Planet Veggie

I’ve been making these energy balls/energy bites/bliss balls/whatever you want to call them for a few years now, so I don’t know why I’m only blogging them now. Still, here we are. Or, rather, here they are.

I first started making them when, as I ate a Nakd Bar one day, I read the label and saw they’re made with just two or three ingredients; namely, cashews, dates and whatever flavouring was required. Well, I thought, if that’s all there is to them, then I’m going to make my own because how difficult can it be to smoosh up some cashew and dates and make them into a homemade Nakd Bar, saving me lots of money (those Nakd Bars aren’t cheap!)?

I’ll tell you how easy it was – it was as easy as it sounds – just chuck some cashews, dates and something else into a food processor, press go and let it do its thing until it forms a lump. So there you go – make these energy balls and not only can you save yourself some money, you can customise them with whatever flavours you like. These ones are lemon and coconut but I’ve also made chocolate and salted caramel flavour, and strawberry flavour. I would have made more flavours but my local supermarket only had salted caramel, and strawberry flavour extract along with the lemon extract I’ve used in this recipe. I’ve even coated energy balls in chocolate which made them amazing (man, I was tempted then to write ‘amazeballs’ because, they are balls after all, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, sigh) but obviously coating anything in chocolate – no matter how amazing it makes them, makes them much higher in calories, if you care about that sort of thing.

These energy balls are healthy, chewy, fudgy and quick to make. You must make them. I insist. You don’t even have to make them into balls – you can make them into bars instead. Or anything, really. Rabbits, maybe. With big sticky-up ears, or is that hares? I think that’s hares. Anyway, you know what I mean. Be creative and embrace your inner homemade Nakd Bar-er and mould them into shapes of your choice – down with rectangles!

One thing I will say is (although this might only apply to me and my cheapy food processor) it takes a few minutes for the cashew/date mixture to process in your food processor – mine takes about five minutes. You need to leave it going until the mixture has come away from the sides and has formed a lump and the blades no longer turn. If you’re scared your food processor will overheat and blow up, you can stop it a couple of times to give it a rest. Eventually though, you’ll get a big lump of energy ball to make into smaller ones (or just eat it as it is, taking bites out of it like an apple, over the course of the day or hour, depending on how hungry/greedy you are).

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Lemon & Coconut Energy Balls

5 from 2 votes

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Total Time 10 minutes mins

Course Snack

Servings 6

Calories 90 kcal

Ingredients

  

• 75 grams pitted dates
• 30 grams cashews
• 20 grams desiccated coconut
• 1/4 tsp lemon extract note: not lemon juice, but lemon extract found in the baking department with the vanilla extract, etc.

Instructions

 

• Add all ingredients into your food processor.
• Process until the mixture has come away from the sides and the food processor blades don't want to move any more.
  
• Divide into 6 pieces.
  
• Roll each piece into a ball or shape into a bar.
  
• Leave in the fridge to firm up for a few hours or put in the freezer for half an hour or so if you can't wait! 
  

Keyword vegan

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