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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

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……

Homemade Coconut Butter

If you don’t know me already you would know I’m kind of a nut butter snob. I like to buy different kinds of almond butters, peanut butters, fancy butters etc. I usually have about 4-5 different butters in the pantry. One that I’ve been lacking in is coconut butter. I love when it gets melty and then I’ll drizzle it on top of an ice cold smoothie. It hardens up and becomes a fun chew in the mouth. A jar of coconut butter can be quite pricey and the other day I wanted to make my own. Unsweetened coconut was on sale at Wholefoods, couldn’t be better timing!

I wanted to see how well my Vita Mix would work but in the end I think a food processor gets it to a smoother consistency. To help the coconut smooth out I added a dab of coconut oil. The blades from the Vita Mix help to warm up the mixture. At room temp the coconut butter is quite firm but with a minor nuke in the microwave, its tasty, melty self can be drizzled over anything.. ice cream anyone? With the warmer weather I drink more smoothies, so I’m glad to have coconut butter back in my pantry!

Homemade Coconut Butter
By Fallon

Ingredients
2 cups unsweetened coconut (use a fresh better for best consistency)
1 teaspoon extra virgin coconut oil

Directions
In a blender or food processor, process coconut for 4-5 minutes. If needed scrape down the sides to get an even consistency. Add a teaspoon of coconut oil to help the process smooth out. Eventually the coconut will become buttery and will warm up to make for an easy drizzle. Store in a jar and place in the pantry. When needed, nuke for a few seconds in the microwave or boil up a pot of water, remove from burner and place jar in pot to warm up.

My favorite way is having it drizzled on top of a smoothie but I tend to sneak in a spoonful of this stuff instead. Coconut gives you a nice energy boost and has wonderful antibacterial fighting properties for your stomach and well being. Yay for coconut!!

Fallon  

Happy Valentine’s Day

 (source)

Don’t you feel the love out there? Hah! The only thing I like about this holiday is having an excuse to eat chocolate because chocolate is all over the place! Other then that it is not one of those important holidays. Definitely a cute holiday with all the pink and red hearts, cupids flying around and heart boxes of chocolate. We don’t celebrate this holiday by going out for a special dinner that night and getting a dozen of roses. Instead we stay home, drink wine (eat chocolate too) and hang out.

I like anything with chocolate, if you didn’t know me by now. Like these Banana Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies I made the other day. I had brown bananas screaming to be made into delicious banana bread but I really wasn’t in the mood for banana bread. I wanted cookies! Healthy cookies, so if I wanted 4 cookies I wouldn’t feel bad about eating all 4 cookies ;).

These cookies come from the Clean Food By Terry Walters. Without hesitation I sent myself to the kitchen to bake these up bright and early. All natural ingredients used and could be gluten free if made with brown rice flour. I used whole wheat flour because we don’t have gluten allergies here. I may of added more chocolate chips then the recipe states too ;).

Make these for your honey or for yourself. If they don’t like coconut, leave it out and add more chocolate chips! Depending on the size of your bananas you may need to add a little more flour if the cookie batter is a bit runny. A little tip from me is to freeze the dough for 15 minutes before baking. It will stiffen up the batter and will prevent the cookies from spreading too much. Plus the dough frozen is quite delicious but you didn’t hear that from me!!!

Banana Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Clean Food

Makes 21 cookies

Ingredients

2 bananas, mashes

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened dried coconut

Pinch of sea salt

1/3 cup semi-sweet dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine bananas, oil, syrup, and vanilla. In separate medium bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda, coconut and salt. Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and blend until just combined (do not over stir). Fold in chocolate chips.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop batter by the heaping teaspoon onto sheet. There is no need to roll, flatten or shape the mounds. Place in oven and bake 14 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and place directly on wire rack to cool.

Other sweet treats to enjoy on Valentine’s Day:

Almond Joy Chocolate Bark

Cranberry Almond Chocolate Clusters

Dark and Milk Chocolate Brownies

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

White Chocolate Chip Cherry Cookies

Peanut Butter and Honey Muffins

Oat ‘N’ Toffee Grahams

Red Velvet Cake

Always,

Fallon

Almond Joy Chocolate Bark

Here is a little story about me having a bad craving for a Mounds bar.

“It was Halloween night and my mother and I headed on over to Lisa’s house. She always invites us each year and has just become a great tradition. She is a great friend! Well I woke up that morning with an urge of wanting a Mounds bar. My taste buds have changed over the years and I use to not be able to stand coconut. Now I love it and I love it even more if chocolate is involved. So I had a plan to take a Mounds bar from one of the kids treat or treat loot. I even asked before hand and they said of course because they didn’t like coconut. HAH I use to be the same way!! Hours passed and finally they came back. We dumped the bags out and no Mounds!! I saw many Almond Joys but no Mounds. I eventually settled for an Almond Joy because I was still getting my coconut/chocolate craving solved. Although in the back of my mind, I still wanted a Mounds.”

So here I am today. I came across an amazing recipe from Elana’s Pantry called Almond Joy Chocolate Bark. Because it was Halloween I would enjoy pieces of certain chocolate, but on a normal day I don’t typically go for those process pieces of chocolates because I much rather have a nice piece of really good dark chocolate. Plus all the extra sugar and corn syrup nasty stuff, I’m not a fan! After I found this recipe on Elana’s Pantry I became more content because she also has a recipe for Mounds, which I can’t wait to try later on! Apparently was also obsessed with Almond Joy and Mounds too. I’m glad I’m not alone! ;)

This bark was so easy to put together. I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before. Now whenever I have an urge for an Almond Joy or Mounds, this will be my go to recipe, Almond Joy Chocolate Bark.

Please head on over to Elana’s Pantry for her recipe on Almond Joy Chocolate Bark.

Always coconut and chocolate,

Fallon