I make these bliss balls more than any other recipe I have in my cheffy repertoire. It’s become a Sunday night ritual to toast hazelnuts and blend them up with dates and raw cocoa as snack prep for the week ahead (although they usually only last a day or two).

The hazelnut and cocoa combo tastes just like Nutella, except better. Not too sweet and with a pinch of salt that really brings out all the chocolate-y goodness we want in this world.

Ingredients:

• 100g hazelnuts, roasted
•  150g dates (I used the dried, cheaper kind.)
• 3tbsp raw cocoa powder
• 1tbsp nut butter, macadamia is my favourite.
• 2tsp coffee
• Pinch of cinnamon (a pretty heavy handed pinch because I LOVE the stuff.)
• Pinch of salt

Method: 

1. Preheat your oven to 180’C to roast the hazelnuts. It should take about 6-7 minutes until the nuts turn to a golden brown colour.
2. Place the roasted hazelnuts in a blender on high speed until the nut mixture is ground down into smaller pieces. Some of the mixture should be a fine hazelnut meal, while the rest should be a little bigger in size.
3. Once the nuts have been ground, place the dates inside of your blender. Add in the nut butter, raw cocoa powder, coffee, cinnamon and salt. Blend on high speed until the mixture has combined.
4. Roll 1tbsp of the mixture at a time into balls. Continue to do this until the date and hazelnut mix is finished.
5. Place the hazelnut and date balls in the refrigerator for at least an hour (if you can wait that long) and enjoy!