If you’ve ever grabbed one of Liz’s little energy bites at CAMYOGA, you’ll know how good they are. She’s been making them for around 10 years, with flavours inspired by the seasons, her allotment and plenty of important taste testing. Here’s her Mocha Energy Ball recipe so you can make your own at home.
Ingredients:
100g Almonds
100g Cashews
200g Dates*
25ml – 30ml Strong Coffee (can be decaf) - use an espresso shot or instant coffee made strong
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Pinch Salt.
Liz’ tips! Desiccated coconut or extra ground almonds can be useful to have to hand for situation in case you add in too much liquid so you can rescue the mix by adding these to help firm it up (I keep a bag of both to hand for situations when the mix ends up too sticky)
*Dates. ideally pitted [not the ones that are precut as they are dusted in a rice flour to stop them sticking together, but that means they are also drier so don’t blend as well]. They do vary even when buying the same sort in terms of the water content / stickiness and that is why the amount of fluid added can varyˆ
Method
Starting by grinding the almonds in a food mixer (for some reason almonds do not like any moisture, heat or oil which can get if grind the cashew first)
As the almonds are near the end of becoming flour-like, I add the cashews and blend until they are smoothly ground.
Remove nuts from food mixer into a bowl
Put dates into a mixer and grind, it will eventually become a round gooey ball of date paste.
Remove dates from the mixer and set aside in a bowl or on a plate. Don’t worry about getting every last bit out of the mixer.
Put ground nuts back in the mixer. Add the cocoa powder and pinch of salt.
Tear up about ½ of the date paste into chunks and put on top of the nuts, cocoa and salt in the mixer.
Start to process the mix and while the motor is running, drop small chunks for the remaining dates into the mixer.
When all the dates are incorporated and the mixture is looking combined, drizzle the coffee into the mix. I usually start with about 20ml and add more as needed to get desired texture.
Taste and texture test. Take out some of the mix and squeeze between fingers. It should stick together but not be too sticky. If it’s too sticky you can add more cocoa powder, ground nuts or even desiccated coconut. If still a bit crumbly then add more coffee or plain water and adjust as desired (this does vary by batch as is very dependent on the dates)
At this stage, you can make the balls straight away but I find it easier to work with the mix, if I pop the mix into the fridge (flattened out slightly) to firm up for a minimum of 30 minutes before making the bites. You can make them any size you want, but if you do 40g (which is a larger size and be enough for a filling snack), you will get about 10 balls but the size is completely at your discretion.