These Bliss Balls Have A Secret Ingredient That Will Make Your Skin Glow
Kate Bradley’s Bliss Bites: Vegan, Gluten- & Dairy-Free Treats From the Kenko Kitchen is filled with creative snack options. These bliss balls are like little bites of sunshine, designed to make your skin absolutely glow. They have good fats, omega-3s, and magnesium-rich pepitas, which can help combat the stress that’s so often a skin saboteur. They also contain antioxidant-rich spices, hormone-balancing maca, and bee pollen, a potent anti-inflammatory that’ll help reduce skin redness.
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Get Ya Glow On Bliss Balls
Makes 30
These balls are a variation on my original superfood balls and will add brightness to any dull day! Not only do they look like balls of sunshine, but they are also packed with spices and seeds to help make you shine from the inside out! The bee pollen can be left out or substituted with desiccated (shredded) coconut for rolling.
Ingredients
- 60 g (2 oz / ½ cup) sunflower seeds
- 70 g (2½ oz / ½ cup) pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
- 40 g (1½ oz / ½ cup) white chia seeds
- 65 g (2¼ oz / ⅔ cup) pecan nuts
- 30 g (1 oz / ¼ cup) hemp seeds
- 2½ tablespoons bee pollen (optional)
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon maca powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 10 medjool dates (about 200 g / 7 oz), pitted
- 70 g (2½ oz) dried figs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 90 g (3 oz / ¼ cup) raw honey or rice malt syrup
- bee pollen or desiccated coconut, for rolling
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Method
- Place the sunflower seeds, pepitas, and chia seeds in your food processor or blender and pulse them together until a fine meal forms. Add the pecans and pulse just a few times or until they are broken up but still have plenty of texture (see note below).
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the hemp seeds, bee pollen (if using), cinnamon, turmeric, maca powder, and ginger.
- In the clean food processor or blender, place the dates, figs, vanilla, and honey, then process until everything is smooth.
- Add the date mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients, and use a wooden spoon to mix them together well. You may need to get your hands in there and really mush the ingredients together if mixing with a spoon is not doing the trick. (Just make sure you wash your hands first!) Add a tablespoon of water if the mixture seems too dry.
- Take about a tablespoon of the mixture at a time and roll it into 2½-cm (1-in) balls. Roll the balls in the bee pollen or desiccated coconut to lightly coat, then place them in an airtight container and refrigerate or freeze them. These will keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge and a couple of months in the freezer.
- NOTE: If you want a softer truffle, pulse the ingredients until everything is a fine meal.
Based on excerpts from Bliss Bites: Vegan, Gluten- & Dairy-Free Treats From the Kenko Kitchen by Kate Bradley, with the permission of Hardie Grant Books. Copyright © 2018.
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Liz Moody is an author, blogger and recipe developer living in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated with a creative writing and psychology degree from The University of California, Berkeley. Moody has written two cookbooks: Healthier Together: Recipes for Two—Nourish Your Body, Nourish Your Relationships and Glow Pops: Super-Easy Superfood Recipes to Help You Look and Feel Your Best. She also hosts the Healthier Together Podcast, where she chats with notable chefs, nutritionists, and best-selling authors about their paths to success. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Glamour, Food & Wine & Women’s Health.