Chocolate fruit and nut balls

One of the first recipes or blog posts I saw from the sort of 'whole food' community was one about something called 'bliss balls'.  They were described as little balls of chocolatey heaven with none of the guilt. Or similar!  I rather liked the sound of that so I bought the ingredients and followed the recipe all excited.  Then, there they were, these little balls of loveliness all ready and waiting to pop into my eager and waiting mouth...

...I hated them.

And I hated the fact that I hated them.  I wanted to love them as much as blog poster did.  I wanted to feel a part of this wholesome whole food eating bliss ball rolling community.  

So I ate another.  Nope, still horrible.  They were just too sickly, a bit greasy, not quite sweet or chocolatey enough and just all wrong from my point of view.  A bit like nutella, or ferrero rocher...just not quite right if you ask me!

A while later, having seen about 85 billion more posts and recipes on these little balls of wrongness, I tried another recipe.  Still not buying it.

Then this evening I thought to myself, when I whizz up the dates and nuts and whatnot in the blender I always really like the taste of what comes out, and I'm pretty sure with a bit of tweaking here and there I could make the mixture into balls.

So, off I popped into the kitchen armed with my trusty hand blender (well, no, that was already there, but you know what I mean), rooted about in jars of stuff and came up with the following recipe which......I LOVED!! And so did Alex so there are now none left already.  Oops.

Here's what I did:

handful brazils

handful cashews

2 dessert spoons almond butter

tspoon or 2 date syrup

5 pitted medjool dates

1 table spoon raw cacao powder

You could use any nuts really but I just fancied this mix today.

Then all I did was whizz it up on full power for a bit until it resembled what I can only describe as crumbly soil!  There should still be visible bits of nut in it and it should be crumbly rather that gooey - add more dry stuff if not.

Despite being crumbly, it is also nice and sticky so then, just grab some in your hands and press it together into a ball shapes.  The mixture is enough to make 10 balls.

10 little balls of chocolatey yumminess I PROMISE.  Not too sickly, not oily, not sort of airy fairy chocolate, just yum with a nice consistency.

And whilst not the healthiest of all things ever, all whole foods, all natural ingredients and all yum.

I'd love to hear if anybody found another 'bliss ball' style recipe they liked or what you think of this one? Think I might experiment with a bit more fruitiness somehow next time.  Or dip them in molten dark chocolate and pop in the fridge to set. Or add some rose water. Or....

Chocolate biscuit crumb

WO WA WEE WA! I have just made something very very nice indeed!

So, as usual I was watching MasterChef and there was chocolate chocolate everywhere and I needed to get me some. 

So I decided to make something up and it went like this:

1 heaped tspoon almond butter (any nut butter will work)

Small handful whole almonds 

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

5 pitted dates 

1 tablespoon raw cacao powder

(You may need to tweak amounts according to taste and also because I'm not very exact with my measurements!)

Whizz it all up in a blender and it'll make a consistency like that chocolate soil posh chefs make, but if you squidge it up  its goey enough to hold its form. 

Then I tasted it and nearly went straight to heaven! It is outrageously delicious and tastes exactly like a posh biscuit base. 

I decided to leave it as 'soil' or a crumb rather than make it into a solid mass but I may make the leftovers into little balls of yumminess. 

Anyway, I served it sprinkled over Greek yogurt with some raspberries and enjoyed every mouthful. 

As I'm writing alex is now also appreciating his bowlful. A lot :)

It's amazing what you can do once you've learnt a few tricks with the old date/nut butter/blender combo. 

This is definitely a favourite so far and totally satisfied my MasterChef chocolate envy. 

Quick nutty pud

I've just watched Master chef and really fancied a pudding. 

So I made one. It took about 3 minutes and was delicious. 

All I did was put 2 heaped teaspoons almond butter (you cld use peanut butter), about 5 pitted dates, a handful of almonds, a glug of pure maple syrup and a generous sprinkle of oatbran (you could use oats) in my mini blender and whizzed it all up until it mushed together and held its shape but there were still nice chunks of fruit and nut in it. 

It was so delicious, kind of like a nut brittle come florentine biscuit, that I nearly ate the whole lot out of the pot instead of dishing it up...and sharing it with Alec although his portion was severely diminished by said pot chomping. 

Anyway, once it had made it's way safely into a bowl it was accompanied by some trusty Greek yogurt and was duly wolfed down. 

Yum. Quick, simple, whole food nutty yumminess. 

I don't have a photo because a it looked like brown nutty stuff, not very attractive. Oh, and the real reason is because I just wanted to eat it not photograph it!