Briana's Breakfast Balls

supqa5
Oct 28, 2014
3 min read

Go ahead and have a chuckle at the name, we certainly did! But since “Briana’s breakfast spheres” didn’t have quite the same ring to it, BBB is what they remained. It’s sort of the mascot of our recipe section, both our families love them!

And I'm not kidding when I say everyone loves them, especially the kids. One day my 5 year old asked for his FOURTH ball of the day. I told him no, he needed to eat the lunch that had been sitting on the table for an hour. He squared his shoulders, furrowed his brow, and yelled, "I'm never eating again until you give me one of those balls!" and stomped off. I laughed until tears ran down my face!

The breakfast balls came about from my need to have a quality, naturally sweet, protein packed breakfast that I could take on the go. There were too many mornings that I would dash out the door for the school run, grocery shopping—whatever, and leave without breakfast or grabbing something terrible for me. Because let’s face it, we don’t always have time to make a well balanced breakfast!

I found a pre-existing recipe, but it only had 5 ingredients. So I looked around my kitchen, gathered all the items I would want in a breakfast item, and started experimenting!

The final result was a delicious on-the-go breakfast that’s not only great for me, but the whole family! Make sure you read all the way to the bottom for several variations!

First, the Ingredients:

Place the following ingredients in your food processor:

6 pitted Medjool dates (organic)

1 ½ cups rolled oats/Old-fashioned oats (organic)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

3/4c. Cocoa Almonds

3/4c. Cashews (raw, unsalted)

¼c. Chia Seeds (organic)

1/4c. Sunflower seeds (these aren’t pictured, there was a sale and someone bought them all!!)

1/2c. Wheat Germ

¼c. Unsweetened Coconut

1tsp. Vanilla Extract (organic)

If you don’t have an 8-10 cup food processor, just do these items in batches until they are all ground. The finer your mixture, the easier it is to form the balls. Your nut meal should look something like this:

Once you have your dry ingredients in the bowl, it’s time to prepare the oil/PB/honey mixture. Initially I would put them in individually and get an arm workout trying to stir it into the dry mix. Then one day I had a “duh!” moment, put them in a saucepan together, melted them down, and poured them over the nut meal. It made the mixing process so much easier!

1/3 cup Coconut Oil (organic)

½ cup Peanut Butter (organic)—or any nut butter of your choosing!

1/3 cup Honey (I get mine local, straight from the source!)

(Also, it’s important to note that you can add more or less of any of these. If you prefer to have more honey or oil, you can adjust the amounts to suit your preferences!)

Once everything is mixed well, form into balls and place each into a mini muffin pan (or any baking sheet is fine, the muffin pans just help keep them from rolling all over!). If you find that your mixture is a bit dry and not forming into balls easily immediately, let your mixture sit for about 10 minutes, letting the oils soak into the dry mix, and try again! Try to avoid adding more wet ingredients or you’ll end up with a soggy nut meal.

Place the pan in the fridge for about 30 minutes so they can set, then place in a Tupperware or Ziploc and they are ready to go! No need for refrigeration. They also freeze well so feel free to make a huge batch and freeze the excess.

Another method, if you’re short on time, is to make only the dry mix and put in a gallon bag and place in the freezer until you’re ready to make up a batch!

I’ve found when you’re making it this way, always add in the dry mix into the wet mixture a ½ cup at a time so as to get the perfect ratio.

You’ll find you probably only need one or two of these to feel and stay full, so these are perfect for breakfast on the fly!

Now if you are in a pinch with time and don't want to shape these into balls, you can press them into muffin tins, or into a baking dish. Just be sure to add a bit more of the wet ingredients to your mixture and still refrigerate. Then slice into squares or pop out of the muffin tins!