Allergy-friendly raspberry chocolate truffle recipe

Allergy-friendly raspberry chocolate truffles.

Hanging out with different families around the place, I've come across a few children with serious food allergies.

I'm talking the kind of allergies that send these children into anaphylactic shock if they ingest the wrong food.

And what I've noticed with these children is that they're usually not just allergic to one thing, their allergies tend to come in threes. A couple of children I know are allergic to eggs, nuts and dairy.

My heart goes out to the parents of these children.

It's challenging enough getting kids to eat well when you have all the food in the world available. But having whole food groups cut out by allergies must make the task so much harder.

To help these parents out, I've set myself the challenge of coming up with allergy-friendly recipes that are delicious, healthy and made with real food ingredients.

None of these allergy-friendly recipes will include the five main allergens I've come across - soy, dairy, eggs, nuts and gluten. I also want them to be super nourishing, so I'm hoping to avoid refined sugar too.

I've got the help of some wonderful sponsors, who are providing ingredients for my test kitchen. I will introduce you to these sponsors as their ingredients feature over the coming weeks.

I made today's raspberry chocolate truffle recipe with ingredients I already had in the kitchen. It's simple, but delicious and nourishing.

These truffles are naturally sweetened by dates and raspberries. The addition of coconut and chia seeds delivers a superfood punch.

My girls have been devouring these raspberry chocolate truffles at an alarming rate. I must admit, I have too. *Update, they're now all gone.

Ingredients

• 2c pitted dates
• 2c water
• 1c frozen raspberries
• 1/3c cocoa, plus more to roll the truffles in
• 2/3c desiccated coconut, plus more to roll the truffles in
• 2T chia seeds
• Pinch salt

Method

1. Place 2 cups of pitted dates and 2 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

2. Lower heat to a simmer and stir dates, crushing with a wooden spoon to break up the tough skin.

3. Once the dates have softened, stir through one cup of frozen raspberries and continue simmering and crushing until they are combined with the dates.

4. Turn off the heat and stir through 1/3 cup cocoa, 2/3 cup desiccated coconut, 2 Tablespoons chia seeds and a pinch of salt.

5. Stir until you end up with a thick, chocolatey looking mixture.

6. Leave the mixture to cool enough to handle, then roll into small balls and coat in dessicated coconut or cocoa powder. To do this, just sprinkle the desiccated coconut or cocoa on a side plate and roll the balls in it to coat on all sides.

7. Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. These will keep for several days in the fridge, if you don't gobble them up first.