NUTTY POWER BITES - SUGAR FREE - GLUTEN FREE - VEGAN

I have been experimenting a bit with some of the materials I know my husband likes and recently I came up with a very simple yet very satisfying recipe for a dessert: Nutty Balls.

Me: - You can’t go on the blog and post a recipe called Nutty balls!
Also me: - Why? What’s wrong with that?

Nutty power bites
Me: - That’s better Also me: *pouting* No it’s not!

These nutty power balls bites are very easy to make and very healthy too!

You'll need:

One part dried fruit. I used dates, cranberries and raisins. One and a half part nuts. I used almonds and walnuts. Two parts chestnuts A decent food processor Optional materials: sugar free coconut flakes, sesame, cinnamon.

I've made these a lot of times and I found out that the best recipe for out taste is one part dried fruit, one and a half parts nuts and two parts chestnuts. That means that if you use 50grams of dates, you’ll need 75grams of almonds and 100grams of chestnuts (boiled and peeled).

First thing to do is boil the chestnuts. I put them on the stove and let them boil for 20 minutes. If you are good with a knife you might want to carve them first so that they will be easier to peel off. I never have time to do this and I am always in risk of loosing a finger when I try to so I skip this step.

While you boil the chestnuts put your dried fruit with the nuts in the food processor. I do this in parts to not overwhelm my blender. I have a very sad story on how I threw away my hard earned money to get a food processor that doesn’t work the way it should, but that’s a story for another post. Blend them together until you get a purée of shorts. Another way to do it is put the fruit first and then on another go, put the nuts and then combine them. It depends on your food processor really. My not-so-decent-one does a better job if I put small amount of both the fruit and the nuts together.

When the chestnuts are done peel them and mash them into a puree too. Then combine the two and knead them together into a kind of dough. Some nuts are more oily than others and you will notice that right away. Walnuts are like that.

The red looking dough in the photo is cranberries with walnuts and chestnuts and the golden brown one is with dates and almonds and chestnuts. The one with the cranberries was a bit sourer but I liked them anyway.

Take a tablespoon portion of the dough and form it into a bite size ball. You can leave it as is or cover it with chopped almonds. You can also use sugar free coconut flakes or any other type of flakes you like. Let your imagination run wild!