Carrot Cake Energy Balls

A post about carrot cake energy balls popped up in my feed a while back and, since then, I've been waiting until I had free time (and space in my tummy) to make a vegan keto recipe to share with you all. And now that my second book is finally edited and approved for release, I've got more space in my life to make whatever tickles my fancy. These pretty Carrot Cake Energy Balls are a delicious and nutritious sweet treat. Due to the almond butter and flour, a single ball has over 15% of your vitamin E. So if you don't make them for your tastebuds, do it for your eyes and skin! They deserve it.
Yield: 10 servings of 1 ball (32g) each, totaling 10 balls (315g)
Macros (per serving): 135 calories | 6.5g protein | 10g fat | 2g net carbs
Prep: 20 minutes | Chill: 1 hour
Storage: refrigerated for 7 days (or longer). If stacking in a storage container, separate with pieces of parchment to prevent bars from sticking together. ✎
Ingredients:​​
  • ⅓ ​cup (83g) unsweetened almond butter
  • 1½ Tbsp (30g) sugar-free maple syrup or "honey"​​
  • 1 tsp sugar-free vanilla extract (optional)
  • 1 medium carrot, grated (61g | about ½ cup) ✎
  • ⅓ ​cup (40g) almond flour
  • ¼ cup (25g) walnuts, chopped
  • ¼ cup (40g) hemp hearts
  • ¼ cup (28g) plain pea or soy protein powder ✎
  • 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg​
  • ⅛ tsp salt
Directions:
  1. Put the almond butter, maple syrup, and vanilla in a medium-sized mixing bowl and mix to smooth.
  2. Add all remaining ingredients and mix to form a thick dough.
  3. Divide into 10 pieces of about 32g (or 2 tablespoons) each.
  4. Roll the pieces into balls and place them on a tray/plate or in a storage container. Optionally, balls could be rolled in shredded coconut, chopped nuts, and/or cinnamon to decorate.
  5. Put the balls in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour to firm up.
  6. Enjoy chilled or at room temperature.
Nut-Free Options: replace the almond butter and almond flour with sunflower seed butter and sunflower seed flour. Replace the walnuts with toasted sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds.
✎ Notes:
  • Double the carrot for 2.5g net carbs per ball (minimal change to other macros).
  • You could use a flavored protein powder, or a mixture of plain and flavored, but you might find the result overly sweet. If you prefer not to use protein powder, you could increase the almond flour. However, oing this will increase the calories, fat, and net carbs, and reduce the protein.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with American national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from the honey/syrup (ChocZero), hemp hearts (Manitoba Harvest), and protein powder (Now Foods plain pea).
  • Macro numbers are rounded. Numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.