Fruity avocado bliss balls

With natural sweetness from dried apricots and healthy fat from avocado, these are great to keep in the fridge or freezer for a snack.

Credit: The Healthy Food Guide

• makes

  28

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  7 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Toasting might seem like an easy step to skip but it’s so quick and really makes a difference to the results. Dried fruit is a really nice way to add sweetness to these bliss balls, because you’re keeping in the goodness of the fibre,  while lemon adds freshness. 

"Great in the freezer, good for little snacks and if you want to change the flavourings up, dried figs and dates are really lovely in here, as well as raw cacao," says The Healthy Food Guide TV chef, Sam Campbell. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup almonds
• 1 cup breakfast cereal (see Note)
• 1 cup ready-to-eat prunes
• 12 dried apricot halves
• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 cup dessicated coconut, to coat balls (see Note)

Instructions

Toast the almonds and coconut (see Note). Place toasted almonds in a processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine crumbs; place the ground nuts into a large bowl. Add the cereal to the ground nuts and mix together with clean hands, slightly crushing the cereal as you mix.

Put the prunes, apricots, avocado, lemon zest and juice in the processor then pulse to combine. Add the nuts and cereal. Pulse until combined.

Take one teaspoon of the mixture and roll into ball, then coat with the toasted coconut. Repeat with remaining mixture. Refrigerate until firm.

Note

•You can toast the almonds and coconut in advance. Toast the almonds for about 7 minutes and the coconut for 5 minutes in a moderate oven - around 180°C.

• Sam used Sanitarium Light & Tasty Macadamia cereal; you could use any similar flake-and cluster-cereal. Check that it's dairy-free if you want to keep this a dairy-free recipe.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

Toasting might seem like an easy step to skip but it’s so quick and really makes a difference to the results. Dried fruit is a really nice way to add sweetness to these bliss balls, because you’re keeping in the goodness of the fibre,  while lemon adds freshness. 

"Great in the freezer, good for little snacks and if you want to change the flavourings up, dried figs and dates are really lovely in here, as well as raw cacao," says The Healthy Food Guide TV chef, Sam Campbell.