Amazeballs!

NUT-FREE RAW CHOCOLATE ENERGY BALLS  
We’re in the middle of the School holidays and have had a blast so far – lots of crafting including tin can telephones and puppet-making, saw Monsters University (loved it, although it wasn’t a patch on Monsters Inc), playdates, a couple of scootering adventures, visited Scienceworks and Collingwood Children’s Farm, and we’re off to the zoo on Friday.
We’ve also been on a ball-making frenzy. Melbourne is awash with energy balls, with almost every cafe and health store around here pimping their own version. Jill Dupleix wrote a great article about them in Epicure recently. Her supplied recipe looks delicious, and was the inspiration for mine; but the biggest problem with all the energy ball recipes I’ve come across is that they contain nuts. My mission was to create some that could be used in the kid’s lunchboxes next week (their school has a nut-free policy).
My Nut-free raw chocolate energy balls are amazeballs! To be honest, like this post, they were part of a failed planned-overs experiment. My intention was to make cookies from a portion of the energy ball mixture but they just bloody well didn’t work! I really wanted to share the balls recipe though, as they’re so good. They come pretty close to truffles in texture, but they’re actually healthy. Lightly sweetened with honey, lots of dried fruit and seeds and, one of my favourite indulgences, pure organic cacao powder. If you’ve not used it before, you can buy it and check out all the health benefits here – you’ll never go back to ordinary cocoa powder again.
Both my boys gave these balls the thumbs up, as did the husband. Enjoy!
Footnote, April 2014: We’ve been experimenting with different ingredients for the past few months. A recent favourite has been ‘bliss logs’; a mixture of medjool dates, dried apricots, currants, coconut oil, good quality cocoa powder, rolled oats and a dash of maple syrup, rolled into coconut-covered logs (you can see them in my facebook post on April 2nd). Delish!

Nut-free raw chocolate energy balls

Ingredients (makes 15 large energy balls):
100g (3½ oz) sunflower seeds
50g (1¾ oz) fine desiccated coconut
60g (2 oz) raw powdered cacao
60g (2 oz) organic coconut oil, melted
60g (2 oz) organic honey
85g (3 oz) craisins (dried sweetened cranberries)
5 medjool dates (100g/3½ oz), pitted and chopped
100g (3½ oz) pitted prunes, chopped
Approx. ¼ cup fine desiccated coconut, extra, for rolling

Process sunflower seeds until you have a fine meal. Add all other ingredients except the extra coconut and process until completely combined and smooth.
Refrigerate the mixture for about 15 minutes to make it easier to handle. Roll the refrigerated mixture into approx. 15 golf-ball sized balls and roll in the extra coconut. Refrigerate for at least one hour before eating. Yum!
[Recipe loosely adapted from Jill Dupleix]

• Craisins can be replaced with dried goji berries, soaked for one hour in hot water and very well drained. You can also add chia seeds and/or sesame seeds.
• Raw powdered cacao can be found at health food stores or online from Loving earth. Replace with good quality cocoa powder if unavailable.
• Organic coconut oil is available from health food stores. It’s cold-pressed, and well worth the expense, being rich in short-medium chain fatty acids (these are good fatty acids, unlike long chain fatty acids) fibre, vitamins and minerals. You can read more about it here. Copha, the supermarket variety, is hydrogenated, refined and bleached. AWFUL!
• Coconut oil can be melted by placing the required quantity in a bowl and sitting it in a sink of warm water until liquified.
• Energy balls can be stored, covered, in the fridge for up to 2 weeks; or frozen for up to 3 months.