This recipe was inspired by a vegan cherry ripe square I was given by a friend at a festival last year. I was just so impressed at how “just like the real” thing it was.
I had forgotten about it until I bought cherries the other day and whilst playing with other recipes my memory randomly clicked back to that first bite I took of that cherry ripe square.
I have never made cherry ripe slice or anything of the like but knew they contained 3 main ingredients, coconut, glace cherries and chocolate. I figured that’s all I needed plus a little something to add to the sticky factor for balling, so I added some pure maple syrup and a little coconut, a little cherries, a little more coconut until I reached the texture I was after. It was so easy and they are delicious! I’m guessing gluten free too?
I can see myself turning up to most events I attend in the future with these as an offering. This was one of those recipe creating moments where you finish and have a little skip in your step and really wish it was possible to patent your recipes.
YOU NEED
2 x 100 gram packs of glace cherries (ensure that they are suitable for vegans. Red colouring can be tricky)
1 ¼ cup of desiccated coconut
4 teaspoons of pure maple syrup
200 grams of dairy free chocolate (mine was a mixture of whatever I had in the pantry along with some Noble Choice Raspberry chocolate which was really lovely with these.)
YOU DO
Throw half the cherries, all the coconut and the maple syrup into a blender and blend until all ingredients are combined well and place into a large bowl
Chop up the remainder of the cherries and stir them through the coconut and cherry mixture that you just blended.
Ball the mixture into even sized balls. # If you start to get a lot of mixture stuck on your hands just give your hands a quick wash and continue balling. Pop the balls in the freezer for 15 minutes or so. Longer if you need to. This will make it easier to coat them in chocolate.
Place a sheet of baking paper on your bench.
Melt the chocolate and allow it to cool a little. Pick up a cherry rip ball and place a fork underneath it, drop the ball carefully into the chocolate. Gently roll it around a few times gently using the fork. Then once it is covered in chocolate retrieve it, with the fork. You do not stab it with the prongs of the fork, you sit the ball onto the fork so that it is cradled by the fork. Scrape the underside of the fork against the edge of the bowl to get the excess chocolate off and place it on the baking paper with as little excess chocolate as possible to set.
Repeat until all the balls are covered.
Serves: I made 18 balls but you could probably double that because my truffles were quite big.
Time: Aside from freezing time this took me about 10-15 minutes.
Freezing: May be suitable for freezing. Mine have always all been eaten 🙂
Notes: Please also note that ingredient differ slightly from brand to brand so your balls may be slightly drier or more of a wet consistency than mine. If they are too wet, slowly add a little more coconut. If they are too dry add a little more maple syrup.
It’s difficult to have the exact amount of chocolate for this kind of recipe so scrape any surplus melted chocolate you have left over onto some greaseproof paper, let it set and place it in an airtight container for another recipe
