Turkish Truffles

OMG! Just realised what's missing from the picture! Labelling the cake layers! The purple was my favourite yam ice-cream, little beige slices were tofu, yellow filling was nooch cheeze, red dots were maraschino cherries and white filling was soytaoo whipped cream on top of Vegie Bar's killer chocolate cake!

It was Planet Vegmel‘s 2nd birthday last week, and I cannot think of a better way to celebrate than a picnic out in the glorious sun at Edinburgh Garden on Sunday. It also saw me frantically drawing and doing a bunch of digital things on the computer to produce a recipe and a ginormous birthday cake for a zine that Steph and Emilly produced. Here’s the zine in PDF format to tide you through the next 365 days till the third birthday.

Cindy has done a short and sweet recap of the event, while Mel and Johanna have recaps with more words and thoughts. It was a very chocolatey day for me, but in no way was that a negative connotation. I’m relived that a few of my recipes were made, including these badass peanut butter biscuits with a chocolate ganache filling and the super avocado quinoa salad. Sometimes I doubt my cooking because my taste-testers are generally biased, and fear going hungry if negative criticisms are shared.

Knowing that I haven’t contributed much to That Recipe Sounds Familiar (hereby known as TRSF), a dessert recipe was picked out and shopped for a full day before the event. I know, shocker! Working with soy condensed milk for the first time, these truffles was super easy but I forgot about buying some GF biscuits! But you can use any type of biscuits in the pantry, in which mine was a combination of gingersnap and nice). I might go for oreos next time. The hardest bit was washing my hands after rolling every 8 balls or so, as the mixture gets stuck to my warm palms. Yeah, not too difficult actually.

Turkish Truffles
(adapted from Mel’s Vegan Rum Balls)

250g biscuits
3 tbs cocoa powder
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1 tin (330g) soy condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rosewater
2 tbs Kahlua
Extra dessicated coconut, for coating

1. In a food processor, process biscuits until they are a fine powder.
2. Add cocoa powder and dessicated coconut, pulse a few times.
3. Transfer mixture to a bowl, add the liquids, and mix until well-combined.
4. Chill mixture until firm (30 min – 1h), then remove and roll into balls.
5. Coat balls in dessicated coconut, and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

* If you don’t already know, Planet Vegmel is a collection of veggie bloggers around Melbourne. It’s choked full of recipes, restaurant reviews, product reviews, public service announcements and all things concerning being a happy vego/human in general.