Lemon Coconut "Cake Pop" truffles

So I was going about my daily business, making lemon coconut bars, like you do. I took them out the oven, the heat of the oven blew out onto my face, citrus aromas wafter up and enveloped me. Can you imagine it?

I let them cool for 20 minutes, excitement bubbling out to see the result of my new creation and. I can't get them out of the pan. Where's the baking paper? Tin foil? I hadn't lined the pan!!!

After very unsuccessfully attempting to get the bars out in one piece, it fell into a crumbled heap on the table.

I fell to the floor exhausted, hands in my hair. Boom, an idea sparked.

Hey, what's those cake balls, pop cakes thingy? they're basically crumbled cake right? After a bit of researching I recovered my epic fail and made these lovelies.

So if there's a lesson in this it's: Don't give up when you think you've failed guys. It's only a fail if you don't try to fix it.

These are sweet but refreshing and even better, paleo! And refined sugar free!

Easy and no fail, because this recipe was created from a fail so technically the whole recipe is already a fail. If that makes sense. Probably not...let's get on with the recipe!

Lemon Coconut "Cake Pop" truffles

Serves: 8 truffles

Ingredients

For the cake

• 60g desiccated coconut

• 60ml maple syrup

• 60ml coconut oil, melted

• 60g almond meal

• 25g coconut flour

• 1tsp baking powder

• 1 vanilla pod

• 3 eggs

• 1 lemon, juice and zest

• 57g coconut oil, softened

For the Frosting

• 150g powdered coconut sugar ( or if you're not fussed, icing sugar )

• 1tbsp lemon juice

• 1tsp lemon zest

• 1tsp lemon curd, (optional - if you wanna give it that extra zing and tang )

For the Coating

• 30g coconut oil

• 30g maple syrup

• 15g raw cacao powder

*Or you can leave your truffles plain or coat them in melted chocolate, to skip some hustle but it depends if you want them to be 100% paleo

Method

- Preheat the oven to 175degrees/350F, fan. line a large and flat-ish ( I cannot tell you how many times that autocorrected to flatfish ) pan.

- Combine all the dry and stir until no lumps remain. in a small bowl.

- Whisk the eggs before adding in the renaming wet ingredients, including the vanilla, in a large bowl.

- Gently fold the dry into the wet until no streaks remain.

- Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 15 minutes or until golden around the edges and moist crumbs come out after a tooth pick is inserted in the middle.

- Remove from the oven and let it cool.

- For the Buttercream, meanwhile cream the coconut oil, in a medium-sized bowl.

- Once creamy, SLOWLY add the sugar ( otherwise you'll have a mini snow blizzard). Add it in bits until your preferred taste and consistency.

- Once the sugar is full incorporated, add the lemon juice and zest, Beat it in.

- Adjust the consistency of the icing by adding water or more sugar. Set aside.

( Here you can melt your chocolate or make the paleo chocolate )

- To Assemble, get your hands messy and crumble up all the cake mixture. It will be quite crumbly anyway. Make sure it is crumbled thoroughly with the tips of your fingers.

- Add a heaped tablespoon at a time, of buttercream to your mixture, and stir it through.

*There might be some buttercream left by the end of this

- Keep doing this until the mixture resembles a play dough-like texture. Be careful not to add too much otherwise it will ruin the light and fluffiness of the cake pops.

- Test if the dough-batter (or whatever) is ready by pinching a bit of it. It shouldn't crumble and give way to your pressure.

- Cover a plate in cling film.

- Roll the dough into 8 even balls. Dip them in the chocolate and place them on the plate. Chill them in the fridge for an hour.

Enjoy!