Is there anyone out there that doesn’t love raw cookie dough?  Not even the potential threat of salmonella from raw eggs in the dough deters people from eating it straight out of the bowl before it turns into actual cookies.  Guilty!  But normal cookie dough recipes have loads of processed sugar and white flour which I really try to avoid as much as possible.  I was in the kitchen with Jessie from Solstice Canyon nut butters the other day and we concocted these little truffle-like balls with no intentions at all.  As soon as we both bit into them, we looked at each other and shouted, “these taste like raw cookie dough!”

If you put a traditional chocolate chip cookie dough side by side next to these, I’m sure you could figure out which was which.  But that is not what I’m all about.  I’m not the sneaky imposter.  I’m not trying to fool anyone.  I think these cookie dough bites are darn good on their own and they happen to taste a little like cookie dough.  And you know what I realized?  When you toss a bunch of delicious ingredients together, chances are you’ll get something delicious.  The best part is that these are full of good for you ingredients, too!  The base is almond butter and dates plus vanilla extract, lucuma powder and sea salt.  I realize lucuma powder is not an every day pantry item, but it is something I do stock all the time because I LOVE it in smoothies.  I has a light, sweet, almost caramel-y flavor.  If you don’t have it, these bites will still taste great without.  If you want to learn more about lucuma powder, read here.  If you’d like to buy it, Whole Foods has it, as does thrivemarket.com and amazon.com.

In the name of research (wink, wink), I tried a few versions of these and what I discovered is that this is a really easy recipe to adjust according to your taste.  My daughter freaked out for them.  My son, the notorious Mr. Picky, thought they were “good, but needed to be sweeter.”  If I agreed with him, I would have just added another date to the mixture.  I also made them with Solstice Canyon Aztec Chocolate almond butter which has cayenne in it — delicious!  But knowing that not everyone has a jar of Solstice Canyon nut butter in his/her cupboard, I tried the recipe with standard almond butter.  The difference is that Solstice Canyon has coconut sugar, coconut oil and sea salt added to the almond butter.  But don’t worry — see the recipe below and I’ve got you covered.  However you make these, I think these “cookie dough” bites are a delicious, guilt-free treat which would be fun for Valentine’s Day to share with your sweeties!