Healthy Carrot Cake Bliss Balls

This scrumptious recipe is based on one by Dr Libby, so you KNOW they are gonna be good for you...and the kids!

My daughter is taking part in the 12-hr Relay for Life soon to raise money for the NZ Cancer Society. She has been charged with providing snacks for her team of 23 girls for the duration of the event, so these delicious but healthy Carrot Cake Bliss Balls are going to be perfect!  

The original recipe called for dates, but I prefer to use prunes as they are lower in sugar, higher in fibre (and usually cheaper!) plus, because they are very sticky, you can get away with using less in the recipe - especially if you are not planning to roll them in coconut at the end. Dr Libby's recipe has 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, but we are huge cinnamon fans and I think the extra spice makes them taste even more carrot-cakey! I omitted the 1/2 tsp of tumeric from the original recipe so I didn't have to worry about the kids getting yellow stains everywhere during the making! :) We used pumpkin and sunflower seeds, but you can switch those for any seeds you like (6 Tbsp in total).

Hope you love these as much as we do! 

Ingredients

• 1 large carrot, grated
• 1 cup dates (or prunes), chopped
• 3 Tbsp pumpkin seeds
• 3 Tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp melted coconut oil
• desiccated coconut for rolling (optional)

Instructions

1. Put everything except coconut in a food processor.
2. Blitz until the mixture comes together
3. Using hands, roll into balls 
4. If mixture is quite sticky, roll balls in coconut
5. Refrigerate for a couple of hours to set.

These carrot cake bliss balls will keep in the fridge for a week, but I store them in the freezer to save me from temptation every time I open the fridge! You can just pop them in the lunchbox straight from frozen and they will thaw by morning tea time.