Nutella Balls - Fun with Food Friday

 
Welcome to this week's Fun with Food Friday! (ALERT: Read to the bottom for extra bonus entries opportunity!)

This delicious recipe comes from reader Anna Pry!

NUTELLA BALLS

Ingredients:

• 1 cup hazelnuts
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (Anna used dark cocoa, I just used what I had which was regular)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil (I was out of oil, so I used butter!)
• 5 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon flax meal, (optional, but highly recommended)
• pinch of salt

Directions from Anna:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place hazelnuts on a rimmed cookie sheet and roast for 10 minutes.

1. In a food processor, add all ingredients - including the hazelnuts - and blend until the nuts are pretty much not nut-like anymore. The mixture should be thick.

1. Line another cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop onto it heaping tablespoon-sized dollops of the mixture.

1. Eat warm, but I advise refrigerating beforehand. Will make them turn out more like balls. Keep cold and should last all week, (if you don't eat them first!)

So, not caring for the rather drab look of the balls, I got clever and rolled them in cocoa powder.BAD idea.

For starters...it made them messy:

Secondly, 2-year-old Katie's first reaction was to tell me, "They not taste very good, Mama," and politely set it back on the counter, without having even bitten into it.

The cocoa powder on the outside was too bitter to her, and even to me & Suzy, the insides just aren't sweet enough to quite counteract the bitterness of the cocoa.

Once you start chewing, it's not a big deal. You get the deliciousness of the insides.

I cut one in half and persuaded Katie to try again. She still wasn't too sure, but she ate the whole thing, so I'm sure when I make them again, (and leave them alone!) she will be much more enthusiastic!

My cocoa-powder-fail aside, these are great treats, and come at a perfect time for us!

I just embarked on a 3 (or maybe 4 if I can make it!) week trial of no dairy and reduced white sugar for Katie. 

If I get myself some canola oil before I make them next time so I don't use butter, these will qualify! 

Yay!

Thanks, Anna!

See what Michelle at The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Second Time Mom has cooked up this week!
Please check my archives for more delicious recipes!

You can get 10 extra entries into any ONE giveaway of your choice for each recipe you submit, (you can send me as many as you like!)

Just send the recipe(s) to mamachocolateblog@gmail.com and add the entries into the appropriate box on the giveaway entry form.

Linked up at ABCs & Garden Peas' Hungry Toddler Hop!