Gluten free, paleo, vegan, egg free, peanut free, no bake and SO easy to make!
No one will ever guess that such fudgy chocolate balls could possibly be 100% free of sugar, butter, and flour.
Shhhh… no need to tell anyone they’re healthy. 
Healthy?
Who, me?
Since creating recipes is my full-time job, I try at least two new recipe experiments every day, and this was one of the successes of last week.
Today, I’m working on chocolate chunk cookies, molten chocolate pudding cake, and chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream.
So basically, it’s going to be one big chocolate fest.
But that’s no different from any other day!
I’m also working on some non-chocolate recipes, and of course I have to cook actual meals as well…
I’ve gotten really good at multitasking in the kitchen; it’s not hard to make a bunch of things at once if you’ve already made a mess.
German Chocolate Fudge Bites
(Makes 10-14 balls)
Inspired by my Hot Fudge Brownie Larabars
- 3/4 cup pitted dates (120g)
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/16 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp cocoa or cacao powder
- 2 tbsp shredded coconut
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup raw pecans
- optional: feel free to add some chocolate chips
Blend all ingredients together very well. I recommend using a food processor for best results, as they’ll be very sticky in a blender. Squish the dough together – I transferred the dough to a plastic bag then smushed it together in the bag. It’s much less messy this way! Roll into balls, cookie-cuttered shapes, or bars… or you can even use it for a pie crust!
Link Of The Day:
Hello, without reading all 128 comments, is there any reason mine won’t make balls??? I love these and have made them several times, but I would really like them to roll into balls. The way I take it now is in a ziploc bag and it looks as though I am eating dirt LOL! (Don’t care the dirt like stuff tastes amazing) haha Any help????
‘
Have you tried smushing the stuff inside the ziploc REALLY hard? Also, as recommended in the post, I use sunmaid dates because they are softer.
When I was blending mine, I could see it was coming out crumbly and dry- probably because my dates were drier. I just added 2 tablespoons of water, and it was sorted right out. I would say if you’re making these again, and you can’t get it into balls, add a water a little bit at a time until it reaches the right moisture level… It should begin to form a clump in the food processor, if you have enough moisture.
Oh my! These really are delish! Thanks so much for a yummy recipe. My four year old said “And these are healthy so we can have these whenever we want!” (That comes form my kid who loves sugar—and being her mom I am happy to find her other options!) THANKS!
awww 🙂
These Lara bars look amazing, I was wondering if you could use other dried fruits in place of dates, I love dates, but have some left over prunes from a dif recipe. I will try anyway.
I just made them with prunes…they are great! so next question (I am new to your blog) is how to store and how long they will keep. I like to make things in bulk when I can… so I have it when I don’t have a lot of time. Thanks…I will try them on my kids in just a moment!
Yum, so glad to hear they turned out well. I actually have some prunes in my cabinet… I might have to try your idea!
I like them better today! My oldest likes them as well, my youngest thinks they taste like raisens…(which he thinks is bad) so I will still try the dates. Thanks for the inspiration!
What can you use instead of the dates? They are high on the GI scale. thanks!
i would like to try these for my b-day, but i have a probably really stupid question: 2 T cocoa powder, coconut… what or how much is a T? 😀
tablespoon. Sorry for the confusion!
These are wonderful! Could they become rum balls?
They DO make wonderful rum balls. I used extra cocoa, added prunes, less coconut and toasted pecans. Yum!
With rum instead of vanilla, with a bit more…
These are simply amazing. They work perfect for “The Belly Fat Cure” diet of a low sugar low garb treat. I’m no Betty Crocker but I could make these all day. Thank you so much for the recipe.
SO DELICIOUS! thank you again Katie for another spectacular recipe!!! 🙂 🙂 would like to try it next time with a different nut, perhaps almonds or walnuts…..
OMG! These are my new favorite treats! Thank you for the recipe! YUM!
I just made these for the first time and I LOVED them! We gave up sweets and flour for lent and it has been tough on those days when you will like just a little sweet treat that doesn’t have refined and artificial sugars. Since we are eating fruits, this recipe works out just fine. This little treat is just perfect!! Thanks!
Fabulous! I made them with organic walnuts instead of pecans and used raw cacao…I’m not a big chocolate fan, but there were out of this world…Thanks and Thanks again : )
I am not a fan of coconut but i really want to try this recipe because i have a brownie OBSESSION. Can I eliminate the coconut or replace it with something else and still get the chocolate fudge brownie taste??
https://lett-trim.today/2009/10/13/make-these-now/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
I made these almost two weeks ago, just found 4 left in a container in the fridge. They are still yummy!!! I used golden raisins because I didn’t have any dates. I only had one tablespoon of cocoa powder so I used a tablespoon of instant sugar free cappucino mix. They were delicious!!!
Oh, I forgot, I also rolled them in some graham cracker crumbs!!!
Wow, just made these and they are delicious (and easy)!! I used sliced almonds since I didn’t have any pecans. I was going to bring these for my dad and stepmom tomorrow but I’m not sure they’re going to last that long. (c:
Absolutely delicious. Love that I can give them to my kids guilt free. And they can help in rolling them into balls or cutting them out. I’ll be doing double batches from now on!