These White Chocolate Cranberry and Pistachio Truffles are the perfect festive treat and a great last-minute Christmas gift idea. Decadent and elegant, if you are thinking of gifting them, no one will believe that they are homemade. Or you can just not share them and eat them all in one sitting. Seriously, I won’t judge you.
I absolutely adore truffles. I find that they are just the perfect Christmas time treat and they are a common occurrence at my place from November onwards. I find that, as the days get darker and colder, I just want more and more chocolate. Does this happen to you as well? I also love truffles because they are so dense and chocolatey that they immediately satisfy all my cravings. Plus they look very aesthetically pleasing, if you ask me.
One thing I don’t like about truffles, though, is the amount of money companies charge for some decent ones. Considering the few amount of ingredients involved, albeit of high-quality, the extortionate prices just don’t add up. And at the same time, so many cheap truffles end up being overwhelmingly sugary and disappointing. Which leads me to my next questions: how can companies mess truffles up? They are literally no-bake, minimal-ingredients, mini desserts. How can the recipe be any easier?
For this reason, every year I promise myself that this time I am going to be making my own truffles. I tell myself that it’s going to be amazing. I am going to use so many different ingredients to make about 10 varieties. I will pick up cute boxes so that I can gift them to friends and look like a real pro who has adulating down to a T. Every. Single. Time. And guess what I do, just every single time? I don’t make them. And because money during the festive period is always low I buy some cheap truffles at a discount supermarket and I regret it bitterly as soon as I bite into one. I really don’t know why I am doing this to myself.
So this year I decided that things were going to change. And dragged myself to the supermarket to get the ingredients I needed. And yes, as you may notice, these ingredients aren’t the cheapest on the market. But I am going to make just one variety this year which will limit the other crazy expenses I was going to launch myself in (think of Caribbean rum and Madagascan vanilla bean paste as an example). My thought process also involved the following: I will yield many more truffles than an expensive box could ever give me; readers will be able to customise them with cheaper ingredients if they wish to do so; they are going to taste better than many options I can find at the store; and if they turn out to be Christmas gifts they will fulfil the dream combo: they will both be a sustainable gift, made with love and oh-so-much-patience, and it will be cheaper than any other decent gift idea. You can see now why this is a no-brainer for me.
So I got all my ingredients and made the truffles. And aren’t they delicious. They are exactly what I was hoping they would be, and more. The only things you need to bear in mind are:
1) if you intend to gift them for Christmas, do it a couple of days before the big day, as the truffles won’t keep forever (unlike store-bought ones, these truffles don’t have any preservatives).
2) You need to make them when you have enough time to wait for 3 hours for the melted chocolate to set.
If this doesn’t put you off, go ahead. And please do, even if you are just gifting them to yourself. They really are a game changer.
Cheaper substitutions are: almonds or shredded coconut instead of pistachios and lemon or orange zest instead of the cranberries. They will all turn out delicious. Think of a lemon and coconut white chocolate truffle. Amazing.
Ingredients:
300 gr white chocolate
50 ml double cream
50 grs of pistachios (divided into 30 + 20 or more for dusting)
40 grs of dried cranberries
1 tbps of cold unsalted butter
Instructions:
Finely chop the cranberries and the pistachios. For the latter I actually recommend pulsing them for a minute in a food processor. Even if you have a basic one, that will still do. If you don’t have one, this will be the most laborious bit (I suggest you put on a podcast or switch on the telly).
Pour some water into a small pot and place a heat-proof bowl on top of it. Chop the chocolate into rough chunks and transfer them into the bowl along with the butter and the double cream. Bring the water to a boil.
As the chocolate starts to melt, stir the mix together to avoid burning. When the chocolate is almost fully melted, remove from the heat and keep stirring until you have a smooth texture. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then add the cranberries and about 30 grams of pistachios and mix well to incorporate them into the mixture.
Place in the fridge and allow the chocolate to set for about 3 hours, or until it is good to handle. You don’t want it too hard but you don’t want the chocolate melting in your hands either.
Roll the chocolate “dough” into small balls (this recipe should yield between 18 or 20 – though you can only see 16 in the picture because of aesthetical reasons haha!). Place the remaining pistachios in a small bowl and roll the balls in the mixture until they are fully coated. I kept half of the batch “naked” but if you want all of them coated in pistachios you will probably need more. Alternatively you can cover them in coconut shreds.
Place them on a baking tin or tray lined with some baking paper and allow the truffles to set for a couple of hours. Once they have hardened, store them in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Enjoy!
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