Coconut Choco Truffles...completely Indianized !!!!

I am back from my vacation and I hope that every one is enjoying the most joyful holiday week of the year with Christmas and New year celebrations.Even I had a wonderful holiday and got to spend good two weeks away from my regular house chores and cooking. And now coming to the description of how this Indianized truffles evolved.Before I was leaving I was on kitchen cleaning spree and was left with a small coconut.I initially thought of making the regular coconut burfi / kopra pak with it and when I was talking to my mom about this she suggested me to try coconut burfi by adding cocoa powder.I preferred to make this with jaggery instead of sugar to get the natural brown color to it and when I was making the burfi,somehow the idea of Truffles stuck in mind and I was very excited about the idea of turning the burfi to truffles.To my surprise they turned out too good,they were chewy and the bite through the cocoa powder takes the regular coconut balls to a completely different level.On the whole I really enjoyed making them and packing them in wrappers and these Indianized truffles can also be given as a christmas/festive gift and is apt for the season now.

Ingredients:
2 cups heaped grated fresh coconut
1 1/2 cups Jaggery or Sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
3 tbsp chopped cashewnuts
3 tbsp ghee

for dusting:
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp icing sugar
Method:

• Grate the coconut carefully,scrape only the white part leaving the brown edges behind.
• Heat 1 tbsp ghee in a small pan and add chopped cashew nuts and fry until light brown in color.
• Place Jaggery with 1-2 tbsps of water/milk in a thick wide bottomed vessel on medium heat and let it come to boil.Let the jaggery dissolves completed and blends well with milk and forms syrupy liquid(to reach one-string consistency).The process of achieving string consistency syrup liquid is important in order to get a tasty sticky truffle.
• Now add grated coconut,fried cashewnuts,elaichi powder and 3 tbsp ghee to it and stir well.Let it cook by stirring it constantly until the edges of the mixture in the vessel is bit dry and flaky.It approximately takes 10-12 minutes.
• Switch off the flame and add cocoa powder and mix quickly and let it cool down a bit.
• Mean while mix cocoa powder and icing sugar and sieve it onto a wide plate to get a uniform mixture.
• Now take a small portion of the coconut mixture and make a ball out of it.Repeat the process to make all the remaining balls.
• Roll them in the cocoa powder mixture and place them on a dry plate and let them set for 30 mins to one hour.
• Now pack them in colorful chocolate wrappers,I packed mine in small pieces of aluminium foil as I did not have chocolate wrappers at that time.

Store it in air-tight containers and eat them at any time of the day as a simple sweet/dessert/snack. They stay good for 4-5 days outside and upto 15-20 days when refrigerated.I am sure that they will not last that longer,they are surely irresistible and would be over within 2 days.