Processed Sugar Free Cacao Bites

It’s day 5 of the #SugaryFREESixPack Challenge! The glorious sugar detox! My friends joining me, I’m sure you’re feeling the absence of sweet treats by now soo here’s a nice little processed sugar free snack you can try out!

I love going sugar free, call me crazy, but it has really taught me that I can live without processed sugar. You may be thinking ‘duh‘ but I really really had a sugar addiction. I probably didn’t go a single day without some kind of dessert for the majority of my life. So when I decided for the first time that I was going to go for a whole month without added sugars, I honestly wasn’t sure I could make it. So if you feel that way, don’t worry! You’re not alone! You can also probably do it if you really commit. I believe in you! 🙂

Anyways on to the treats! These are sweetened with my favorite ‘sweetener’… you guessed it.. dates! If you’ve seen many of my other treat recipes, or even my overnight oats recipe, you know me and dates are besties. They’re a sweetener with fiber, potassium and lots of other vitamins and minerals unlike many of the alternatives.

These are basically the simplest thing ever. You’ll need a food processor or high speed blender and just a few ingredients!

Cacao Bite Ingredients:

12-14 Pitted Medjool Dates (depends how sweet you like them)

2 Cup Rolled Oats (mainly just not steel cut)

1/4 Cup Cacao

1/4 Cup Protein of choice (I like unflavored but if you try something else let me know!)

*If you don’t use protein you’ll need to add a bit more rolled oats!

Cacao Bite Instructions:

*if your dates are really crusty and dry, you may want to let them soak in hot water for 2-3 ish minutes before starting! It isn’t completely necessary but dry dates wont hold everything together as well as sticky ones.  This may result in the mixture being a bit more sticky at first. Don’t soak too long! This is not necessary in most cases!

– Add dates to the food processor and blend for a few seconds. They’ll clump up. it’s really just a few seconds, like 5-10.

– Spread the dates out a bit in the food processor, we don’t want them in a big lump when we add the other ingredients (I’ve done this, it makes it unnecessarily difficult!).

 

– Add all other ingredients and blend away! If you blend too long it may get a bit sticky!

 

– The mixture won’t be super sticky or anything but it should all stick together as shown! Pour it out and form into small bites. If you had dry dates and it’s a little crumbly when you’re doing this, that’s ok! They’ll stick together, the mixture just won’t look quite as ‘together’ as shown here, it’ll be more crumbly until you pack them into bites.

 

 

Let me know if you give it a try!

Sweat, Smile, Repeat! And Eat! 😀

xxNiki