Caramel Bliss balls

Caramel is my favourite flavour when it comes to sweet foods, and I’ve been wanting to try and make  caramel bliss balls for a while now as a way to combine my favourite flavour into something that wasn’t full of refined ingredients.   So in the weekend I experimented with a caramel bliss ball recipe and the result was delicious!  I took them to work for an honest taste test (gotta love my work mates for an honest opinion!)  and they went down a treat.  The girl that told me she didn’t like foods with nuts had a cautious bite, decided to take back her comment about nuts and promptly finished it off as well as another.  The plate was demolished at morning tea time by the rest of the team in no time at all.     They’re a little more indulgent that your normal bliss balls as they have a delicious crunchy caramel coating.  They also have some added coconut sugar for an extra caramel flavour.  Make these for a bit of an extra special bliss ball treat.

YUM!

Recipe for Caramel Bliss Balls

Makes 16 bliss balls

1 cup of dates
1/2 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons psyllium husks
1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
1/2 cup coconut
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
1 tablespoon coconut sugar

For coating:

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon cocoa

Method:

1.  Place the dates in a small pot along with the water.  Leave to sit for 5 minutes. Stir with a fork then put the pot on an element over a medium heat, stirring the dates until they are soft.  Drain out any excess water and mash up the dates with the fork so they look like this.

Next, you need to crush your nuts.  Now my blender/food processer is on it’s way out and it doesn’t like nuts right now.  So I crushed mine the old fashioned way in the mortar and pestle.  By the way, it’s great stress relief pounding those nuts up into teeny tiny ground up pieces!  But you can wizz them up in a food processor until they’re the texture of almond meal or a bit chunkier if you want.

Add the psyllium husk to the dates and stir well.  This helps absorb any excess water and adds some extra fibre to the recipe.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined.

Roll the mixture into balls.

To make the coating – gently heat the coconut oil then mix through the other ingredients.  Leave to cool for around 5 minutes then dip the balls into the mixture.  The mixture is quite runny, so roll the balls around in it for a bit and you’ll get a nice thin coating.  Take out place straight on a place covered in coconut and  roll to coat.

Store in the fridge.