No-Bake Pumpkin Spice Bliss Balls

No-Bake Pumpkin Spice Bliss Balls

This blog post is sponsored by iHerb. All opinions are my own.

Welcome fall and all things pumpkin! The isles at the grocery store are filled with canned pumpkin, my kids are insisting on buying fresh pumpkins everywhere they see them [because they’re so cute of course] and it’s totally acceptable to just consume pumpkin in all forms and shapes this time of year. So, here’s to more pumpkin recipes! And here’s to my No-Bake Pumpkin Spice Bliss Balls. They’re made with pure, simple, superfood ingredients that are actually good for you, so it’s dessert with no-guilt. Well, only if you can control yourself and limit to 2 pieces. And let me tell you…that’s no easy feat. This energy balls are my absolutely favorite!

Here’s all the ingredients you’ll need:

It may look like a lot, but the shredded coconut, cacao nibs and the walnuts are just for optional coating. And you don’t even need to coat them, or you can coat them with simply chocolate chips…YUM! So, it really just involves a bowl of dry stuff: oat flour, rolled oats, pumpkin spice and cane sugar. Then a bowl of the wet stuff: almond butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract, pumpkin pie mix or just canned pumpkin. Then you mix everything together, roll them into cute bliss balls and then coat them however you’d like. I was also planning to roll some with cane sugar and cinnamon, but I ate too many samples – guess that’s what happens when you’re making a no-bake dessert! But can you blame me? Look at these beauties!

And you seriously can’t just have one bite or one ball or even one serving (which is two balls by the way)!

If some of these ingredients look hard to find, you may have better luck at natural grocery stores. I found that iHerb {affiliate link} actually has all kinds of amazing products and superfood natural ingredients I prefer at a reasonably good cost. Once a month, I do a big healthy grocery haul from them and stock up on all my non-perishable recipe needs. And I keep coming back and referring them to friends because they:

• carry over 5,000 grocery items – wowzers!
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I’ve been so pleased with not only their variety of products but also the variety of brands for those products, in additional to their speedy standard shipping and the overall ease of using the website. If you want to give them a try, you can use the affiliate link here.

Here’s all the stuff I bought specifically:

• Bob’s Red Mill, Organic Old Fashioned Rolled Oats 
• Bob’s Red Mill, Whole Grain Oat Flour
• Coombs Family Farms, Organic Maple Syrup
• Edward & Sons, 100% Organic, Reduced Fat Coconut, Fine Shred
• Farmer’s Market Foods, Organic Pumpkin Pie Mix
• Frontier Natural Products, Pumpkin Pie Spice
• MaraNatha, Roasted Almond Butter, Creamy
• Now Foods, Real Food, Certified Organic Raw Walnuts
• Simply Organic, Cinnamon
• Simply Organic, Madagascar Pure Vanilla Extract
• Sunfood, Chocolate Cacao Nibs
• Wholesome Sweeteners, Inc., Organic Cane Sugar

As you can tell from the list of products, they’re all gluten free (except for the rolled oats, but you can find gluten-free oats for sure), mostly organic and non-gmo. And that makes me feel better about putting together a dessert recipe that actually feels good in my body, not only tastes good. And because these products are well made with high quality ingredients, the final recipe will taste that much better! It’s just not about using any maple syrup for example, it’s about the pure organic maple syrup that has only *one* ingredient. You’ll taste the difference and your body will feel the difference.

If you want to try it, you can get $5 off your first iHerb order of $20 or more using this link:

https://www.iherb.com/?pcode=IHERBNEW5&rcode=ODI0572

Hey, that’s like getting a free bag of almonds…score!

• 1 3/4 cups gluten-free oat flour (or grind oats in blender until flour-like)
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 2 Tbsp cane sugar
• 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 cup almond butter (or other nut butter of choice)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree or pumpkin pie puree
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Shredded coconut, cacao nibs and crushed walnuts for coating

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the oat flour, rolled oats, cane sugar and pumpkin pie spice, and mix well.
2. In another medium microwave safe bowl, heat the almond butter for about 30-60 seconds until it has a more liquid form. Mix in the maple syrup, vanilla extract and canned pumpkin.
3. Pour the dry mixture (oats, sugar and spices) into the wet mixture (almond butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract and canned pumpkin), and mix well until a firm texture is formed.
4. If the mixture needs more moisture, add a tablespoon of canned pumpkin, and if it is too moist, you can add a tablespoon of oat flour. Because it's no-bake, you can also taste it and add more cane sugar, if you desire.
5. Using your hands, form batter into small bite sized balls.
6. Roll balls in optional coatings (shredded coconut, chopped walnuts and cacao nibs) and place on a baking sheet.
7. You can enjoy them as is, or refrigerate for 10 minutes to firm up.