Date Cacao Balls

Everyone loves chocolate, right?

Do you?

Come on, admit it.

Especially if you are of the female gender, you probably have a soft spot for chocolate ;-)

Now I have a confession to make: I love chocolate :-) All that smooth, sugary goodness just tastes so yummy!!... and then an hour (or two, or three) later, I realize that my heart is pumping fast, I have a headache, I feel anxious (even when I'm simply laying in bed!), etc.

I've come to realize in recent months, that when I eat too much sugar / junk / bad food, my body actually reacts in ways, such as the ones I listed above. When I have eaten [insert bad food item here] in the late afternoon or even for dinner or after dinner, I find that when I am in bed trying to sleep, I can literally feel my heart pumping and I am restless. I'm still learning how to read my body, but this is one side effect of chocolate that I shouldn't ignore!

But, a girl can't live without chocolate!

So...

Enter, Date Cacao Balls!!!

If there are ever any kind of chocolate balls on the table amongst a selection of sweets, I will always, always choose them. They're my favourite! But I know they're full of bad stuff, so after I received inspiration from my friend Anna, who posted a picture of some raw chocolate balls that she made, I googled a recipe, bought a couple ingredients, and made these for my first time!!

The recipe that I used can be found here.

They are super easy!

Chop up 1 cup of dates, put in a bowl and mix with 2 tablespoons of cacao powder. You'll probably need a bit of warm water to make it moist (add just a little at a time - you'll need to get your hands in there later!)

Did you know that cacao is a super food??! How awesome!!

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup slivered/chopped almonds and 1/4 cup coconut. Next time, though, I wouldn't even use the almonds. I absolutely love coconut, so that would be good enough for me! The almonds do give a nice crunchy texture, though. I found that I had about 1/4 cup of the mix leftover, so next time I would half these two items!

Coconut and almonds, for rolling the chocolate mix in

Voila!! Date Cacao Balls!

It will take a little while to get used to the "bitter" taste of raw cacao - because we are so used to the artificial sweeteners that is in general chocolate - but I really, really love these!! They a great substitute for any chocolate craving!

What is your favourite sweet? Would you be game to try a chocolate recipe that has no sugar?

~Rachel