Chocolate is a good way to celebrate anything, in my books. Fruit Cake Truffles are definitely a good way to celebrate the New Year. We’re over a week into 2018 but I’m fine saying New Year so long as we’re still in January.
I must however go back to 2017 to tell the story of these Fruit Cake Truffles. I spent most of the last couple of weeks of December with a viral infection. So I didn’t do much of the baking I normally do then. Two cakes I almost always bake are a Date & Walnut Cake and the traditional Kerala Plum Cake.
It was Christmas Eve before I could around to make the Plum Cake. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an unlucky day for baking. That morning, I set out to bake bread. I’m a decent bread maker but that bread turned out almost inedible and I had to throw it out. Then I put the cake in the oven and the centre wouldn’t cook even after 1 ½ hours! And this a recipe, that has never failed me before. I guess, I’m going to stop baking on Christmas Eve from now on.
Finally, I had to take it out of the oven. The cake had settled and become gummy in the centre. It tasted awesome on top of everything and I couldn’t bring myself to throw this out as well. So I cut off the cooked portions of the outer cake and saved it while binning the rest of it.
The next question was to do with bits of fruit cake? There were no dearth of ideas but I was in the mood for some chocolate. So I turned the saved fruit cake bits into truffles. The combination of rich spiced fruit cake and dark chocolate was just delightful. Next time I make fruit cake I’m saving some of it to make these truffles.
Please note that the amounts given below are approximate. Of course, making truffles is not rocket science, at least not these ones. So go with your intuition. You can always melt a little extra chocolate and use the remainder as a sauce or make yourself a mug of hot chocolate.
Most recipes that use cake to make truffles will ask you to add some sort of binder to the cake crumbs. Suggestions include buttercream (I never use this), or a little of something liquid like orange juice, cream cheese, cream, etc. My fruit cake is rich and moist enough that it needs nothing extra. I just crumbled the cake and squeezed the crumbs together. They held shape and were easy to roll into balls.

Fruit Cake Truffles
Ingredients
- 3 cups crumbled rich fruit cake
- 3/4 cup finely chopped dark chocolate
- 1 tbsp oil
Instructions
- Press the crumbled fruit cake in your hand and shape into balls. Refrigerating these balls overnight or for about 4 to 5 hours at least makes them easier to coat in chocolate.
- Put the chopped chocolate and oil in a bowl and melt it over a pan of simmering water making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
- Let the chocolate cool just a little. Then dip each ball in the warm chocolate so it is completely coated. Let the excess chocolate drip and place on parchment lined tray to set. Pipe any remaining chocolate over the set truffles to decorate. Else decorate as you wish.
Clever and beautiful! Love the light in that last shot glistening on the truffles. Just lovely.
YUM! These truffles look amazing!
Thank you Kelly. 🙂
Thanks. 😀
I kept some red velvet cake trimmings for making cake pops but could not do it due to guests. Love they way you have done the chocolate coating and the last pic looks so good with a perfect chocolate glaze
All your preparations look so beautiful. I am not a chocolate person at all but this seems worth trying. Looks like I need to make a trip to Kochi to try some of your recipes.
Maybe you need an excuse to come down to Kochi? 🙂
Thank you. You could use those to make truffles as well, Simi.