These no-bake king cake truffles are a fun and easy way to satisfy your craving for a king cake! This recipe is free of refined sugar, gluten, and grains.

What is King Cake?

King cake is most often associated with Mardi Gras in the US, but it’s also enjoyed at the end of the Christmas season for Three King’s day as a pre-lenten celebration. It’s a circular cake that symbolizes unity and is topped with green, purple, and yellow sugar. A very defining feature of king cake is the little plastic baby that’s baked inside the cake, which everyone wants to find!

Yes, King Cake is a fully baked cake, however, I decided to simplify with a no-bake truffle! These truffles are made with dates and shredded coconut, coated in a white coconut butter coating and drizzled with the traditional yellow, green and purple coloring. It’s perfect for satisfying that craving for king cake this time of year without all of the efforts of baking a whole cake from scratch.

How to make No-Bake King Cake Truffles

• Toast the coconut: Preheat the oven to 325 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Add the shredded coconut to the baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 4-8 minutes, checking often to ensure they don’t burn, until lightly toasted. Set aside.
• Process the caramel: If your dates are hard, soak them in hot water for 5-10 minutes until soft. Strain the water and add the dates to the food processor. Pulse until the dates are mashed. Add the coconut milk and process until the mixture is a creamy caramel consistency and no large pieces of dates remain.
• Make the truffles: Spoon the date mixture into a large bowl and mix with the toasted shredded coconut until fully combined. Line a large plate with parchment paper and roll the date and coconut mixture into about 10 balls. Transfer to the fridge to chill for 15-20 minutes.

• Prep the coating: While the truffles chill, melt the coconut butter and the coconut oil using a double boiler method. Stir the coconut butter often to ensure the mixture doesn’t burn. Use an oven mitt to remove the mixture from the heat once it’s melted. Set up 3 ramekins or small bowls and spoon about 2 tbsp of melted coconut butter into each one. Add the coloring to each bowl and whisk together. Add more coloring as desired for more vibrant colors.
• Coat: Remove the truffles from the fridge. Carefully drop each truffle into the un-colored coconut butter and rotate with a spoon to fully coat. Transfer back to the parchment-lined plate and repeat for all of the truffles. Using separate spoons for each color, drizzle each one of the colors over the truffles until your desired look is achieved.  Chill in the fridge 30-45 minutes, or the freezer for 15-20 minutes, or until the coconut butter has hardened. Serve chilled.

Can you make this recipe coconut free?

As this recipe is nut-free and grain-free, the coconut is necessary to hold the base together and to coat the truffles. It’s not a good candidate for a coconut free recipe.

Can you make these ahead of time? How long do they last?

Yes! I think they’re better the next day, actually. They’ll last a few days in the fridge. You definitely want to keep them chilled as the coating needs to stay hardened.

The Ingredients

Dates

I think Medjool dates with the pits work best as they’re nice and juicy. The pits are really easy to remove!

Toasted shredded coconut

You can easily toast your own or buy it toasted.

Coconut milk

Canned, full-fat coconut milk is best. Native forest simple coconut milk is my favorite.

Coconut butter

Coconut butter is not the same as coconut cream. You can often find it near the nut butter, or you can buy it online. This is my favorite one to use.

Matcha powder, acai powder, and turmeric

These are the natural food colorings to add the green, purple and yellow color that you know and love with king cake! You can try and experiment with other similar colorings, but these are my favorite that I have on hand to yield these colors.

You’ll also love…

• Pumpkin donut holes
• Samoa truffles
• Peppermint truffles