the perfect dessert: moroccan date bonbons
I have just booked our family the annual pre-Christmas getaway (last year we went to Iceland) to Marrakech in Morocco and we’ve been getting into travel mood by eating lots of Mediterranean-North African cuisine such as tagine and home-made hummus.
Then I decided to search for Moroccan desserts and found this amazing dish, which is fast and easy to make (needs no oven) and at the same time very nutritious and healthy snack. It looks good enough to be served at a dinner party and most importantly: the taste is heavenly! That said, may I introduce our latest culinary love: Moroccan Date Bonbons (which goes well with Moroccan mint tea also).
If you search on the web you can find that they are not just Moroccan, but slight variants can be found in many countries and we decided to make a another variant also from this great recipe I found on Food & Wine website. Basically in the second batch we just took dates, figs, desiccated coconuts, flaked almonds and placed them in a blender. Then we added water to the mix to make a sticky dough, rolled the balls with our hands and coated them with desiccated coconuts by rolling them on a plate. and voilá, in few minutes the dessert was ready!
If you place these balls into an airtight container, they can apparently stay good for two weeks, but ours lasted only about 15 minutes, so I have no proof of their longevity as of yet..however, for taste my little chefs and I gave them two thumbs up.
Here’s our recipe for the coconut-coated snack balls, makes about 10 balls – enjoy your healthy and tasty snack!
- 150 g (5 oz) dates
- 150g (5 oz) figs
- 100g (3.5 oz) flaked almonds
- 30g (1 oz) desiccated coconuts, plus about 50g (1.7 oz) for coating the balls
- 60ml (2 fluid oz) water
As I was talking about inspiration before I wanted to share on the sources for my Moroccan inspirations, my friend Katja from Skimbaco went to Marrakech this spring and I just loved her colourful photos and the camel-backed adventure in the desert. You can read here more about Katja’s Moroccan adventures:
