Oh my word, these are soft chocolatey delicious balls of skin loving goodness!
No but really, who doesn’t like sweet potato or almond butter or chocolate, so how about all three together with some added hemp protein making them a great balanced and super yummy snack for pre or post workout and also highly nourishing for your skin too.

Sweet potato hemp protein brownie beauty balls Desserts energy balls Grainfree snack vegan

Skin food
These balls are also great for skin as they contain vitamin A (from sweet potato) and vitamin E (from almond butter), powerful antioxidants from the cacao and healthy fats from the almonds and hemp protein. Plus, they pack a good fibre punch which helps keep things moving which is also good for skin health as everything is regularly being cleared out…..
Overall these are some seriously nourishing balls!

Cooking tip: Cook your sweet potato by steaming it, not only does this retain most of the nutrients but by steaming rather than roasting it, you are preventing any acrylamide formation, not to get too complicated but this is a compound that forms in high carb/starchy foods that isn’t great for us, so when you can limit it’s formation (this being an example) then it’s good to do so. For it to be formed, the cooking temp needs to be higher than what it would be during steaming, hence why it won’t form during this cooking method.

Feel free to freestyle this recipe in terms of the spices you add, I like cinnamon or chilli powder to contrast with the chocolate flavour, but for the rest of the recipe measure the ingredients carefully as hemp protein is very absorptive due to the high fibre content so if you don’t measure carefully then it may not bind properly.

Recipe (makes 14 balls)
-50g almond butter
-50g maple/carob syrup or honey if not vegan
-150g sweet potato (steamed & cooled)*
-75g Linwoods beet cocoa+ hemp protein
-25g cacao powder
optional: 1 tsp cinnamon or ½ tsp cayenne pepper
Notes
*This recipe also works with cooked squash/pumpkin
Measure carefully and leave time (directions below) for the balls to absorb moisture and set
I’ve not yet found a substitute for this specific brand of hemp protein as it has added chia and flax making it uniquely absorbent, regular hemp protein hasn’t worked the same so you need to use this brand

 

Sweet potato hemp protein brownie beauty balls Desserts energy balls Grainfree snack vegan

Directions
1-Chop and steam the sweet potato until soft (approx 15min) then leave to cool
2- Put the almond butter, liquid sweetener and cooled sweet potato into a food processor and blend until smooth then add in your dry ingredients and blend again until a big dough ball forms, then leave to sit for 15-20 minutes so that the mix can thicken and absorb the moisture-this is important, it’ll be too soft to roll otherwise
3- Scoop out generous half tablespoon amounts of the mix and gently roll into balls in the palms of your hand then eat or place into an air tight container

For another chocolatey hemp protein treat check out my peanut butter hemptation brownies!