Healthified Banana Cake Truffles (eggless)

 Full disclosure: I take all of the pictures of the food that is posted on this blog.  However, my sister was kind enough to help me out with my busy schedule this week by photographing the food for this post.  She is a professional graphic designer and photographer - so enjoy the high quality photos in this post before we get back to our regularly scheduled service of my amateur work!  Thanks sis, you are the best <3

What real photography looks like!

The recipe in this post is innovative and tasty, although I can't take credit for the original idea.  These are a healthified riff on Inquiring Chef's Chocolate-Dipped Banana Bread Truffles I can only assume that her version is 5 times more delicious given that it uses traditionally decadent ingredients.  I was intrigued by her recipe because it uses more natural ingredients than your typical candy-coating, store-bought frosting cake-pop/truffle recipe.  Plus, the banana-cream cheese-chocolate combination is a fantastic idea in my opinion!  However, I needed a treat that was a little more moderate in terms of fat and sugar, since I have been baking some fully sinful treats over the past couple of weeks!

You could definitely have some fun dressing these up.

This recipe for banana bread truffles uses my healthy New Year's Muffin recipe, light cream cheese, and dark chocolate.  The result is a cake-pop like treat that tastes like real food (I have a real issue with many cake pop recipes, but I'll save that rant for another time :P).  You may find that these are not sweet enough for your taste.  If that is the case, add 1-2 tablespoons of powdered sugar to the mixture after you have mixed in the cream cheese and cinnamon.  You could also use a chocolate with a lower cocoa mass percentage.  Play around with this recipe!  Even though these aren't tooth-achingly sweet, when I took them in to work I received several requests for the recipe - so it has been approved by the hordes ;)

Healthified Banana Cake Truffles (eggless)
Adapted from Inquiring Chef blog

 Makes 35-40 truffles

• 1 batch New Year's Muffins, raisins and almonds omitted
• 6oz light cream cheese (the brand I used had 15% M.F., I can't vouch for how lighter cream cheeses would taste in this recipe)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 12oz dark chocolate (I used 72% and it was perfect for my taste)

1. Crumble the muffins into a large bowl, you want the consistency of small-medium crumbs.
2. Add cream cheese and cinnamon to the crumbled muffins.  Mash the mixture together with a fork until all ingredients are combined, the consistency is smooth, and it holds together.
3. Line a couple of baking trays with silicone baking sheets or wax paper.  Scoop out tablespoon-size portions of the muffin mixture and roll into balls with your (clean!) hands. Place each ball on a baking tray.  Once you have finished making all of the balls, place the baking trays in the refrigerator and leave to chill for 30 minutes to 2 hours.
4. Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a (makeshift) double boiler.  Stir frequently and remove the bowl from the heat once melted.  If you have used a large bowl for the double boiler, transfer the chocolate to a bowl in which it just fits.  This will make it easier to coat the balls.
5. Dip the chilled balls in the melted chocolate (one at a time!).  My preferred method was to transfer the ball via fork into the bowl of chocolate, push it around until coated fully with chocolate, fish it out on the flat edge of the tines of the fork, and then gently shake the fork until the excess chocolate dripped off through the tines.  Transfer the coated truffle back to the baking sheet.  If you find that your bowl of melted chocolate is starting to re-solidify, microwave it on high for 5-10 seconds, and stir.
6. Let the truffles firm up at room temperature and then transfer back to the refrigerator to chill for a few hours.  Keep them stored in the refrigerator.  If desired, place truffles in liners. Serve!

I hope you enjoy :)