hot water, add seeds from a vanilla bean and then a bag of dark chocolate chips and stir until everything is melted. Dump in the walnut halves and fold and stir until they look evenly coated.
The mixture might look a little oily and bumpy when coating the walnuts, but it will harden to be smooth, silky, and not oily!
I wanted them to still look like walnuts underneath the chocolate, so I took them one at a time out of the bowl (using just a fork) and placed them on parchment paper. Into the fridge for 10 minutes to harden, and then rolled around in cocoa powder. That’s it!
I hope your sweetie enjoys these! Mine did. Now if I could only get him to eat a sweet potato…
- ¼ cup cream from a can of coconut milk*
- 1 Tbs coconut oil
- Seeds from 1 vanilla bean
- ⅛ tsp sea salt
- 10 oz dark chocolate chips, chunks, or chopped
- 2½ cups walnut halves
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- Place a medium-sized glass or metal bowl over a simmering pot of water.
- Add to the bowl the coconut cream, coconut oil, seeds from one vanilla bean and a pinch of salt; stir until melted.
- Add in the chocolate chips and use a spatula to constantly stir the chocolate until just melted.
- Remove the bowl from the pot of water and fold the walnuts into the chocolate mixture.
- Place chocolate-coated walnuts one at a time on a parchment lined baking pan.
- Allow the coated walnuts to cool and harden in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
- Place the cocoa powder in a small bowl and add in 5-7 walnuts at a time, using two forks to toss them around. Repeat until all walnuts are coated.
- Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.
- *Coconut cream is the top thick layer that forms in your can of coconut milk when it has sat in the fridge for a day, or on your cool pantry shelf for some time.
