I’m heading to Ibiza in September (YEY), and after a very indulgent couple of months the time has come to try and reign it in a little and throw some healthy meals and snacks into the mix. I’m trying to do the whole being more active thing too, get me.
I love a good snack, and when it gets to about 3pm it’s all I can think about to get me through the rest of the afternoon at work. There is always chocolate in the kitchen at work, we must have chocolate fairies because I just don’t know where it comes from! And it’s very hard to resist. But, I have found a way to combat this and I’m sharing my recipe with you guys!
Many naturally sweetened health food type bars are full of dates, which I love but it can be a bit too much so I’ve added in cherries to give a bit of a ‘tang’ and I love the results! I was recently sent some of the new Lindt flavours and I just had to add a little of the dark coconut chocolate to this recipe (also, you have to try the cherry and almond dark chocolate – it’s like a Bakewell!). I can’t quite ween myself fully off the chocolate yet and I only coat half the balls, it’s all about the balance, hey. And it really does taste good. Even my husband loves these and he doesn’t even like dates. So there you go, they’re pretty amazing.
This recipe makes 10 – 12 balls.
Ingredients
– 10 x dates, soaked in water for 10 minutes
– 1 cup of almonds
– 1/2 cup of cashews
– 2 tbsp cacao powder
– 1 tbsp coconut oil, softened
– 1/3 cup of cherries
– 1 tbsp almond butter
– 35g Lindt coconut dark chocolate
Place the almonds and cashews into a food processor and blend for a couple of minutes until the nuts are finely chopped. Then add the almond butter and coconut oil and then whiz again for a minute and it should start to look like it’s combining a bit.
Add in the cacao powder and cherries and blend for another minute. Drain your dates from the water and roughly chop them, then add to the mixture and blend for a couple of minutes until evenly chopped.
Then take a handful of the mixture and squeeze together to compact it and roll into a ball. This recipe makes 10 – 12 balls. Place the balls in a container and put into the fridge. Leave them for about half an hour. This will firm them up.
Once they’ve done their time in the fridge get melting your chocolate. I do this in a bowl over hot water. Once melted, dip each ball into the chocolate. I like to coat half of the ball, but you have full artistic license here and can go fully coated (remember to melt more chocolate) or naked. Place the balls onto a tray and carefully place in the fridge to let the chocolate set (about half an hour again).
This is a really quick and easy recipe – I like to whip these up on a Sunday so I have my afternoon snacking sorted for the week. Easy peasy!
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