If you're doing Sugar-Free September or even just cutting out/back on sugar generally you might be missing sweet treats. To follow Sugar-Free September really strictly, you wouldn't even be eating fruit because of the natural sugars. I haven't had a lot of fruit this month but I have had some as I think it's important to get your five-a-day - mainly through veg but the occasional piece of fruit is good as well.
But sometimes instead of fruit what you really want is chocolate. I've done really well so far but when we had a day out earlier this month and were taking a packed lunch, I knew my husband would want something sweet - I would normally bake something to take with us - and that I would want something as well. I ended up buying him something as a treat and made myself these sugar-free brownie bites from Nutritious Deliciousness.com.
I already had all the ingredients at home - walnuts from Lidl I had bought to add to salads, dates that I bought for another recipe that I never got around to making, coconut oil which I bought a little while ago after having read about its health benefits, and I had some raw cacao powder, which is less processed than cocoa powder and unsweetened.
In fact, I found the whole thing quite bitter and had to add a couple of spoonfuls of xylitol sweetener to make them palatable, and then they were really nice, especially after they had firmed up for a while in the fridge. I'd advise following the recipe and seeing if you can manage without sweetener, and if not adding a little to taste.
These are really easy to make - blitz the walnuts in a food processor, then add the dates, cacao and melted coconut oil and whizz again to form a dough. I'd advise tasting the mixture at this point to see if you want to add sweetener.
Turn the machine off and scrape out the dough onto a piece of greaseproof paper. The recipe advises using another piece of greaseproof paper to press down on the top and rolling them out to cut into squares, but my mixture was a bit too sticky and too thin when I rolled it out, so I gave up and hand-rolled them into balls.
This is when I tried them and decided they were bitter, so formed the balls back into a dough, added the sweetener and rolled them into balls again. I then rolled them in some more cacao to coat the outside.
Put them in the fridge for a while to firm up, and you can - almost - convince yourself you are eating chocolate truffles!
I'm sharing these with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.
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