Fruit Truffles-Low-Cal

These no-bake truffles lean on ripe bananas for their sweetness, so there’s no added sugar anywhere in the recipe. The riper the banana, the better the truffle, so hold out for the ones with brown freckles on the peel.

Orange juice and fresh zest cut through the banana’s sweetness and keep the finished truffle from tasting flat. The citrus oils in the zest matter more than the juice; don’t skip them.

Ground almonds give the mixture enough body to roll. Without them you’d have banana mash. Chilling the mixture before shaping is the difference between clean little spheres and a sticky mess stuck to your palms.

The cocoa-and-crushed-almond coating does the real work of making these look and taste like proper truffles. Press each ball gently into the coating so it sticks evenly.

Kitchen Tips

• Flour your hands lightly between rolling so the mixture doesn’t drag.
• Use unsweetened cocoa powder; anything pre-sweetened throws off the balance.
• Zest the orange before juicing it; it’s much harder the other way around.
• Eat within two days; the bananas will oxidize and turn the centers gray if kept longer.

Variations

• Swap almonds for ground hazelnuts or walnuts for a different nutty profile.
• Roll half the batch in shredded coconut instead of cocoa for visual contrast.
• Add a pinch of cinnamon to the cocoa coating for a Mexican-chocolate warmth.