When I was a very little girl in Canada I remember my grandmother reaching into her freezer and pulling out a container of her home made chocolates. The filling was sweet and white with a coconut flavour and I was absolutely and utterly in love with the little chocolate covered morsels. I would ask what was in the filling, to which my grandmother would reply, with a little half-smile and mischievous glint in her eye: “Mashed potatoes!”
“Mashed potatoes?! No way!” I would reply, each time, “What’s really in them?”
The answer was always the same: mashed potatoes (and a chuckle). I grew up believing I’d been had because there was no way there was mashed potatoes in those delicious chocolates my grandmother made.
No.
No possibility at all.
Then, some years later and 3000 miles away one of the Mums at our local toddler group brought a homemade Scottish sweet to a party. This Scottish macaroon, she said, was made with mashed potatoes and icing sugar. I immediately remembered my grandmother’s chocolates and realised I hadn’t been had after all! I remember at the time didn’t much care for the toddler Mum’s Scottish macaroon, it being overly sweet and quite hard in texture, but I realised that perhaps my grandmother had been telling the truth way back then!
This month I have had the pleasure of hosting Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog’s We Should Cocoa food blogging challenge where I challenged my fellow food bloggers to make and share their recipes for chocolates. I immediately thought of my grandmother’s chocolates and I set out to recreate them as my own challenge entry. My theory was that if coconut oil was included it would result in a softer textured centre. I was right! I’d also picked up a lovely little heart shaped silicone ice cube mould at our local charity shop for just 20 pence which I thought would make a perfect mould for the filling.
I wanted to make the filling dairy free as one of my reader’s in Australia (hello Lee!) asked me for a dairy free chocolate recipe. This is it! This recipe is also vegan, just make sure you use an appropriate dark chocolate for dipping.
I’m am quite pleased with how well this recipe turned out. I dished the chocolates out to unsuspecting visitors over the following days after making them, to which each and every single taste tester said, “They taste like Bounty Bars!” One said they were like Bounty Bars, but better, because they aren’t as sickly sweet as a Bounty Bar. Not one single person guessed that there was mashed potato in them!
When making these make sure you use a floury potato, the kind you would use for mashing. I used J.K. Mainland’s potatoes, from the south end of Shetland, because I think they’re the best mashing potato ever!
My chocolate dipping technique needs to be refined somewhat, I think. I wanted to give the chocolates a flat bottom, but placing them on a flat surface made the melted chocolate spread out, so I left them on a wire cooling rack to drip and cool. This made the tops look lovely and heart-shaped, but the bottoms were a bit bumpy. Ach well, they still tasted fantastic! There’s an excellent Guardian article on tempering chocolate here, if you want a little guidance/advice on the process.
Ideally, I would have double dipped the chocolates in dark chocolate for a thicker coating, but I ran out of chocolate and it was Sunday morning when I was dipping them, so I only used a single layer. I think the addition of a spoonful or two of Malibu rum might take these chocolates to a whole new coconutty level, but I haven’t tried it yet. Do let me know if you do!
If you’re looking for another old school coconut recipe why not try these coconut pyramids from The Hedgecombers.
- 160 grams peeled floury potatoes
- 250 grams icing sugar, sieved
- 150 grams desiccated coconut
- 3 tbsp coconut oil, warmed
- 1-2 tbsp Malibu rum (optional)
- 200 – 400 grams good quality dark chocolate
- 50 grams good quality white chocolate
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: Makes 35
No Bake Summer Fruits Cheesecake
Oh wow, you are wonderful Elizabeth. Not only would no-one guess about the mashed potato, but if you hadn’t told us we wouldn’t know the chocolates had bumpy bottoms either – they look perfect. The texture inside looks like a bounty bar with not a hint of mashed potato. I still haven’t tried that cake, never mind chocolates, but at least I’m not likely to run out of things to try. Thank you for hosting a great challenge.
Aw thanks Choclette! It was my pleasure hosting the challenge, thank you!
I’m deeply impressed by that use of mashed potato. These do look and sound great. Malibu would not be optional for me. I don’t care for it as a drink but it’s an excellent addition to foods of many kinds.
Thanks Phil! I don’t drink Malibu either, but you’re right, as an ingredient it is wonderful!
Oh my goodness – this takes me back about 30 years to when we used to make macaroons at school. I used to love them. Thanks for the reminder and I love the idea of making them into cute little chocolates instead of into bars. So lovely!
We never made such things in Canada. It wasn’t until I moved to Scotland that I heard of it! Then again, I never really started cooking properly until I moved to Scotland… Thank you for your lovely comment 🙂
What delightful chocolates, Elizabeth! I love the shape and ingredient list and I’m so intrigued by the potatoes but it makes sense in many ways. The texture looks perfect!
Thank you Mark 🙂 Mashed potatoes isn’t really something one would normally put in a chocolate, I don’t think, but you’re right – it really does work well!
Oh wow – these sound delicious. What a fab way to use left over potatoes too!
They are pretty scrummy indeed! 😀
What beautiful chocolates you’ve made. They look perfect, like you’d buy in a chocolate shop. I love the coconut centres too…lovely! I’d love to enter the challenge but have been/will be away for most of August so I’ll have to content myself with looking at everyone else’s creations 🙂
Thank you Laura, I really appreciate your lovely comments 🙂 I haven’t been able to enter as many challenges as I’d like this month either, what with studying. Next month though! Here I come! 😀
These look gorgeous – so professional. Any chocolate dipping I have ever been involved with has been a decidedly messy affair with poor results. I’m envious!
Aw thank you Louise! It was a bit of a messy procedure, but I kept a wet cloth next to me and used a spoon and a fork to roll the chocolates around in the melted chocolate. I’m pleased at how well they turned out. The white chocolate drizzle took some practise too!
I am a huge fan of mashed potato in sweet food and bounty bars so these sounds fantastic to me. I did wonder if you would manage to sneak in some Shetland seaweed 🙂
I did toy with the idea, but I had another plan in store for seaweed – my very first blog giveaway! 😀
I had lemon drizzle cake with mashed potatoes in (I live in Aberdeen, Scotland) and it was delicious. Must try these chocolates at some point. Look fab!
Mmm a lemon drizzle cake with potatoes sounds lovely. I made a chocolate pistachio one once, which had a fantastic texture. Mashed potatoes are so versatile!
Wow, I never heard of the mashed potato thing, I bet it makes the texture amazing. I’m so intrigued, I want to try these for myself. They’re beautiful!
The addition of the potato does make a wonderful textured centre, I think, especially with the bits of coconut in it. I do hope you try them yourself, let me know if you do!
wow, mashed potatoes… intriguing… they look SO beautiful and so delicate and I love them… basically anything that has coconut in them is good by me!
it’s not really an ingredient you would associate with chocolates, is it! I’m quite fond of coconut centres in chocolates, myself. 🙂
They look amazing! I did know about the mashed potato thing though!
Thanks Janice! 🙂 Being Scottish I suspect you would be well acquainted with The Scottish Macaroon!