With everyone being in holiday baking mood, distractions are everywhere. Folks like me who have successfully managed to stay on track for the entire past year on a strict paleo, modified AIP diet, however, still struggle when it comes to the holidays. Yeah for me personally, its not the ‘eating’ part that I miss as much as the ‘baking’ process itself. beautiful desserts are really too tempting! I want to make them too! And I have made my share of these tempting desserts in the past too! Now I am determined to make ‘healthier’ versions of all the holiday desserts/ goodies and hope that they look and taste as good too! I have shortlisted some recipe ideas that I will be experimenting and testing the next few days. Today I tried the first of those and happy to report that it turned out to be a very successful and fulfilling experiment!
So there was this post that I saw on pinterest which was some kind of decadent chocolate balls which had a lot of healthful ingredients. So I pinned it for later. (Actually thought that I had pinned it but didn’t actually pin it). So when I sat down last night to pull out the post, I couldn’t find that recipe on any of my boards. Then I began searching for chocolate balls and all kinds of drool worthy pics showed up. But none of them was the one I had seen before. As I continued looking through scores of different recipes – a lot of them were vegan or raw, however several had almonds or almond butter or coconut butter etc. Since cashew nuts are the only nuts that I have been able to re-introduce successfully, I would need to modify all the recipes. And since the one that I had seen earlier also had almonds, I decided to finally abandon my search and just create my own recipe, which I knew wouldn’t be hard since I have made similarly textured ‘raw’ treats before like apricot coconut balls, date almond truffles.
So some dates, cashew nuts, coconut flour, cocoa or carob powder are all you need for making these delectable treats. The addition of vanilla extract makes them so, so fabulously delicious! You gotta give yourself this treat! This is what I call a nourishing treat – for both the body and the soul! Yum! I have decided to call them ‘Chocolate bliss balls’ 🙂
Chocolate Cashew Nut balls or bars (Paleo, Whole30, Vegan, Raw)
Decadent sweet 'chocolate' treats made using cashew nuts and dates that you can enjoy guilt free!
Notes
If you do not want to add coconut flour, you could replace that with more cashew nut powder. To make it AIP, you could also replace cashew nuts with coconut flour although the texture and the taste will be slightly different.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup cashew nuts raw
- 10 dates, soaked in hot water for 15 mins(use 2 tbsp of the soaked water only for grinding)
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder or carob powder
- 1/8 tsp or pinch sea salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp coconut flour
- 1 tsp coconut oil for rolling
Instructions
- In a food processor, grind the cashew nuts into an almost fine powder by pulsing in 3, 10 sec intervals. Transfer the powdered cashew nuts to a bowl.
- To the same food processor, add the soaked dates along with 2 tbsp of the soaked water. Also add the cocoa or carob powder and the vanilla extract. Process to a pasty consistency.
- At this point, you can do one of two things: Method 1: Transfer this paste to the bowl with the powdered cashews and add the coconut flour too and mix using your hands to form a smooth dough. OR Method 2: To the food processor, add the powdered cashew nuts and pulse again to incorporate the cashew powder. And then add the coconut flour in parts and pulse again till you get a smooth dough.
- Grease your palms with coconut oil and divide the dough into 10-12 balls. Smooth them into shape using your palms.
- For making them into bars, dump the mixture onto a greased and butter paper lined square brownie pan. Then using a spatula pat into a square shape of about 1/4 inch thickness. Then using a knife, make cuts vertically and horizontally so you get 16 squares. Store in refrigerator to set.
- Lay the balls on a tray lined with parchment paper. refrigerate for 2 hours or freeze for 30 mins.
- Once set, the balls can be stored either in the refrigerator or at room temperature (as long as it is below 70 F)
[…] I make a lot of different homemade treats to share with our friends and neighbors. Last year I made cashew nut cocoa balls which are so decadent and yummy! Having reintroduced cashew nuts back into my life, I can indulge […]