Make a Date with Date Balls: Healthy AND Yummy!

I have a real sweet tooth – to the point where I think no meal is complete without a chocolate chaser.

Of course this is not such a good thing when I am already battling middle aged spread!

So what’s a gal to do? Sometimes you just NEED a sweet treat …

Luckily, Miss 20 loves to experiment in the kitchen and visited earlier this week with the results of her latest project – protein balls with dates.

Now I should mention that I am soooo not interested in the the whole paleo, vegan, raw food thing – and am fortunate in that I don’t need to follow a gluten free or dairy free diet either.

So when I learned that these protein balls with dates are suitable for all of the above – and healthy to boot – I was pretty sure I knew what they would taste like.

Cardboard.

I was wrong!

These little beauties are ah-mazing. Deliciously rich and decadent tasting, they more than passed the taste test. AND they’re simple to make!

As with all good news, I just can’t keep it to myself – so here’s the recipe as created by our own Miss 20 …

Protein Balls with Dates Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup of natural unsalted cashews
• 750g dates (she uses the pitted dried dates, much cheaper than fresh)
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• sprinkling of goji berries
• dessicated coconut

Method

• Blend cashews in food processor and set aside.
• Then, blend dates with coconut oil and maple syrup (it doesn’t have to be a completely smooth paste, just as long as the chunks are smaller).
• Stir date mix and cashews together in a bowl and add a sprinkling of goji berries (and a bit of coconut too if you like); mix.
• Roll into balls and roll in coconut.
• Place in fridge to firm up for at least two hours before eating (if you can wait that long!).

And that’s it!

Miss 20 was inspired to make her own after buying them from the cafe near her work – at $4 a pop. Using this as a price guide, the bowl above must be worth about $100 then 😉 .

Any other rampaging sweet tooths out there?! Would you eat protein balls with dates or does it all sound too healthy for you?!