Paleo Almond Joy Bites

This will not be a surprise to anyone, but the hardest part about the Whole 30 for me was the lack of sweets. I have a major sweet tooth, so eliminating all sweets was near impossible. The good news is that I did it! I made it 30 days without sugar. The bad news is that I found ways to skirt the rules and made my own sweet treats without the sugar. Case in point: these almond joy bites that I made the last week of my Whole 30 when I was desperately craving something sweet. This was as close to a candy bar as I had in the last 4 weeks, and it was delicious! To be honest, these were a total experiment that turned out to be a hit. I was rummaging through my pantry trying to find anything sweet. I had plenty of dried fruit, including the dates which will make anything sweet, so I threw those in the food processor. Since I hadn't had any chocolate in weeks, I knew I wanted to add some cocoa powder. Tossed that in, too. To bind everything together, I turned to my trusted almond butter. I could have stopped there and had a wonderful paleo no-bake cocoa-almond cookie, but why not add shredded coconut to really make these sweet. Now what do you get when you combine coconut, chocolate, and almonds....an Almond Joy! These came about as close to an Almond Joy as I was going to get, and I really didn't miss the sugar at all. These were perfectly sweet, a little nutty, with just a hint of chocolate. I devoured them, of course. I hadn't had a cookie, candy, cake, or anything remotely close to that in weeks! Do you blame me??

Servings

Total time

15 minutes

Courses

Dessert

Ingredients

1 cup dates
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp almond butter
¼ cup shredded coconut (divided
1 tsp coconut oil
2 tbsp flax seed (optional)

Method

Place the dates, cocoa, almond butter, coconut oil, salt, and half of the shredded coconut in a food processor. Process until dates are relatively fine, about 4 minutes. Add in flax seed and processes a few times just to mix. Spread the remaining coconut on a plate and set aside. Spoon balls of the date mixture, about 1 tbsp, onto a baking sheet. Roll into a ball then roll in the coconut and place back on the sheet. Once all balls have been rolled, stick them in the freezer to set for about 20 minutes.