Chocolate-Filled Plantain Dessert Gnocchi

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter! I hit up the candy aisle to see if I could find some Easter candy on sale this weekend and was disappointed that almost everything was already sold out! Only the small regular solid chocolate eggs were left – they just can’t compete with Reese’s peanut butter, Nestle crunch, or Butterfinger eggs! I almost walked away. Regular chocolate eggs didn’t seem too exciting, but then I was struck by their uniformity. Suddenly inspired, I scooped up a pack and raced over to the produce section to pick up some plantains.

You see, I’ve been thinking about gnocchi lately. I fell in love with this recipe for sweet potato gnocchi with a brown butter and sage sauce a few years ago and when I bought plantains last week for my Caramelized Plantain Dessert Quesadillas, I was thinking I should try to make a few into gnocchi. Plantains have a high starch content like potatoes do, so I figured they would also hold together well as gnocchi. I didn’t get around to it, but the thought was still lingering with me when I was looking at the little chocolate Easter eggs, and I was suddenly inspired to stuff them into plantain gnocchi as a dessert! Now, while I was excited about this concept, I didn’t really expect this crazy idea to work – most of my crazy ideas end in a pile of inedible food going down the garbage disposal. So, you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when everything came together on the first try.

I made the gnocchi with green, yellow, and black-brown plantains, since I wasn’t sure if the starch content would affect the ability of the gnocchi to hold together. The gnocchi cooked up nicely with all three kinds, but the ones from black-brown ones tasted the best since they’re a little sweeter. Then I rolled the dough out, cut it into squares, and sealed each piece around a chocolate egg. They cooked up beautifully and warm chocolate oozed out when I cut them in half. I tossed the chocolate stuffed gnocchi with this delicious strawberry sauce I saw on Meghan’s blog, You’re Gonna Bake It After All. Definitely not your typical dessert, but pretty tasty. I think I’m going to make the gnocchi again without the chocolate and with a savory sauce of some sort!

Chocolate-Filled Plantain Dessert Gnocchi
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 black-brown plantains, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 bag of chocolate Easter eggs
1/2 cup of your favorite fruit sauce

Directions:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Boil the plantains for 10 minutes or until tender. Remove from the pan and mash thoroughly in a medium bowl.

After letting mashed plantains cool for 10 minutes, mix in the egg. Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms (you may need to add a little more flour, depending on the size of your plantains).

Turn dough out onto floured surface; use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a large square and then cut the square into 2×2-inch squares. Place a chocolate egg into the middle of each square of dough and seal the chocolate inside the dough.

Bring large pot of water to boil. Working in batches, boil gnocchi until they are tender and float to the top, 3 to 5 minutes. Mix gnocchi with your favorite fruit sauce. Makes 8 servings.

Nutrition: 281 calories, 8.2g fat, 2.5g fiber, 5.3g protein per serving
Cost: $2.68 total