Chocolate Covered Marzipan Balls

Do you think it is hard to make marzipan? Not at all. It needs almond meal, water, rose water - and sugar.
Well, we don't eat sugar but there is a healthier solution.

Ingredients
150g blanched almond meal
100g xylitol
1 tbsp rose water
1 tbsp almond essence
100g 85% dark chocolate (eg. Lindt)


For the coating you will need toothpicks, aluminium foil and flat polystyrene. 


With a blender or a coffee grinder grind xylitol into a fine powder, the same consistency as icing sugar.
In a big bowl, mix almond meal and icing xylitol with rose water and almond essence and make a dough.
Take a teaspoon full of the dough and between your palms form a ball. Repeat it until all the dough is gone. Keep the balls in the freezer while you melt the chocolate but no longer.


Chop the chocolate roughly. On low temperature melt half of the chocolate. Remove from the heat then stir the rest of the chocolate in it. Leave it to melt.
Cover a flat polystyrene with aluminium foil. Stick a toothpick into a marzipan ball and swirl it around in the chocolate so that it's totally covered. Shake it a bit before you stick it into the polystyrene, so you won't waste too much chocolate. If the balls are cold enough, the chocolate will be hard very quickly. 
Once done, repeat till all your marzipan balls are covered with chocolate.

You should see something like this

If it's needed, place the balls into the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
When the chocolate coating is hard, you can cover the balls in coloured aluminium foil. 


Alternatively, you can roll the marzipan balls in Dutch (or raw) cocoa powder instead of the chocolate.  


Enjoy :)

Variations for wellbeing

Dairy intolerance: make sure to use dairy free chocolate.
Gluten intolerance: make sure to use gluten free chocolate.
Paleo: make sure to use dairy, gluten and soy free chocolate with high cocoa mass content.