No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

So in this whole quest for no dairy as little dairy as possible, I’ve been really scoping out a lot of vegan and/or raw recipes. I know, this is so not me; however, if it tastes good, I don’t really care what kind of dietary lifestyle it comes from. I’ll never be able to give up meat or embrace eating raw everything, but I don’t mind incorporating it from time to time.

Especially if it tastes like these cookies.

And they actually didn’t turn out as they were supposed to.

And I broke my food processor’s lid [by being a klutz and dropping it on the floor, not because of the cookies!].

And I might have eaten way more chocolate chips while making them than was actually in the recipe.

But it was worth it.

They taste just like chocolate chip cookie dough, even though it’s the most un-traditional dough I’ve ever had. I can only imagine had I been able to pulverize the ingredients together better that they would have been 10x more divine. I need a bigger food processor. Period. So, if you’re like me and have a baby one, take the extra time to really get these things finely ground. It’s important, but not life threatening.

Adapted from Oh She Glows – Makes about 15-25 depending on the size of your cookies and how fine your chopping skills are.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup cashews
• 1 1/4 cup regular oats
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 5 pitted medjool dates, chopped
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3-5 tbsp agave [or pure maple syrup], to taste
• 3-4 tbsp dark chocolate or chocolate of choice, chopped

Preparation

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a non stick mat.
2. In a food processor, process the cashews and oats until a fine crumble [the more fine the better, as you can see from my photo, I just got impatient couldn’t do it with my small processor].
3. Add kosher salt and roughly chopped pitted medjool dates. Process until fine.
4. Add in the vanilla and agave and process until the mixture comes together in a ball [I also had to move my ingredients to my stand mixer to incorporate].
5. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the 3-4 tbsp of chopped dark chocolate.
6. Roll into balls.
7. OPTIONAL: Stick a toothpick into each ball. In a double boiler or carefully in the microwave, melt 1/3 cup of dark chocolate in a small bowl. Be careful not to burn. Now roll each ball into the chocolate and place on parchment paper lined baking sheet.
8. Freeze for 1 hour to set. Serve immediately.
9. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Unless you eat them all in one sitting. I would.