Like just about all of my great recipes, I found this one on Foodgawker and it looked so delicious and so easy, I said LET’S DO IT!
I’m not a huge fan of carrot cake – but to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the vast majority of American desserts. I find that most of them taste like sugar on steroids rather than actual flavor. However, this one has that middle eastern twist and I can deal with that.
They involve pitted dates, but given that I live within 5 minutes of a middle eastern grocery store, I have something better – DATE PASTE. No need to get your blender sticky with dates.
This recipe also contains cashews – my new favorite nut, by the way. I only had salted cashews, so I rinsed them before I pulverized them in my Ninja blender. I also gave the oats a spin in there. If you’re using a package of date paste, I suggest doubling up on the other ingredients.
My altered recipe is below:
Ingredients
- 4 carrots, grated
- 13 oz date paste (1 package)
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted cashews
- 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- zest from 1/2 orange and freshly squeeze juice from said orange
- desiccated coconut for rolling
Directions
- Peel and wash your carrots. Grate your carrots.
- Rinse your cashews if they’re salted. Pop them in a blender 1/4 cup at a time and burst blend them until they’re between coarse and fine.
- Blend your oatmeal as well. You don’t want a fine powder, but you do want everything to be about the same size.
- In a large bowl, combine carrots, date paste, oats, spices, salt, zest of an orange, and the juice if your orange together. You can of course opt to do this in a blender, but why clean more than you need to? Use your hands to mix together well.
- In a separate bowl, add coconut. Form your snowballs into balls and roll around in coconut.
- Pop the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving, to firm up.
