Delicious Date Balls- Sweet and Simple

I love a sweet treat, especially one where  I recognize al of the ingredients. So, when I saw some date-coconut balls at the grocery, I had to try to make them. 

I found a few recipes and decided they lied somewhere between the dates not pureeing in my blender and the mess in my kitchen getting bigger. Not one to give up, I tried my own approach which I think worked well, is flexible, simple, and yummy. Check it out below.

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Sweet and Simple Date Balls

You will need to start with about:

• 500g pitted dates
• 1cup water
• 1/4 cup margarine or butter

Cut the dates in halves or quarters and put everything in a saucepan over medium heat. 

Stir it while cooking until it turns into a paste, adding more water if needed. For me, this took about 10 minutes. 

Remove from heat

Stir in about:

• 1/4 cup of peanut butter (the kind that's just peanuts), if you find it too tough, try adding a little oil to the peanut butter before mixing it in.
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed 

If there's something else you want in here, like sesame seeds, other chopped nuts, etc., go for it. :-)

Place this in the fridge until the mixture is chilly enough to handle. (I did some after 10 minutes and some after 3 hours, the major difference was how much the quick ones stuck to my hands.)

Get yourself a good surface and roll the stuff into balls in your hands or logs on the surface. 

Because these are very sweet, I recommend a smaller sized morsel.

Then roll in shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, cocoa powder, etc. and press with an almond if desired.

Voila! Yummy treat that is sweet and natural. I lost track of how many it made, but I'd estimate about 30. :-)

Keep them in the fridge until ready to serve and enjoy!

Some variations that might be interesting to try.

Add some other fruits like raisins, dried cranberries, or prunes to the date mixture as it cooks, à la great cake.

For something a little less sweet, I might try adding some bitter ingredients such as cocoa powder, ground walnuts, or shredded orange peel to the mix as it cooks  or more peanut butter as it cools.

They're yummy, they're simple, they're good.
Hope you enjoy.


Eat well, Charlotte