Spiced choc banana bliss balls

My 30s are shaping up to be pretty darn awesome, if the past couple weeks are anything to go by. Actually, if the past few weeks are anything to go by, I’ll be eating my way through the next decade. Nothing wrong with that, right?

To celebrate my birthday a few weeks back, I threw a little eco party at my apartment here in Alicante. We made origami pterodactyls from the pages of an old book to decorate the house. My friends bought plates of vego food to share. Everyone was really good about drinking fancy wine out of recycled jars. I felt more at home in Spain than ever before.

And I was spoilt absolutely rotten. My friends even gifted me a food processor! Clever cookies – they know they’ll be reaping the benefits of that guy for months to come.

Then Juan and Ania surprised me with the most delicious homemade banana and vanilla vegan ice cream cake. And as I bit into the base, I knew I wanted to eat this again. Regularly. In bliss ball form.

Juan and Ania followed this recipe by Ita, a young Spaniard living on Spain’s Canary Islands. Her inspiring blog Rico y Raw (in Spanish) is worth stopping by if you’re after beautiful wholefood recipes free of meat, fish, dairy, gluten and refined flours and sugars.

We tweaked the recipe a little, adding some walnuts and chia seeds to give our bliss balls a protein punch. We also threw in a little carob powder because we love it so much. And, of course, I used my brand spankin’ new food processor to whip these guys up.

First, here’s two photos from my party, of the famed cake and the infamous origami pterodactyls (they did take kinda a long time to make).

And now for the spiced choc banana bliss balls recipe.

Ingredients:

Makes 18 bliss balls.

2¼ cups oats
¼ cup walnuts
1 ripe banana
5 dates, seeds removed
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (or 1 tablespoon each of cocoa and carob powder)
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 tablespoon agave syrup
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt

Method:

Throw the oats and walnuts into a food processor and blitz until chopped into smaller pieces.

Add everything else and blitz again until the mixture forms into a very thick dough — most likely it will form a big ball in your machine. If the mixture is too moist, add a little extra oats. If it’s too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water.

Roll into bite-sized balls and place in the freezer for half an hour to allow the coconut oil to harden. These are best served chilled.