What We Ate Wednesday-- Last Minute Coconut Brownie Balls

Hello lovelies! The day has somehow gotten away from me. It's nearly time to cook dinner and I realised I hadn't done a What we Ate Wednesday.

So, I thought I would write about a quick treat  that saved my butt a few weeks ago. (In fact, I just made some right before typing this and I can attest they are super easy to make when you want a treat, but are time crunched.)

Anyway, a few weeks ago we were invited out to dinner with non vegan friends. They are really nice people and are all curious about veganism. I like to bring a vegan dessert to these sorts of gatherings as it is good publicity for the vegan diet. When you show people that food tastes good and you are not missing out on things, people are more willing to embrace change.

Normally, I bake. But I realised a few hours before the meal I didn't have the ingredients for brownies. Yikes! I thought about some raw chocolate brownie balls I used to make years back that were really good. I hoiked my enormous  recipe binder up on the table and flipped to the pink section which is desserts. And yes, before you ask....all my recipes are in a D ring binder and they are divided into categories with colour coded tabs for ease of use because I am organised.

So, I find the recipe. Alas! It uses 1.5 cups of  nuts--3/4 cup each almonds and walnuts. I don't have 1.5 cups of nuts. Nuts are expensive, people! Now that we stick to a food budget, we just don't eat nuts in those quantities anymore. I'm not saying it is not a good recipe. it is. You can see it {HERE}
I'm just saying, it is too expensive to make. These days the rule is half a cup of nuts or less or we don't eat it.

So, what do I do?  I don't want to let people down by not bringing a dessert, but it needs to be made with stuff already in my kitchen. Time is flying.

Tick-Tock.

I run to the computer and I google nut + free+ chocolate + balls + food + processor and lo and behold {THIS} pops up.

Hallelujah! We have a winner!

I quickly threw everything in the food processor, rolled 'em up into balls and rolled those balls in desiccated coconut. Done. Sorted. Finished. Boom.

They were a HUGE hit. Everyone liked them because they were portion controlled, but rich tasting. I had two people ask for the recipe.

As I said, today had sort of gotten away from me and I wanted to make us a treat, but hadn't had time to bake. I made these lovely treats and while I was rolling them up I thought to myself, "Hey! You haven't posted a recipe today!"

So, here we are. Full circle.

Here is my adaptation of Wallflower Kitchen's recipe. She used medjool dates which are big and soft and expensive. i used slightly less sweet semi-dried deglat noor dates that I bought at Lidl which are smaller and cheaper. You do need soft dates for this to work, but they can also be cheaper dates. I added a little extra sweetener to mine to help out.

Last Minute Coconut Brownie Balls

Makes 20.

In a food processor pulse until oats are broken down:

1 cup (GF) oats

3 Tb cocoa powder

pinch salt

Then add the following and blend.

8 medjool dates or 15 deglat noors

1 TB liquid sweetener (I used golden syrup) Omit if you can afford to use medjools as they are sweeter. 

Stop and add a TB of water a time until it sticks together when you squeeze some in your hand. This was 2 TB on a rainy day and 3 TB on a dry day. 

Roll into balls and roll in unsweetened shredded coconut.

Store in the fridge.

I had the whole lot done in 15 minutes. They are perfect when you want a quick treat that is healthy.

Now I'm off to make dinner. Tally-ho! Until next week!