Choc-Orange Breakfast Balls

Choc-Orange Breakfast Balls: Date Free Bliss Balls 

No baking and no blender required. 

Choc-orange flavoured and choc full of slow release energy, protein and other goodies for growing brains and bodies. Ideal for hungry grown ups too, as a healthy breakfast on the run (keep a stash in your freezer) or as a mid afternoon snack. Breakfast balls are the ideal quick and nutritious breakfast for time poor people and because you’re making them at home rather than buying them in little plastic bags, you’re also cutting down on the amount of single use plastic waste.

These energy balls are designed to be kid friendly, providing a healthy and nutritious blast of sustained release energy to kids both big and small.  They are very energy dense which means that if you’re sitting on your bum in an office all day, limit them to 1-2 to help keep your brain ticking along nicely through the afternoon.

Being high in healthy soluble fibre, they’re the perfect blood sugar balancing snack for afterschool or after the gym or your fave exercise workout.

I never miss an opportunity to add probiotics to food, in fact this is my preferred way to take probiotics these days. Breakfast balls really are the perfect medium for getting probiotics into the whole family. It’s my experience that most people forget to take their probiotics regularly when they’re tucked away in the fridge. Adding them to food like these breakfast balls not only helps your probiotics go further which saves you money but also means you’re taking them more regularly.  Just break the capsule open and mix through.

The soluble fibre in the oats and slippery elm are the preferred food for the good bugs in your probiotic and beneficial microbes in your gut. The type of fibre that feeds these mighty little critters is known as a prebiotic. Prebiotics in oats are like rocket fuel for many of the beneficial microbes living in your gut. Slippery elm is also very soothing for a stressed and irritated digestive system. 

I’ve made these using both organic brown rice protein powder and whey protein. Brown rice protein is the winner hands down.

Choose high quality food grade essential oils for cooking and taking internally. Thankfully essential oils are booming these days so it’s never been easier to buy quality therapeutic oils. If you don’t know someone who currently sells them, ask amongst your circle of friends and I guarantee you’ll find someone who sells them and you’ll probably be supporting a work from home mum at the same time! I use orange essential oil a lot in cooking so it’s always good to have on hand.  The other essential oils I use a lot for flavouring food are lemon and peppermint – either of which can be used to replace the orange oil in this recipe if you’re not a fan of the Jaffa-esque taste of choc-orange.  

Choc-orange breakfast ball Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups Organic rolled oats
• ¼ cup desiccated coconut (plus optional extra for coating the finished balls in)
• ½ cup Nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew etc) (you can replace with either coconut spread or sunflower butter to make them nut free)
• ¼ to ½ cups Protein powder (whey, brown rice or hemp protein powder)
• 1 teaspoon – 1 tablespoon of slippery elm powder
• ¼-¹/₃  cup Organic sultanas
• ¼ cup Organic cacao powder
• 1 -2 tablespoons of linseed meal
• Vanilla essence 1 teaspoon
• Orange essential oil 1-2 drops (replace with peppermint oil for choc-mint flavour)
• Liquid (you can use any liquid from water, coconut milk, almond milk etc.  I used liquid colloidal minerals to give a big nutrient boost)
• 1 teaspoon of yoghurt, kefir or contents of a probiotic capsule

Because there is no baking required and you don’t need a blender or a food processor (less things to clean up afterwards, YAY) they’re also super quick and easy to make with kids.   Let your kids help to measure out the wet and dry ingredients and then get their hands dirty mixing it all together and rolling them into balls and decorating with coconut. There’s no raw egg so it’s also perfect for them to be able to lick the bowl and their hands clean afterwards. If you have a fussy eater on your hands they’ll be more curious and inclined to try new foods that they’ve been involved with producing.

Instructions:

Simply add all the ingredients to a bowl except for your liquid of choice. Mix well using your hands and then slowly add the liquid 1 tablespoon at a time and mix well until the mixture can be squished and rolled into bit sized balls.

Makes about 20-25 balls depending on the size you make them.

Consume within 5 days, or, freeze.

 

You might also like:

Berry Delicious Breakfast Bites

Breakfast Balls: The Quick, Easy and Healthy Breakfast Solution for Time Poor People