Vegan Recipe: Salted Caramel Pecan Bliss Bites

I love creating recipes that taste great and incorporate clean, powerful ingredients. This recipe woke me up at 4 a.m. recently as it swirled around my mind begging me to get up and write it down. I obliged, and I'm glad I did because I think it just might be my best snack recipe yet. These little bites are so o sweet and satisfying, yet are made with only whole foods and no added sugar. A couple of these decadent treats will cure any sugar craving and leave you energized and feeling great.

Salted Caramel Pecan Bliss Bites

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Place the coconut on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to toast in the oven. Coconut will take only 2-3 minutes to toast, so keep a close eye. When the color starts to change and you can smell that sweet coconut smell, it’s toasted. Remove it from the oven and set aside. Now toast the pecans the same way. They will take longer — more like 10 minutes. Check and stir often to prevent burning.

Once the pecans are toasted, place them in a blender or food processor and blend until they're ground into small bits. Remove from the blender and place 1/2 cup of the pecans in a large bowl, reserving 1/4 cup of the ground pecans in a small bowl to roll the balls in later.

Now place the pitted dates, vanilla and sea salt in a blender or food processor and blend until you have date paste (smooth and creamy). You may need to stop the blender a few times and stir things up and restart to make this happen. Remove the date paste, spooning it into the large bowl with the 1/2 cup of pecans. Add the hemp seeds, vanilla, sea salt and toasted coconut and mix everything together with your hands until it's all well mixed.

Roll a small amount into a ball in your hands and then roll the ball in the reserved pecans. Continue until you have a plate full of bliss bites. These scrumptious morsels can be eaten at room temperature or refrigerated for a slightly firmer texture.