Coconut date balls

A long time ago, I made some energy bar things with dates and coconut and almonds. They were delicious, but somewhat complicated, involving eggs and baking and stuff. I wanted to make something portable and delicious and full of calories for the weekend, and figured I'd make the coconut date balls again, but this time, without bothering to bake them. I think these turned out even better (and certainly passed the Ed-rating), and they were super easy to make. Took about 10 minutes, and most of that was wandering around the kitchen trying to find various ingredients.

Coconut date balls
Made 25 balls
1C sweetened shredded coconut
1C fresh dates (with or without pits)
1C almonds
~1tbs lemon juice
1/2tsp salt
~1/4C cocoa

Equipment: food processor.

Start with the almonds - put them in the food processor and grind them up as finely as you can, but before they turn into almond butter. Dump them in a big bowl. Dump in a cup of coconut. Take the pits out of the dates, and mash those up in the food processor, too. They should make a pretty smooth paste pretty quickly.

whole date.

Mashed dates.

Put the dates in the bowl. Add the lemon juice and salt, and then use your hands to squish everything together until it's nicely mixed. Lick your fingers afterward, because the mixture is delicious.

mmmmm.

Roll the mixture into bite-sized balls. I got 25 out of this recipe. Put about a quarter cup of baking cocoa in a shallow bowl, and roll each ball in the cocoa. Really this is just to keep them from sticking too badly to each other, I think, but it has the added benefit of making them taste like chocolate. Once they're rolled, you're good to go - you can just put them in a tupperware and they'll last for a long time (weeks? months? you be the guinea pig...), or just start eating them. I prefer them on day 2, because more of the cocoa has sunk in, so it's less powdery.



And since these are basically energy bars, I figured I should calculate out the macronutrients - each ball (if you make 25) is 65 calories, with 2.9g fat, 8.7g carbs, and 1.2g protein (40%, 53%, 7%).