02 Sep Date Cranberry and Orange Energy Balls

There are a lot of date ball recipes out there for a good reason. Date energy balls are easy and packed with protein and nutrient dense sweetness. They perfectly pair dates with nuts, then add spices and other dried fruit. Eating them gives you an energy spike. I have hardly made a batch of these without continuing to crave them throughout the day. I can almost (almost!) compare how I feel about these to the way I crave chocolate.

There are a number of bars out on the market that are basically some variation of the recipe you find here (Lara Bars are probably the most well known). Substitute nuts or seeds and add other dried fruit and spices – the variations are endless. The sad thing about the bars sold in stores is that they are packed so tightly you loose the delicious taste of the not-totally packed, freshly pulsed dates (yep, I’m a date nerd… I heard it too). The bars start getting a little slimy when the dates are packed too tightly and/or blended too much. I can only assume the bars sold in stores are packed tight so you don’t have to dump the bar into your mouth from the package, but after you make these fresh you could even eat them with a spoon if you want to! Pulsing these bars in a food processor instead of a high-powered blender and then only pressing them as much as is needed to is the way to go to preserve texture of the date. Alternately, this recipe could easily be left loose and eaten like granola.

You will need to find cranberries sweetened with apple juice instead of cane sugar to make these free of refined sugar. Here are a couple brands to try: Vincent Family and Patience Fruit & Co.

Enjoy these and share them with your friends. They are easy, delicious and basically a guiltless pleasure (unless you eat the whole thing in a day, which might be a bit aggressive on the caloric intake…) Enjoy these, and join the ranks of energy ball lovers. The bandwagon is fine my friends, jump on!