Chocolate Balls with Pistachios & Coconut

Here’s a great party favorite. They are bite size and go great with after dinner drinks too.
No cooking involved, just mix, roll and chill. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 3 table spoons sugar
• 3/4 cup orange juice
• zest of 1 orange,finely scraped
• 5 cups finely crushed Petit Beurre or Tea Biscuits (about 11oz)
• 2 heaping table spoons cocoa powder
• 1 stick (1/4 lb) unsalted butter
• 1 cup coarsely chopped unsalted pistachios
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate morsels
• 1/2 cup light coconut flakes (drier and smaller flakes)
• 1/2 cup coarsely grated pistachio nuts’ meat

Directions:
Crush biscuits in a large bowl. I crushed them by hand, but you can put them in a large plastic bag and crush them with a roller or even with an empty wine bottle. It is OK to have small uncrushed pieces for when you add liquids they dissolve easily. I use Tea Biscuits instead of the Petit Beurre biscuits since they are lighter.
In a small bowl, combine orange juice with sugar. Mix well with a spoon until sugar dissolves.
Add all ingredients including the orange juice with the exception of coconuts and grated pistachio nuts to the large bowl. Mix well, chill in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

Melt chocolate over boiling water.

Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Form the mixture in the bowl into small walnut size balls by rolling them between the palms of your hands. Use up all of the mixture to make all of the balls. Mine yielded a total of 50 balls.

Coarsely Chopped Pistachios for the mixture

Grated pistachios for the outside

Mixture formed into balls ready to be dipped in chocolate

Dip the balls in melted chocolate first, then roll half of the balls in coconut flakes and the other half in pistachio nuts. Place them on the cookie sheet. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving. You may want to place fancy party tooth picks to add a nice accent to these delicious dessert bytes.

Half the balls are rolled in grated pistachios

The other half rolled in coconut