Healthy Carrot Cake Balls (Grain and Gluten Free)
These healthy carrot cake balls are delicious, nutritious, and easy to prepare. They contain fruits, a raw vegetable, a nut and healthy fats. Depending on the chocolate you use they can be free of refined sugar, gluten, and dairy. They are suitable for people who avoid to consume grains.
Why should you make this recipe?
These healthy carrot cake balls are so yummy. They have a very similar taste to the popular carrot cake but contain better for you ingredients.
This recipe doesn’t require cooking. The only step that requires heat is melting the chocolate.
Walnuts are a great source of the heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids. They also provide the body with valuable antioxidants, vitamins minerals and dietary fiber.
Dried fruits are high in fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. They are also naturally sweet, which reduces the amount of sugar we need to add into the recipe.
Since the carrot cake balls are grain free, they are also gluten free. People who avoid gluten can safely snack consume them.
You can make these balls vegan if you use dairy free chocolate. You can use dairy and refined sugar free chocolate to make them Paleo. I used sugar free chocolate chips from Choc Zero.
Helpful tips
How to melt chocolate?
I usually create a water bath to melt the chocolate. This means that I put a pot of simmering water underneath the bowl with the chocolate and I stir until it is melted. If the water in the water bath is boiling it might ruin the chocolate.
You can also melt the chocolate in the microwave. Put your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and heat it for about a minute on high. Stop the microwave and stir it occasionally (every 15 seconds) so it doesn’t burn.
Use dried dates and pineapple with no added sugar.
Make sure that all of your dates are pitted. One leftover pit can break your appliance.
For this recipe you are going to need large, juicy, pitted dates. If your dates are too dry the texture of the balls might be too dry. If that is the case, I recommend rehydrating the dates in a little bit of water before blending them.
I got 20 balls but you might get more or less depending on the size of your dates.
The carrot cake balls require refrigeration, so if you decide to pack them in a lunch box make sure that you also have an ice pack.
This blog post is not sponsored. I love the products of Choc Zero and I use them all the time in my baking. If you use the link I’ve provided you will get $15 off your first purchase and $15 off any of my furniture purchases
Healthy Carrot Cake Balls
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 1 cup grated carrots
- 1 cup raw walnut halves or pecans
- 6 large pitted dates
- ½ cup dried pineapple no sugar added
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 7 oz white chocolate chips or white chocolate
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil
Instructions
- Wash peel and grate the carrots. Remove the pits from the dates. Cut the dried pineapple to small pieces.
- Add the grated carrots, dates, walnuts, pineapple and the cinnamon in a food processor and process until the mixture sticks together and resembles a dough.
- Melt the white chocolate and add the coconut oil to it.
- Form 20 small balls from the dough. Coat each ball with melted chocolate and refrigerate them for at least 15 minutes.
- Store the carrot cake balls in an airtight container in the fridge for 4-5 days.
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Carrot Cake Balls with a Creamy Filling (Grain and Gluten Free)