Cacao and Orange Date Balls

Hello there lovely foodies! It’s been about three weeks since I sat down to write a blog post. As usual, my plans have been scuppered by various things, and here I am, with a post I had planned to write absolutely ages ago. It seems to be the generic blogger’s refrain, “How long it’s been since I last wrote a blog post”. But thank goodness for Instagram, which allows me to post frequently about all the yummy things I’ve been making. It’s such a fantastic platform on which to post ideas and inspiration, and to engage people on a more personal level. I find it so helpful to be able to engage with other people with similar interests, as I not only want to inspire you, but I need to be inspired myself, constantly!

This recipe was something I got the idea for from a packet I saw in Tesco supermarket. They were Cocoa and Orange Bites and looked rather nice, but of course, rather than buying them, I wanted to have a go at making something similar myself, so I turned the packet over to check out the ingredients, and apart from the unnecessary preservatives, I had all the other ingredients in my cupboards. This recipe wasn’t meant to end up being yet more date balls but was rather intended to be little squares of yumminess, but the mixture ended up being just too sticky and I actually made them into balls to improvise. When you’re rolling them into the balls, make sure you give your hands a dusting of raw cacao so they don’t get too covered in the mixture. You’ll need to keep doing this as the balls will pick up the cacao and create a lovely, sticky mess! In the original recipe I made, I used the juice of a whole orange, but here I’ve halved the amount, and you can add more if necessary. These really are super yummy, I hope you enjoy them too.

Ingredients

• 15 medjool dates
• 4 ½ tbsp raw cacao
• 1 tbsp cacao nibs
• 1 tbsp almond butter
• 1 ½ tbsp honey
• 1 heaped tbsp rice flour
• 2 tbsp ground almonds
• Zest of one orange and juice of half the orange
• (save the other half in case you need more liquid)

Equipment

• food processor

Method

Pit the dates and place in a food processor with the orange zest, almond butter, honey and orange juice. Blitz until it forms a paste.

Scrape down the sides, then add the rice flour and 2 ½ tbsp raw cacao and blitz again until well combined. If it’s too thick at this stage, add a splash more of the orange juice, although this is unlikely.

Add the cacao nibs and pulse to combine but so the nibs don’t break down too much; you want them to retain their crunch.

Using a teaspoon, take heaped amounts into the palms of you hands and roll them into 12 balls.

Place the remaining raw cacao and the ground almonds into two small bowls and roll half the balls in one and half in the other.

Place the balls in an air-tight container in the fridge. Depending on how sticky the balls are, you may need to leave them a good few hours to firm up, but of course they will still be delicious whilst soft and gooey! Store in the fridge, where the balls will last for a week.

Date balls also make a lovely foodie gift, so try wrapping them up in cellophane or non-stick paper to make them look pretty, and surprise a friend with a date ball delivery!

So there you go; yet another recipe for date balls! I have about a million breakfast recipes to share with you, so I’m hoping to get going on that section of the website soon, as well as adding all the light lunch recipes I’ve been sharing on my Instagram stories to the Light Meals section. I have a huge amount of ready-made content now, and I feel like I’m piling up the recipes, which is a great position to be in, I just need to make sure I keep track of all these recipes I need to post, as most of my plans are written in notebooks rather than kept digitally.

Let me know what you think of these; are they just too sticky and messy, or does reducing the amount of orange juice to half an orange-worth make an improvement? I’d love to know if you enjoy them, please feel free to leave any comments below.

Thank you for your precious time.

Xxx Sam