Apple and Date Energy Bites

Long time, no recipe posts. With all the prep and finalizing I’ve been doing on my upcoming e-book, Mind + Body and Breakfast, I haven’t spent as much time as usual in my kitchen. This past Friday night I made a conscious effort to stay in. I needed to get a solid eight hours of sleep before my 6 a.m. Saturday wake up call. I had numerous things I could and should have been doing, but I fell back on one of my favourite distraction tactics – procrastibaking.

I had nothing in mind that I wanted to make; I just wanted to do anything besides the work that was piling up.

I pulled out my food processor and decided to make something that I could bring to share with coworkers for a Saturday morning pick-me-up snack.

I assessed my pantry and determined that I would have just the ingredients I needed to make some energy bites. I tend to freestyle a recipe and then sometimes write it down after the fact. Creating my e-cookbook, one of my biggest challenges was to try and use exact measurements and write detailed directions. I love creating recipes on the fly and baking (also cooking) intuitively. But luckily this time I decided to use exact measurements and record them as I went, because this recipe turned out deliciously.

And after taste testing these cute energy bites, I felt disappointed that I didn’t come up with them earlier so that they would be included in Mind + Body and Breakfast. Oh well. I’ll share the recipe here with you guys.

Apple and Date Energy Bites

Ingredients:
1/2 cup dates, chopped
1/2 cup apple, grated
3/4 cup quick oats
1/4 cup hemp seed
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Optional – unsweetened, shredded coconut and cacao powder to cover energy bites

Variations – swap the grated apple for grated carrot, add pumpkin pie spice, and 1/4 cup walnuts for some delish carrot cake energy bites. Or add in 1/4 of nuts/seeds of your choice to add in an extra little bit of protein!

Directions:
1) Throw all ingredients into your food processor
2) Pulse until a dough-like mixture is formed
3) Roll a heaping Tbsp of dough into a ball. Repeat with remaining dough.
4) Optional – roll energy bites in unsweetened, shredded coconut or cacao powder.
5) Refrigerate for 15-20 minutes before eating

Energy bites can be stored in the fridge for one week or frozen for up to three weeks.