Christmas Buckeyes Just Got a Healthy and Delicious Sibling!

The Holidays Are Here!

Here we are. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and baking begins. I’ve recently been introduced to a myriad of health conditions which had me scrambling to find a way to still enjoy baking (and eating) some sweet treats. After tweaking a few recipes, I came up with something I’m pretty certain you’ll want to make year after year. In fact, these delectable bites could be found in your fridge year-round and no one in your home would complain.

These yummy delights are super versatile, so feel free to substitute out any ingredients that don’t work for you with the suggested substitutions in the recipe below. I know how you feel about reading a 30 page novel before actually getting to the recipe so I’ll make this easy on you. This is one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever made so I’m going to walk you through step by step with a photo diary of sorts. Happy reading!

Medjool Dates

Plan to get your fingers sticky. These ooey-gooey dates (<—— Click there to purchase) are delicious and provide just the right amount of natural sugar to sweeten the mixture on the inside of the chocolate shell. To pit them, just take a paring knife and carefully slice down one side of the date. Open the date to reveal and remove the pit.

Place 8 oz (1/2 lb.) of pitted dates in a food processor. If you have a Vitamix or similar blender, I would assume this would work too but it’s probably going to be hard to remove the mixture. Pulse your food processor until your dates kind of start to clump together. They may even form a ball, which is fine.

Big Spoon Roasters Chocolate Sea Salt Peanut Butter

Here’s where we really get to have a little fun. The Big Spoon Roasters Chocolate Sea Salt Peanut Butter (<——Click here to buy) is my favorite nut/seed butter for this recipe, but nearly anything can be substituted if you’re allergic to peanuts. I subbed out sunflower butter in one batch and it came in a close 2nd. Either way, it needs to be a natural oily peanut/nut butter.

Add 1/2 Cup of your choice of nut/seed butter into the food processor with 1 cup of rolled oats or old fashioned oats. If you can’t have oatmeal, you can add 1 Cup of puffed rice cereal (Rice Krispies).

Everything But The Kitchen Sink

Next we’re going to add everything else. You can choose to add chia seeds or flax seeds. Either will work well and both can be purchased at Jar. Luck you - all dried goods are 30% off until everything is sold out! Flax and chia are binders (they’re often used in vegan baking to replace eggs) and they are incredibly good for you. Add 2 Tbsp of ground flax or ground chia, 1 Tbsp of Orange Blossom Hani Honey and 1/4 tsp of Himalayan Sea Salt (fine grain). Pulse in the food processor again a few times to bring everything together. Then add 1 Cup of Puffed Rice Cereal (Rice Krispies). If you added 1 Cup of puffed rice cereal in the step above, go ahead and add another cup.

This Cup of puffed rice is really for a textural element, so we don’t want to demolish it. After you’ve placed 1 Cup in the food processor, pulse 2-3 times maximum and test the firmness of your mixture. It should easily hold together, but not be so sticky that it will stick to a cookie scoop.

This is what the mixture should resemble when it’s all assembled.

Double-Boiling Chocolate for Coating

If you don’t have a double boiler, don’t sweat it. Get a small sauce pan and a small metal bowl instead. Fill your small sauce pan 1/3 of the way with water. The heat from the steamy water is what melts the chocolate. You don’t want to melt it on direct heat. It will seize and you’ll have to start over. Plus - wasted chocolate is a cardinal sin or something. So go ahead and get that set up and put it on medium-low heat.

The chocolate you use is entirely up to you. Pictured above is semi-sweet chocolate chips, but my favorite dark chocolate comes from Aldi. It’s called Moser Roth Dark Orange Almond. In total, I used 8.8 oz (or 2 full packages) of the chocolate. While it is still in its individually wrapped bars, I crack them up to make melting easier and quicker. Put all of the chocolate in the double boiler and let it get to work. I love the orange chocolate because it pairs really nicely with the subtle flavor of the Orange Blossom Hani Honey inside. Make sure you stir the melting chocolate every 3-4 minutes.

Perfect Portions

Next, while the chocolate is melting, I take my 2 Tbsp cookie dough scoop, which can be found at any online cooking store, and dollop out all of the mixture. They’ll probably come out a little rough, which is fine. You’ll go back (after you wash your hands) and gently pack these to perfection so the mixture doesn’t break off when you dip them in the chocolate. I place these little nuggets on a silpat baking mat (or you can also use parchment paper).

Now Dip, Baby Dip

Just like the old Tootsee Roll song, it’s time to dip! Once all of your chocolate is melted, keep it on the double boiler and keep stirring it every couple of minutes so it doesn’t seize up. Gently drop one “refurbished buckeye” into the melted chocolate and use either a slotted spoon or a fork to remove it so that you don’t take too much extra chocolate out with it. And that’s it! I chose to top mine with some chopped almonds and a teeny sprinkle of the earlier mentioned sea salt, but you can top with whatever you like or leave them untopped. Pop those babies in the refrigerator for about 2 hours and you’ve got pure decadence at your disposal any time you like. If you want a fun drizzle on top like these, pull them out of the refrigerator after about 20-30 minutes. They should be set up enough to take a drizzle of chocolate. I simply took a small spoon, filled it with the leftover melted chocolate and slung it all over the silpat mat. Yes, it’s messy. It’s even more therapeutic.

Ingredients List:

8 oz. pitted Medjool dates
1/2 C Big Spoon Roasters Chocolate Sea Salt Peanut Butter
1/4 tsp Himalayan Sea Salt
1 Tbsp Orange Blossom Hani Honey
2 Tbsp Flax or Chia seeds
1 C Rolled Oats or Old Fashioned Oats
1 C Puffed Rice Cereal
8.8 oz dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate