Protein Packed Energy “Snowballs”

I can’t believe how fast this summer has flown by. I know that I say this every summer but this one was by far the fastest. My little girl turned 6 on Wednesday. And while I look forward to her birthday each year I can’t help but cringe as it marks the end of Summer fun on the last week of August. Today I threw her a Disney “Frozen Themed” play date birthday party. It was a hit! My cake looked ridiculous, but it got a huge stamp of approval from my daughter. Since that is what matters most my heart was happy.

Here is the “Elsa birthday cake”. Nailed it! Okay… not quite. But I tried my best and it’s gluten free and sweetened with grade B maple syrup and coconut sugar… so no yucky white sugar (the stuff that makes my daughter’s stomach a total mess)

I made lots of other goodies like home made (using Great Lakes Gelatin) “j-e-l-l-o”. This was supposed to be Kristoff’s ice, but it turned out purple rather than blue. I used blueberry juice which is, in fact, very purple.

So batting 0 for 2 so far, but my daughter was still pleased. And they both tasted yummy.

Not every treat was a fail though. My favorite treats were my protein packed “snowballs”. The kiddos thought they were lots of fun and they taste amaze-balls!

These delish little snacks are sweetened with dates and are protein packed as well.

So without further ado, I will tell you how I made them.

You will need a food processor and a jar of some sort to soak your cashews.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of raw cashews
• 1 TBS sea salt (for soaking cashews) We buy our Redmonds Real Sea Salt from Thrive Market.
• Filtered water (for soaking cashews: you can read more about how and why to soak nuts and seeds here.)
• 1/3 cup of coconut butter
• 8 medjool dates (be sure to take the pits out)
• 1/4 cup or so of unsweetened coconut
• Optional: 2 TBS Great Lakes Unflavored Beef Gelatin (this one helps give it a gummy texture but you could make it without) ** see notes
• Optional 4 TBS Great Lakes Gelatin, Collagen Hydrolysate (I added this for added protein but you could also omit this and they would still taste great) **see notes

Directions:

1. First, soak the cashews in a jar with filtered water and sea salt. You can soak them for 1-8 hours: one hour will give them the smoother texture when you blend them, 8 hours will help make them easier to digest.

2. After soaking your cashews, drain them in a strainer and rinse them off.

3. Process the cashews in the food processor until they are nice and creamy. You will need to stop and scrape the cashews off the side of the food processor a few times until they are all thoroughly blended.

4. Add dates (after cutting the pits out) one at a time until they are all blended well. It’s not a big deal if you have some bigger chunks in the mixture as long as you get them blended pretty well.

5. Add the coconut cream concentrate and gelatin, then blend until thoroughly mixed.

6. Scoop out a spoonful and gently roll it into a small ball. The mixture will be very sticky so handle the mixture as gently as possible to form the snow balls.

7. Roll the snow ball in unsweetened coconut and place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

8. Keep making snowballs until you have used the entire mixture (unless you would like to leave a little to eat as is, in which case you can use your spoon to do just that. yum!)

9. Place the cookie sheet of “snowballs” in the fridge to harden a bit.

Here are the “snowballs” before I put them in the fridge.

I then put the “snowballs” into a bowl for the kiddos to eat.

The kids had a great time, and the party was a success.  Now I can make these snowballs throughout the year. I love that they are versatile as well. You could use other types of nuts, and they could be rolled in other things like cocoa powder or other crushed nuts. It’s a sweet treat I can feel good about giving to my kids.

And last, here is my beautiful birthday girl posing for a photo with me. Happy birthday sweet girl! Hope you all had an amazing Summer!

Notes:

*Some of the above links are affiliate links.  Click here to learn more about affiliate links.

** If you would like to read more about the benefits and differences between the gelatin I love to use (Great Lakes), check out this post.