Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

Mmmmmm.  They melt in your mouth.  I didn’t have any crispy rice cereal today so I decided to throw what I had together and I must say…  this time, it worked!  Usually peanut butter balls are made with either powdered sugar or graham cracker crust.  As usual, I wanted to make something a little healthier that I can give to my son without feeling overly guilty.  These are not as sweet as the traditional peanut butter balls and have a slightly different texture…plus, I wanted an excuse to work with coconut flour.  Basically, they’re not grandmas!  If you feel like healthier grandma’s pb balls…well, I may just work on a sweeter healthied up version in the future.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter of your choice
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter of your choice
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 cup oat flour, you can grind your own oats or you can even grind half and use half oats or all oats
• 1/3 cup coconut flour - you can also use shredded low-moisture un-sweetened coconut and grind it
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tsp coconut oil

Directions:

• Mix peanut butters, agave nectar, oat flour and coconut flour until it forms a dough-like consistency.  Add more peanut butter or flour to get the right consistency.  Roll into balls - size of your choice and put on foil.  Melt the chocolate chips with coconut oil - if you want to have the Peanut Butter Balls completely covered with chocolate, double the chocolate and coconut oil.  To not completely cover the balls, use a table spoon and drizzle chocolate on each ball  until you get the amount of coverage you’d like.  To completely cover them, throw the balls in the chocolate and remove with spoon- cool on foil.  Refrigerate if your house is hot but let warm up a bit before eating.

I made smaller to medium sized balls and some with little chocolate, for me, the peanut butter is really the star.  However, most people probably would want to cover them with chocolate if they’re serving them to friends.  These, I made the way that I wanted to eat them, less chocolate… more peanut butter!  Hmmm, I should make puppy chow next:)

• A note on the ingredient choices…
• oat flour is gluten-free although many celiacs still react mainly due to how they’re processed…   They are high in soluble fiber which can lower LDL cholesterol.  Anyone seen those Cheerios commercials?  It is digested slowly, thus, no blood-sugar spike (but when you add sugar, it’s a different story, I’m just talking about oats here.)
• coconut flour is gluten-free, high in fiber, high in protein, low in digestible carbs.  Coconut is thought now to be insanely healthy, check it out if you’re so inclined.
• agave nectar is made from the same plant as tequila.  Fiesta en tu boca!  It has a lower glycemic index than sugar- so it’s digested slower and that blood-sugar spike isn’t so bad. 
• peanuts are high in protein, fairly high in fiber, and lots more.  That is, if you aren’t allergic… but if you are you probably decided not to read this anyway. 
• I could devote pages of health benefits of most of these ingredients but the sugar in the chocolate.  I won’t.  But maybe someday.

Tagged as: agave nectar, coconut flour, coconut oil, peanut butter