A perfect and healthy treat for when you are craving something sweet, but don't want to spend time baking or are on a stricter diet. This recipe uses no flour and no dairy products - it can easily be made vegan, just check that the peanut butter you are using is vegan-friendly.
I was craving something sweet with my afternoon coffee the other day, but my tummy was unwilling to wait long enough for me to come up with a suitable bake. So I resorted to scourge my cupboard for any ingredients which could quickly turn into a no-bake afternoon treat. I had some dried figs left over from my Flourless carrot, fig & banana loaf so I decided to try my hand at creating some energy balls - using bits and pieces I had laying around in my pantry: chocolate from cake baking, coconut from curry making and peanut butter just because we are a house of peanut butter hoarders. You can play around with this recipe to give it your own twist: you can skip the chocolate, swap the ground almonds for a different ground nut or add some healthy seeds.
Yields 8 balls (depending on the size, to which you shape them)
Ingredients:
- 12 dried figs
- 1 cup of ground almonds
- 1/2 cup of unsweetened chocolate powder
- 1/2 cup of dried coconut + extra for dusting
- 2 tsp of unsweetened almond milk (any type of milk will be fine)
- 1 tsp of smooth peanut butter
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
Method:
Chop the dried figs finely and place them in a blender. Whiz the figs up lightly (you are not looking for a pasta quite yet, you just want to break them up so they soften) then add the ground almonds, the chocolate powder, the dried coconut and the milk. Blend until almost completely smooth.
Just before you give your paste one last round of blending, add the vanilla extract and the peanut butter. Blend until all ingredients are combined and you have a rather smooth paste (it will probably not completely smooth as the figs might not break down completely - unless you have a super potent blender, which mine is not).
Transfer the paste into a bowl. Break off a small portion of "dough" and, using your palms, shape it into a ball. On
a separate small plate or saucer, place some additional dried coconut. Place the ball in the coconut plate and roll it around so that the outside surface is coated in coconut.
You are all done! You can enjoy your energy balls immediately or you could store them in the fridge so that their texture becomes firmer.