I have fond memories of making peanut butter balls with my mom and sister every holiday season. The women in my family are all big peanut butter and chocolate fans, so it seems like a natural holiday dessert to splurge on. In fact, I know when they see this post they’ll be running to the kitchen to make this version! You can’t beat how easy peanut butter balls are to throw together during those hectic last-minute preparations.
This year, I came up with a lighter version of my childhood favourite. Rather than using 2 cups of powdered sugar and plenty of butter like the old recipe, I turned to a few lighter ingredients to do the same job.
This version contains much less sweetener than classic recipes, but I promise you won’t even notice the difference, especially once the chocolate coating is in place!
The secret to achieving a similar dough (without all the powdered sugar) is a little trick I picked up from making homemade nut butter in my food processor. I noticed when I added too much maple syrup into the machine, it would cause the nut butter to seize up (i.e., get really thick). After that point, no matter how much I processed the nut butter, it never returned back to it’s creamy, drippy state. A similar thing happens when you add water to melted chocolate.
For this recipe, I used this knowledge to my advantage by stirring the peanut butter and maple syrup vigorously, until the mixture “seized” and thickened up. Well, it worked like a charm! All I had to do after that was add a couple tablespoons of coconut flour for additional thickening powers. Coconut flour is quite dense and drying, so just a little bit did the trick. No powdered sugar necessary. Yes!
Tip: If you are new to coconut flour and don’t want to buy a whole bag, try buying a small amount from a bulk food bin. I’m pretty sure Bulk Barn carries coconut flour.
At first, when you stir in the maple syrup, it will look quite runny and you’ll think there’s no way it’s going to thicken up, but it does. Just keep on stirring! It took me probably 30 seconds of stirring and letting it sit a couple minutes helps it firm up too (the coconut flour absorbs a lot of moisture). The timing will depend on how thick (or thin) your brand of peanut butter is (I only recommend using 100% all-natural peanut butter with nothing else added). It’s quite possible you might need a touch more (or less) coconut flour than what I used. I’m not sure if other sweeteners will work the same way that maple syrup does, so I can’t vouch for the results if you swap out the maple syrup.
Once it thickened up, I stirred in some sea salt to enhance the flavours and rice crisp cereal for a crunchy texture. Oh my….simply irresistible!!
Watch them disappear almost as quickly as they were made.
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Peanut Better Balls
Yield
16-20 balls
Prep time
Cook time
0 minutes
Chill time
25
Total time
These peanut butter balls forgo the powdered sugar and butter, and instead use a few lighter ingredients using only a fraction of the sweetener compared to traditional recipes. You'll wonder how you ever lived without this recipe around the holidays! It's quick to throw together and makes about 16-20 balls that will fill a platter for a holiday party. For mess-free finger food, place the balls in mini cupcake liners.
Ingredients
- 1 cup 100% natural peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
- 3.5-4 tablespoons pure maple syrup, to taste (see note)
- 1-3 tablespoons coconut flour, only if needed
- fine grain sea salt, to taste (I used 1/4 teaspoon)
- 6 tablespoons gluten-free rice crisp cereal
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life)
- 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil
Directions
- Stir the jar of peanut butter well before using. In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter and maple syrup vigorously, for 30-60 seconds, until it thickens up. It will go from runny to thick during this time.
- Stir in the coconut flour until combined (if your PB is dry, you might be able to skip this step or only use half). We're looking for a texture that isn't too sticky, but not too dry either. Let it sit for a couple minutes to firm up as the coconut flour will continue to absorb moisture with time. Add a touch more coconut flour if necessary. Or if it's too dry, add a touch more syrup.
- Add salt to taste and stir in the rice crisp cereal.
- Shape into small balls (I made about 17).
- In a small pot, add the chocolate chips and coconut oil and heat over low heat, stirring frequently. Once half the chips have melted, remove from heat and stir until completely smooth.
- With a fork, dip the balls into the melted chocolate. Tap off excess chocolate on the side of the pot and place the ball on a plate or cutting board lined with parchment. Repeat for the rest. Save any leftover melted chocolate for later.
- Place balls in the freezer for around 6-8 minutes until mostly firm.
- Dip a fork into the leftover melted chocolate and drizzle it on top of the balls to create a "sophisticated" design like the baking diva you are.
- Freeze the balls for another 10-15 minutes, until the chocolate is completely set. If you can wait that long, you win life.
Tip:
1) I'm not sure if other liquid sweeteners will work in this recipe (and firm up the peanut butter the same way as maple syrup does), therefore I can't recommend any. A reader did tell me that agave nectar worked for her though! 2) I recommend only using 100% natural peanut butter for this recipe. You just want to see roasted peanuts on the label (and maybe salt, if it’s salted). The no-stir kinds made with oil and sugar might not work the same way. The PB I used was very drippy. If your PB seems dry, you probably won't need to use all of the coconut flour.
Angela- I just made these today for the first time and we all love them!!! Thanks so much for the recipe- you’re right- you can’t tell that they don’t have all of the sugar of traditional P.B. balls.
I never leave comments but I made these and they were AMAZING! They contain wonderful ingredients and are a lot better than any store bought vegan junk. Even my parents enjoyed them and they kind of hate everything vegan or semi healthy. Thank you for this wonderful, delicious recipe!
I just made these – delicious! And I don’t feel so guilty.
I didn’t have any coconut flour on hand so I just mixed in flax powder. Still seemed to work just fine for me. Thank you for another great treat!
My three kids love this recipe! Adding the maple syrup to thicken up the peanut butter is genius. Thanks so much.
Peanut butter and I have been on a break recently…I can’t imagine that will last long now that I’ve found this! Holy yum. Can’t wait to try these!
Do you know the nutrition info on this? I am wondering if these would be a good option for fattening up my underweight boy.
I just made these and they were AMAZING I had to brush my teeth to restrain myself from eating them all right now! Haha Thankyou!
These are in the freizwr there now. Some preliminary comments:
1. Picking them up with a fork to dip into the chocolate did not work. The fork broke them apart. I found what worked instead was simply dropping them into the chocolate, using a spoon to roll them around, and then lifting them with the spoon onto the plane.
Two. The amount of chocolate chips and coconut butter recommended could not make enough chocolate sauce to dip the balls into. I don’t know, maybe I need a super small pot. Anyway, what I did instead was drop the balls into the pot, and then roll them around to pick up the sauce.
3.because they were so messy looking when I was done, I did not bother with the drizzling… It would not even show! Instead what I did was I scraped the peanut butter mixture off the bowl, mixed it into the leftover chocolate and are it off the spoon. If this is anything like the balls will taste, I am happy indeed!
Same thing happened to me, except I had enough chocolate with some leftover to dip bananas in and freeze.
Your way sounds smarter than mine re: the fork didn’t work. I just picked them up and rolled them around with my hands- definitely will try the spoon next time!!
Yummy! I followed this recipe almost exactly. Wasn’t sure if the rice cereal was gluten free, so I did substitute chopped peanuts for the cereal and used rice flour instead of the coconut flour. Didn’t think 1 cup of peanut butter would be enough for 16 balls, but it amazingly was. Served it for dessert and everyone loved them! I will need to make these weekly. It’s a nice chocolate treat to satisfy anyones sweet tooth craving.
Where does the cereal come in???
Hi Angela! I made these a while ago and loved them, and in the process got a hairbrained idea to swap out some of the peanut butter for chickpeas. To my surprise, it was a huge hit! I tweaked the filling a little more and recently made mini peanut butter cups and posted about it this week. I credited you as the inspiration for the recipe, so thank you! :) Hope all is going well in your pregnancy, so exciting!
How long do these keep for? and do you keep them in the fridge or freezer
Thanks!1
Hello Angela,
I mixed some amaranth pops into the chocolate coating because I didn’t have rice crisps at home. Turned out very nice and crispy.
My boyfriend doesn’t like peanut butter, so today I will replace it with hazelnut butter. I hope that will work out just as good as the peanut version.
I discovered your blog a few months ago and it became my favorite vegan food blog.
Thank you for all the fantastic recipes on the blog and in your book.
Best regards from Germany,
karoline
I made the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites from Oh She Glows today. They are delicious! I’m always so busy so I doubled the batch so that we can just grab a few whenever. I love that they are a “no-bake” dessert too! I’m making these Peanut Butter Balls tomorrow. My sister-in-law always makes the regular version at Christmas, but there’s so much sugar in them. Thanks so much for the wonderful recipes.
These were great, and a very versatile recipe. I substituted almost every ingredient and they still came out great. I used what I had around, so regular no-mix (crunchy) PB, fake maple syrup, garbanzo bean flour, and cocoa krispies. I think it would have been better with regular rather than crunchy PB, but the difference was minor. I’ll definitely make these again!
Whoever first put peanut butter and chocolate together, was an absolute genius! I just made these using mostly peanut butter and 1/4 cup almond butter. Also, I didn’t have any coconut flour, so I used almond meal/flour and it worked great! Perfect texture for rolling and they taste amazing!
It adheres to my teeth so much, but tastes not bad
These are absolutely amazing! I followed the recipe exactly, and they came out perfect. Next time I’m going to throw a little shredded coconut and crushed almonds in the chocolate before I dip the balls and see how that does. My husband is not a fan of sweets, but he was obsessed with these. I will be using this recipe all the time!
I made these today,turned out pretty good. i had to place my peanut butter mixture in the fridge for a few minutes so that i could roll them into balls.That worked great. tastes good!
Hi! Is there any othe kind of cereal you tried or a substitution for it? Thank you!
Anything crunchy would probably be ok. You could even use cereal flakes (like bran) – I would crunch them up in a plastic baggie and maybe add half the amount so it isn’t too dense.