Energy Balls

My good friend (and nutritionist) Gwen (@gwenright_nutrition) gave me a recipe for energy balls a good few years ago, before they were popular. They were an instant hit with my kids who absolutely l ove them, andeven my husband, who hates nuts, likes them.

This recipe is a slight variation to the one she gave to me having figured out what works best for my family in terms of flavour and what works best for me in terms of making them. They are fairly quick and easy to make and contain only natural and wholesome ingredients. These are great as a snack in between meals, or as a treat with a cup of tea. But beware of eating too many as they do have natural sugars in them. Still, they are a WHOLE lot better then chocolate bars.

From a plastic point of view, these are a winner. They keep you away from buying individually wrapped sweets and bars, and all of the ingredients can be sourced plastic free.

---

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of pitted dates (you can use any dried fruit but I find dates best as they are really sticky and help bring the dry ingredients together)

• 3/4 cup of Oats

• 1/4 cup of Ground Almonds (you can use any nuts but I have found that the energy balls roll better when I use already ground almonds)

• 2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut nut

• 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

• a tablespoon or two of melted coconut oil

Method:

1. Place all the ingredients (except the coconut oil in a blender) and blend until combined. I find it best to use the pulse function and scrap down the sides of the blender to get everything chopped up really fine.

2. Transfer to a bowl and take a lump of the ingredients into your hand. Squeeze and roll the ingredients into a ball about the size of a walnut.

3. if the ingredients are too dry and will not roll / squeeze into a ball, melt a tablespoon if coconut oil and add it to the dry ingredients. You might need to do this a second time if the ingredients are very dry.

4. Once finished, put your energy balls into the fridge to hard

5. Enjoy with a cup of Tea made to ones taste.

Alternative flavour - add some finely grated orange peel into these for a chocolate orange flavour.

---

Tips:

• These are so delicious, they fly out of the fridge in no time. To safe me having to make them constantly, I double up on the recipe. The picture at this top of this page shows how many energy balls I get from doubling up.

• To make sure the dry ingredients are chopped up fine (so husband can’t tell that I’ve added walnuts / hazlenuts / pecans) I blend the dry ingredients first. I then add the fruit.

• Beware of the sugar content of these. For adults, we would generally worm out any residual dates or raisins from our back teeth but children don’t. I limit how many of these my kids get and try to give them to them with something else, like a rice cake, which will pull the fruit out of their teeth.