Pistachio Truffles

Hello folks,

As I mentioned it my last blog post, I will share another recipe from the left over Pista paan mithai. Here it is Pistachio Truffles. It is a good fusion dessert, quick and easy dessert.

What Is A Truffle?

Understandable: balls of ganache, coated classic-style, or enrobed in chocolate. Also understandable: squares of ganache. Modern truffles can be coated in peppercorns, sweet curry and paprika and can be enrobed in couverture. But they still have a commonality: balls, squares or other shapes, filled with ganache.

What Is Not A Truffle?

Anything else, including fruit cremes and other creme centers, whipped cream-filled chocolates, and any filled chocolate that isn’t filled with ganache.

Although my truffles are not gooey and soft, they have some nuts filled in the center, but they are dusted with pistachio powder and are round in shape. I decided to call it Pistachio truffles.

The ingredients mentioned below can easily result in 18-20 truffles.

Ingredients

For Pista truffles

• Pistachios 2 cup
• Milk Powder 1/2 cup
• Corn flour -2 tsp
• Powdered sugar -2 tbsp.
• Edible green color 8-10 drops
• Condensed milk -4 tbsp.
• Cardamom powder 1/2 tsp

For Filling

• 4 tbsp. pistachios, blanched, peeled and chopped
• 4 tbsp. almonds, blanched, peeled and chopped
• 4 tbsp. walnut, chopped
• 8-10 drops Kewra essence
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom (elaichi) powder
• a few saffron strands(optional)

For the outer covering/ dusting: Raw pista (fine) powder.

Method:

• Place a small size pan over medium heat and add the shelled pista (pistachios) Roast the pista (pistachios) at medium low heat by continuously flipping so that they don’t get burn.
• Let the pista cool down and then grind them in mixer to a fine powder. Sieve the powder to get rid of any bits of pista left.
• Add the milk powder, sugar, cardamom powder and corn flour. Mix it well, add few drops of edible green food color. Add 1 tbsp. of condensed milk.
• Mix it with hand, it will turn into crumbly texture, keep adding condensed milk 1 tbsp. at a time until you can form a dough. If not add little more condensed milk.
• PS: Don’t knead the mixture too much else pista will release oil and it will be difficult to handle.
• Chop the dry fruits and set aside.
• Remove the shell of 8-10 pista and using a blender finely powder it. Keep it aside.
• In a small pan take 2 tsp of butter or ghee (clarified butter) on low heat, add 3 tbsp. of condensed milk and stir it. Add chopped dry fruits, cardamom powder and kewra essence. Stir for 1 minute and turn off the heat.
• PS: Do not cook the filling mixture for long time else it will get hard like rock. Now keep the filling mixture aside.
• Divide the dough into small balls. You may decide on the size and modify. Since I was using the left overs from (Pista Paan Mithai), I divided into equal portion and scrapped just a little bit.
• Before rolling the small dough into perfect rounds, add small amount of the filling mixture. This is to give it a Paan flavor and some texture as you bite into it. using your hands roll into perfect rounds. Pista should release enough oil so you won’t need ghee or oil to give it a smooth texture.
• Make sure there is no coarse pieces int he finely powdered pista. Roll each truffle one by one with pista powder.
•  Delicious Pistachio truffles are ready!!