Gingerbread spice bliss balls
 
Ingredients
  • 10 Medjool dates, pitted
  • 1½ cups raw cashews (and/or hazelnuts)
  • ⅓ cup raw cacao powder
  • ¼ tsp sea salt
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • Pinch each dried ginger, ground cloves and grated nutmeg
  • A few drops of good quality orange essence (or substitute Orange zest)
Instructions
  1. Remove the pips from the dates, and add to food processor. Process until blended and creamy. The dates will first break down and then come together as a ball - keep processing past this. The ball will eventually break down and become creamy date butter.
  2. Scrape out the bowl, and place the date butter to the side.
  3. Without washing the bowl, add the cashews and do the same - note that it will take longer to turn the cashews into butter than the dates, and you may need to stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. In my machine it took about 12 minutes to get a nice creamy butter, including time to stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  4. Add the date butter back to the processor bowl, as well as the cacao, salt, spices and orange flavouring.
  5. Process until well combined.
  6. Shape into balls and roll between your hands, and then place on a tray and freeze 1 - 2hours, or refrigerate overnight.
Notes
I've called for "a pinch" of most of the spices except the cinnamon which you can be a little more generous with. I'd aim for around ⅛th or ⅛th of a teaspoon of each, though depending on how intense you want the spice flavour, you may wish to add more.
This also works well with hazelnuts (fresh or roasted), in place of (or 50/50 with) the cashews.
Recipe by to her core at http://tohercore.com/gingerbread-spice-bliss-balls/