This recipe was adapted from a recent post by Sprouted Kitchen. I love their blog – they are so creative and sweet, and it shows so clearly through their photographs and recipes. Sometimes the feel alone will inspire you to whip up something new when you read a recipe on a particularly beautiful blog, and that’s totally what happened in this instance.
Domestocrat’s Peanut Butter Bites (makes 24 bites, adapted from Sprouted Kitchen’s recipe)
1 cup almonds
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon (I use King Arthur’s Vietnamese cinnamon)
1 cup pitted dates
3/4 cup peanut butter (I used salted, creamy PB)
A few tsp. of water (as needed)
Pulse the almonds in a food processor until they turn into a fine meal. Be careful though, you don’t want almond dust here.
A word about dates – I keep my dates in the fridge and they were cold and so unwieldy to deal with when I first made this recipe. My friend Nicole gave me a great tip after I made this recipe which is to microwave the dates before putting them in the food processor. Genius! So I would recommend doing that, cold dates or not.
After the almonds are ground, add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and pulse together. If you find the mixture is not wet enough or is not coming together, add a few teaspoons of water. The mixture is not going to be completely smooth, it will have some texture, but it should stick together when pinched between your fingers.
When the mixture is ready/sticky enough, roll into balls and place on a piece of wax or parchment paper.
Using a fork, press down on the tops to get that classic peanut butter cookie crosshatch.
This recipe made 24 raw peanut butter date bites for me. I loaded them up in a tupperware and they kept perfectly in the fridge for a whole week. These were a yummy snack on the weekend and great to have right after a workout on my commute home. Dates are great because they are naturally sweet (a good alternative to sugar), loaded with fiber, and aid in digestion.
