Lemon and coconut balls

Here’s a simple recipe for a healthy, sweet and refreshing snack. It only requires a handful of ingredients, which are used raw.

The lemon juice and grated lemon zest add a wonderfully refreshing touch, making these treats ideal for the warmer months. Ready in about an hour, including the half-hour resting time. Some of the ingredients do need to be left to soak for a while beforehand.

Buckwheat

This recipe uses buckwheat. This is a less common grain. It can grow in fairly poor soil. Buckwheat is a very easily digestible grain. It is nutritious and gluten-free, which may be an advantage for some people. Roasted buckwheat grains are also known as kasha.

In a traditional supermarket, wheat dominates the cereal section. It looks rather like a dull monoculture. So you may well have to head to an organic shop or supermarket to find buckwheat.

Ingredients for about 16 balls:

• 125 g cashew nuts, soaked and rinsed
• 60 g buckwheat (plain or pre-roasted), soaked and rinsed.
• 40 g rolled oats
• 7–8 dates, pitted
• 20 g grated coconut, and about 20 g extra for the outer coating of the balls
• the juice and grated zest of 1 organically grown lemon
• a pinch of iodised sea salt or herb salt

Pre-soak or not?

We use the whole buckwheat grains. You can soak them for half an hour before using them. They swell quickly. Rinse them thoroughly after soaking, until the water runs clear.

Like most other types of nuts, cashews are easier to digest if they are soaked beforehand. About three hours in cold water is sufficient. It can also be done more quickly – about half an hour in warm water. The cashews will absorb part of the water and become softer.

You don’t need to soak the rolled oats.

A sweetener that’s rich in fibre

We use pitted dried dates as a sweetener. If you can find soft Medjoul or Mazafiti dates, you can simply use them straight away. However, if you have other, drier and harder varieties, such as Deglet Nour dates, it’s best to soak them in cold water for half an hour to soften them. Cut them into small pieces beforehand; this helps the soaking process. Dates are a healthy, relatively inexpensive and wholesome sweetener. Eating them whole also provides you with some extra fibre.

This is how you proceed:

1. Soak the buckwheat, cashew nuts and dates as described above.
2. Grate the lemon zest and squeeze the lemon for the juice.
3. Place the oats, buckwheat and cashew nuts in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an S-shaped blade and pulse until coarsely ground.
4. Then add the other ingredients: the dates, 20 g of the grated coconut, the lemon zest and the lemon juice. Mix well.
5. Place the mixture in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes to cool slightly and firm up.
6. After the resting time, scoop out the mixture spoonful by spoonful and, using clean, slightly damp hands, roll the dough into small balls.
7. Then roll them in the remaining grated coconut to give them their white, flaky coating.

If you grind the grain and nut mixture too finely for too long, the texture will start to resemble dough. You should therefore grind it less intensively so that the texture remains slightly coarser and subtly crunchier.

These lemon and coconut balls will stay fresh for a whole week in a sealed container in the fridge.

Why not choose animal-based dairy products?

It’s best to make sweet treats like these yourself. Most of the sweets and pastries on sale on the shelves of the food industry are rubbish that isn’t really worthy of the name ‘food’. The confectionery and pastry industries are a lucrative market for animal-based ingredients. Think of milk (powder), egg (powder), butter, gelatine and the like. What’s more, sugar is added in more than generous quantities. Using just the right amount of salt and all manner of synthetic flavourings, the taste is fine-tuned in laboratories until the product is as addictive as possible.

Nutritional values

Lemon and coconut balls, per 100 g of product.

The values are approximate.

Energy	Carbs	Sugars	Fat	Sat. fat	Protein	Fibre	Salt
400 kcal	55 g	26,6 g	19,3 g	9,2 g	8,8 g	7,7 g	0,07 g

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