Date-Almond Truffles
These truffle balls don’t only look beautiful, they are packed with flavour and nutrients. Ideal as a snack in the afternoon but even better when you eat them after a long hike or workout. The combination of proteins and carbohydrates gives you the energy you need right after intense exercise. Be careful with these balls, it’s not because they are healthy that you can eat loads of then!
Are you a fervent sporter? Add the oat-meal in step 2* and you’ll end up with an ideal pre-workout snack. Eat a few of these “power balls” 1 hour before your workout to give you the optimal energy boost for a better training.
*If you want to add oat-meal it’s possible you need to add 1 or 2 teaspoons of the soaked date liquid to make it less dry.
Roll’n
Idea with leftover dough: place dough in a small rectangle form, top with melted chocolate with coconut oil and let it set in the fridge
Ingredients (+/- 20 truffle balls) :
130 g almond powder
16 Medjool dates, soaked in warm water
60 g dark chocolate, chopped in small cubes
25 g cacao powder of good quality
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of vanille-extract
extra toppings: shredded coconut, line seeds, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, 50 g instant oats, pinch of chili powder,…
extra materials: a good food processor or a strong mixer
Directions:
It is important that the dates are soaked in warm water for the dough to combine easily.
Easy peasy: mix the soaked dates, almond powder, salt, chopped chocolate cubes and vanille-extract in a food processor until one large ball starts to form.
Use this dough to create +/- 20 balls with your hands.
Pour the cacao powder into a large plate and roll the balls in the cacao powder until they are fully covered.
Now you can play with the extra’s: top the truffle balls with shredded coconut, pumpkin- or line seeds*, add a pinch of chili powder in step 2. Or take one hazenut and roll the dough around so you have a healthy ‘Ferrero Rocher’.
Store these precious sweets in an air-tight container in the fridge up to two weeks. You can easily freeze them so you always have some healthy snacking bits!
*tip: To prevent that the line-or pumpkin seeds would fall of the truffle balls mix them roughly so it wil stick better to the dough.
Dubble tip: If you have some leftover dough, be creative and use it as a bottom for pie or chocolate bars (see photo above): melt dark chocolate with coconut oil and pour it over the left-over dough. You can top it with everything. I have used shredded coconut but grilled pumpkin seeds or line seeds are nice as well.
Nina Beckers
