Date & Nut Energy Bars

Some energy bars are here for you to please. These bars may look ugly, but they aren’t really. They can be your little dessert treats for your dinner time or make up a great snack for mid-afternoons too. If that’s a good enough reason then you should make them now.

If not, let me boast a little more to please you. These are not just delicious but quite healthy too. They are sugar free, so will do perfectly fine for your waist line. Furthermore, they are diabetic friendly, baby friendly, dairy-free, gluten-free and vegan too. Are you convinced???

My snack box is currently packed with these energy bars. They have been a hit at home and the fact that they are healthy (I really like this term :D) totally spoils us for more. I got about 12 bars and they got over too soon. So I went back making more of these and realized how easy they were to whip up and equally yum to snack on. No cooking, no baking, just a simple whiz of handful ingredients like dates, nuts and any fruit juice. Amazingly, it’s the dates that render a moist natural sweetness to this dish that you won’t realize there is no added sugar, yet being sweet, I like to think I am on diet, especially with these.

I have some wicked thoughts to adulterate these bars. How about adding in some cocoa powder to make sinful Date & Nut Bars? Or maybe, I should care for some Fig & Nut Energy Bars? Not a bad thought, yeah? I let you know, soon.

Date & Nut Energy Bars

Inspired by the recipe on Natural Delights

INGREDIENTS

2 cups pitted and chopped Dates
2 cups Raw Cashew Nuts
1/2 cup Raw Almond (I used mine with skin)
2 tbsps. orange juice

DIRECTIONS

Combine chopped dates, cashews & almonds in a food processor. Medjool dates can be best used here. If not, use any moist date you have at hand. I used Lion seedless dates, which were moist enough for this recipe. Dried ones will not help. Pulse and process all the ingredients together until the texture is coarse. Add little orange juice at a time until it reaches a dry but moist dough consistency. Scrape the bar mixture into a tin lined with aluminium foil. Press evenly with a rubber spatula. Chill for about an hour. Remove from refrigerator and cut into desired sizes.

I kept these bars thin, but you may double the recipe and get thicker bars if you like. The bars are quite rich due to a good amount of nuts in them. These tend to be sticky but as they sit in the refrigerator, they get better. I placed a foil between each date bar and stacked them. This recipe is surely a keeper.