Cacao Coconut Superfood Balls

A chewy, fudgy whole foods bliss ball, you can easily whip up at home
When it comes to energy or bliss balls, there are options aplenty these days at the store. But the satisfaction of making your own in less than 15 minutes is pretty appealing. It also means you know exactly what’s in them, with no excess sugars or fats that can often be hidden in store bought.
How do a nutritionist’s recipes differ from regular ones?
As a practising Registered Nutritionist and Naturopath, how I create sweet treats is quite different to how regular food bloggers, writers, or chefs create them. I’m specifically looking to achieve a number of nutritional outcomes including:
- Low to no added refined/processed sugars. This includes white sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, muscovado sugar, and even less processed sugars like coconut sugar and maple syrup. At the end of the day, all sugars convert to sugar in the body, which is quickly taken up in the blood stream to convert to energy. A little of this is ok – we need carbohydrates and sugars for energy especially for our brain. But too much can cause blood sugar spikes and insulin resistance, making it harder for our future self to process carbohydrates into energy as opposed to storing them as fat.
- Low in total sugars. This means even if we’re using wholefoods to sweeten, keeping these as low as possible to achieve our taste outcome. Instead balancing these out with an appropriate amount of fats and protein to ensure satiety (you feeling full).
- High in protein. As women in our 30s, 40s and beyond, we lose muscle mass at a rate of 1-3% per annum, unless we maintain it through resistance or weight training. If you are weight training, you then need to feed those muscles in order for them to grow that lost muscle. Here’s where we need to be consuming adequate protein.
- Low in added fats. As with sugar, we want to be consuming more whole foods fats and less processed fats. This includes all oils. It’s not that they’re unhealthy as such, but more that they stack a lot of calories in a small amount of food, without fibre, which can lead to us over-consuming calories very quickly without realising (and thus leading to weight gain).
- Whole foods wherever possible. This means using dates instead of sugar, wholegrain flours or nuts instead of refined white flours – creating recipes using single ingredient foods.
- Taste amazing. Goes without saying, they have to be healthy, but we also want a flavour explosion with every bite!
Ingredients you’ll need
To make these coconut cacao energy bites you’ll need seven simple ingredients:
- Almonds. You can use plain raw almonds, but they’ll be quite hard on your food processor, and also contain phytates which make them a bit bitter, and can reduce nutrient absorption. Better if you have time, is to soak them in a bowl of water overnight, then rinse and drain them before using. This also adds a bit of moisture to them which helps these balls to bind.
- Cacao powder. I love using raw cacao powder as it has more antioxidants, vitamins and minerals than a regular processed dutch cocoa powder. However both will do the trick.
- Desiccated coconut. The finely shredded coconut bits rather than the long shreds are best for this recipe.
- Protein powder. I love adding a scoop of chocolate protein powder to these for an extra protein hit. One large scoop adds around 20 grams of protein, and is an easy way to increase your daily intake without having to overthink it too much.
- Vanilla powder. I like using vanilla powder in my raw recipes as it doesn’t contain alcohol, which ordinarily you want to bake off (ie in a hot oven). Vanilla oil is another excellent option for your raw recipes, I use this pure Madagascar vanilla oil as it’s therapeutic grade (a level above food grade) which gives you the absolute best flavour. You can get my four favourite essential oils for flavouring food in this Foodie Set (you get 25% off when you order them as a set).
- Medjoul dates. Medjoul dates are larger and juicier than regular dates, but they’re also more expensive. They lend a really luxe caramel flavour to these balls, but if you’re on a budget you can easily replace them with regular dates, simply soak them in a little boiling water for 5 minutes before using, then drain off the water (keep it to add to your soaked overnight oats or bircher muesli, or add to a smoothie or hot chocolate).
- Coconut oil (optional) – coconut oil is hard at room temperature which helps to keep these balls nice and firm out of the freezer. If you want to make them oil free though (and reduce the calorie content also), you can omit this and add an extra teaspoon of water.
- Optional add-ins. To make these superfood chocolate coconut bites even more super, feel free to add 1 teaspoon of matcha powder, mushrooms (reishi for relaxation, lions mane for focus), maca, or moringa. Or anything you have lurking in the pantry!
Macro Alert: The macro count on these balls is 4g protein, 6g fat, and 9g carbohydrate per ball, with total energy of 91 calories (380kJ). If you want to reduce the calorie count, omit the oil – giving you 4g protein, 5g fat, 9g carb, 86 calories (359kJ) per ball.
Recipe tips
You can’t really go wrong with a simple bliss ball recipe – when in doubt, throw everything in the food processor and blitz until it sticks together! But here are a few tips for optimal balling:
- Soak your almonds overnight – as mentioned above, this softens them making things easier on your processor.
- Blitz your nuts first – blend your almonds to a couscous style crumb before adding anything else, it will give you a better texture and avoid large chunks of nuts.
- Add dates one by one – if you have a very butty processor like a Thermomix or Vitamix, you can get away with throwing all your dates in at once, but a less strong processor or blender will do better with adding them through the hole in the top one by one while the processor is running.
Serving & storage
As with most of my raw sweet treats, I like keeping these in the freezer to make them chewy and firm. You can however keep them in the fridge, and they’ll travel pretty well (unless you’re in the Bahamas) in a takeaway container or lunch box too.
In the freezer they’ll last a good month, in the fridge one week. After a month in the freezer, they’ll start getting a bit of freezer burn and the flavours start going a bit flat (like most things stored in the freezer).
Want more easy raw sweet treats? Try these:
Cacao Coconut Superfood Balls
Ingredients
- 1 c almonds (soaked & rinsed)
- ⅓ c cacao powder
- ⅓ c desiccated coconut
- ½ tsp vanilla powder
- 4 tbsp protein powder (chocolate or vanilla)
- 1 c medjoul dates
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (melted)
Instructions
- Blend all ingredients (excluding dates and coconut oil) in a food processor for 1-2 minutes until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
- Add dates one by one while processor is running, then add the melted coconut oil (or a dash of water if not using oil) until combined.
- Scoop out tablespoons full, roll into balls and place on a plate or tray. Place in the freezer for one to two hours to firm up (or overnight), and store in the freezer going forward.
Equipment
- Food processor
Recipe Notes
- Nut free: Use hemp, sunflower, or pumpkin seeds instead of almonds.
- Oil free: Use water instead of the coconut oil. This will also reduce the fat content and overall calorie content.