Forgive me that I’m all about the balls. They’re just so easy to make up, to make, to store and to eat! This week I found myself with a lot of limes floating around. My usual MO would be to marry those tangy green friends with a little cream and condensed milk, whip up a biscuit base and voilà: key lime pie. But that’s not very no refined sugar now, is it? {No matter how tasty!} All day yesterday I wanted coconut and chocolate, so we can kind of blame that hankering for this recipe.

Nut balls with lime? Sounds good to me. However, on closer inspection in the pantry, seems we’re all out of nuts. Maybe because of these? Or these? Coconut flour or almond meal were my options. I figured I’d use coconut oil and roll these babies in coconut, so almond meal it was. Never too sure how these things are going to turn out, I stabbed in the dark for a few ingredients. Despite being pictured below, I didn’t end up using the cranberries – although they would be good in the blonde balls in future. {Is it just me, or does everyone have a ridiculous teenager hiding inside who giggles every time they read that word? Balls. Just me? Ah, um … okay then.}

What do you need?
two cups almond meal {which is just almonds pulverised until they are powdery}
two and a half cups desiccated coconut {Plus shredded coconut for rolling in. the balls, not you.}
one third cup maple syrup
one third cup coconut oil {You may find you need a smidge less or a smidge more, so add half of it then gradually add more. I desperately need a new food processor so this may be why I had issues!}
one scoop vanilla protein powder {I used this because I was out of vanilla beans/paste and Love Bug was not feeling well and asleep on the couch. You can just use 1-1.5 teaspoons of vanilla bean paste.}
two to three limes, depending on how tangy they are and how much you want in your bite
three tablespoons of raw cacao powder {Again, depending on your preference you might like to add more.}
half teaspoon Himalayan rock salt

Now what do you do with it?
With the exception of the cacao powder, throw everything in a blender {noting comment above re coconut oil} and blend until well combined. Take out half of the mixture {to make blonde tangy balls!} and add the cacao powder, blending until mixed well the remaining mixture.

If you were going to add any dried fruit to the blonde ones, like cranberries, this is where I’d do it. Roll the mixture into balls and coat in coconut. Repeat same process with the cacao balls.

Pop them in the freezer for an hour. You’ll see from the photo of my hand above that the mixture is super sticky. I thought that may be an issue, but once they were out of the freezer and back in the fridge they are holding together nicely.

If you’re not a fan of limes, you could use any citrus. I think the cacao ones would be good with orange – kind of like jaffa balls without the guilt. Yum.