Monday, September 10, 2012

The Secret Recipe Club: Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

September is here and there is a new installment of recipes this month for The Secret Recipe Club. Today is Group B’s reveal date and I had the lovely blog called Amy’s Cooking Adventures. She has a really fun blog and a lot of variety when it comes to recipes. She will share weekly photos of her family and the new adventures they are up too.

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Out of all her delicious looking recipes her Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles intrigued me. I love chocolate and I love peanut butter. Well I use too but now I’m trying to make some changes to my diet. Having some issues (which I will not go into) and I’m trying to eliminate certain foods from my diet. I still included a little chocolate in my truffles because then they wouldn’t be truffles! I swapped out the peanut butter for almond butter instead. I tried to find gluten free pretzels but I sacrificed these truffles with some fun thin pretzels I found at Trader Joe’s.

I did have some issues getting the almond butter mixture to come together. I added a little raw honey to help bring it together because I kept adding more almond butter. Eventually I was getting annoyed that my jar of almond butter was almost finished and decided I probably should have measured out the pretzels. Oops. I spilt the mixture in half, added another spoon of almond butter and finally the mixture did not fall apart when I rolled them into balls. I used unsweetened shredded coconut instead of dipping into chocolate, to make it more healthier. With the rest of the mixture I had some leftover chocolate chips that I melted and added a little coconut butter to get a sheen. Added that mixture to the rest of my dry mixture and rolled that into balls as well and into coconut.

The end result of my changes were quite good. I ate a few but I know I can’t be eating them all the time. Even though I made some healthy changes, these are still delicious. Pretzels are great to mix with nuts and chocolate. It helps satisfy the salty and sweet combo, just like these truffles do!

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My recipe below has both versions I made. Click Amy’s Cooking Adventures to get her original recipe.

Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles
Adapted from
Amy’s Cooking Adventures

Ingredients:
4 cups thin pretzels
1 cup smooth almond butter and sea salt (save 1/4 cup for chocolate almond truffles), you may need additional spoonful's if mixture is crumbly
3 teaspoons raw honey
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1-2 teaspoons coconut oil/butter
Unsweetened shredded coconut

Pour pretzels into a food processor and grind down to coarse crumbs. You could also put them in a zip lock bag and smash with a rolling pin.

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Divide pretzel crumbs into 2 bowls and set one aside. Stir in almond butter, 1/4 cup at a time until it is evenly blended. Drizzle in honey and mix. Refrigerate for 1 hour to let the almond butter firm up. If you need it to firm up quicker, place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of almond butter and honey to the bowl of crushed pretzels, mix and set aside.

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This mixture was crumbly and addicting. I loved the clusters!

Line a 2 cookie sheets with parchment or wax paper.

Using a small cookie scoop or melon baller, scoop small balls of almond butter mixture and roll into shredded coconut. Place onto prepared cookie sheet and place into freezer to harden up.

In a small glass bowl, melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips in the microwave, 20 second intervals till chocolate is smooth. Add coconut oil/butter to make chocolate shiny. Set aside.

With the second mixture that has 1/4 cup almond butter, add most of the melted chocolate and combine. Save some chocolate if you’d like to drizzle on the truffles. Using a small cookie scoop or melon baller, scoop small balls of chocolate almond butter mixture and roll into shredded coconut. Place onto prepared cookie sheet and place into freezer to harden up.

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Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

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Chocolate Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

Remove truffles from freezer after 5 minutes. If you have some leftover chocolate drizzle over truffles. These are best kept in the fridge and enjoyed right away!

Fallon

The insides……

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11 comments:

Unknown said...

Can I just say I gasped out loud when I saw your pictures? They look delicious! Great cooking with you in the SRC!

gluten Free A_Z Blog said...

I am really intrigued with this recipe. It will be perfect for the Jewish New Year where we make recipes with honey!

Lisa~~ said...

Love the sweet salty mix. It is amazing how different it is working with almond butter compared to peanut butter but you made it work.

If you haven't already, I'd love for you to check out my group 'A' SRC entry: Fried Green Tomatoes.

Lisa~~
Cook Lisa Cook

Amy said...

What a great way to make the truffles healthy! SO glad you enjoyed the recipe!!

shelley c. said...

Wow. Seriously... just... wow. Those look amazingly delicious - sweet and salty and bite-sized :) Really, really great choice.

Unknown said...

Yum, I love that salty-sweet combo in desserts. Looks like a winner. :)

Unknown said...

Pinned. These truffles look incredible and waaaay easier to make than they look.

Katrina said...

Darn, those look good! Love the idea with the pretzels adding saltiness! Great job!

Unknown said...

These look great--pinning for my truffle fest during the holidays!

Miz Helen said...

I just pinned your awesome recipe! Thanks for sharing and have a great day.
Miz Helen

Shumi said...

Everything about this recipe sounds good! Love it!