My Chocolate Season 2024: Chocolate-Hazelnut Energy Balls

As this year's Thanksgiving holiday approaches, I'm sharing a fast, no-bake, healthy dessert option for the chocoholics in your life. I tried making these Chocolate-Hazelnut Energy Balls yesterday afternoon, as lovely, mid-60s temperatures preceded today's chilliness.

Loved the results of this recipe! V.O.E./Voice of Experience - However, when it came time to add chopped hazelnuts to these tasty treats, I rolled each one in the bowl (see below) rather than sprinkling and then pressing them onto the balls. 

Equipment

Food processor
Sharp knife if you need to pit these dates
Cutting board (V.O.E.)
Sheet pan
​Baking parchment
​Measuring cup
Spoon for chocolate nut butter
Measuring tablespoon
Small bowl for ground hazelnuts (V.O.E.- Grate the nuts you will use for topping before you combine 'batter' ingredients in the food processor. You'll avoid stickiness or the need to clean your machine while making these balls)

I prefer Medjool dates for recipes (including a generations old recipe from my husband's family called Date Pudding). I also prefer to somewhat 'baby' my decades-old food processor so I chopped these pitted dates a bit before pulverizing them with other ingredients. 

Wondering about that cool cutting board logo? It belongs to the city of Wichita, Kansas and this board is one of my all-time favorite press trip perks. 

Above: See the little pile of powder on the left side of the blade? That's the recommended 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder. V.O.E. - As much as I love chocolate flavor, I will likely increase this amount by 1/2 to 1 additional tablespoon so there's plenty of chocolate hitting my tastebuds. 

Above: Yes, I know - this jar says Hazelnut & Almond Butter. That's because, despite checking several stores, I couldn't find the hazelnut-only variety anywhere. But I will definitely find other uses for the considerable leftovers in this jar (including another round of these balls), which has much less sugar-w/organic ingredients-than several other chocolate-nut butters do. 

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Once combined and refrigerated for 15 minutes, this flavorful combo is quite easy to shape as balls. V.O.E. - I suspect the large dates I used contributed to the number of balls on my parchment-covered cookie sheet. My yield was about 16.