A Holiday Tradition

Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Balls have been a holiday tradition in my family for over two decades. Way back when, my mother got the recipe from our neighbor, Kitty, and the whole family has been enjoying them ever since. There have been a few years here and there when I haven't made a single holiday goodie, times when I haven't been able to organize or participate in a cookie-making party, dessert exchange, or make cookie plates for the neighbors - and yet I still manage to make Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Balls. Why are they the only ones that get made? Well, they're pretty easy and fun to make. That, and they're a crowd-pleaser. I don't think I've ever seen anybody eat just one. They're that wonderful combination of peanut butter and chocolate, plus a bit more: pecans or walnuts and dates.

I didn't need to alter the recipe too much to plantify it. Wait, what's "plantify" you ask? I guess it's my new word for not only veganizing a recipe, but making sure the ingredients are whole foods and plant-based whenever possible. In other words, made up of the kind of ingredients that I now like to eat the most, that make me feel the best.

Anyway, the original recipe has just 7-ingredients: peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter, chopped dates, chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips. I wanted to keep it just as simple. I decided to replace the powdered sugar with date sugar, a whole-food alternative. I knew it wouldn't change the flavor too much since there were already dates in the recipe. I eliminated the butter, finding it unnecessary with the thickening provided by the extra dates and plenty of fattiness in the peanut butter. After some trial and error with other ingredients (like rum!), I ended up ditching the butterscotch without a solid alternative. I couldn't find a butterscotch option that would work with the chocolate without actual cream or artificial ingredients involved. Do you know of one? Adding ½ teaspoon vanilla to the peanut butter mix seemed to help make up the difference. Thankfully, the taste-testers didn't end up missing it too much in the final result. Though there's still some refined sugar in the chocolate chips, the amount in the recipe is greatly reduced. Super simple, delicious, and nutritious!

I hope you give this new "plantified" recipe a try. Maybe it will become your new holiday tradition!