{"id":25543,"date":"2014-03-25T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T08:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=25543"},"modified":"2015-09-17T15:04:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T15:04:18","slug":"make-healthy-peanut-butter-snack-balls-toddlers-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/make-healthy-peanut-butter-snack-balls-toddlers-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Healthy Peanut Butter Snack Balls for Toddlers and Other Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_25574\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25574\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-original-recipe.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25574 \" title=\"The original newspaper clipping recipe from about 25 years ago.\" alt=\"The original newspaper clipping recipe from about 25 years ago.\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-original-recipe-300x224.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25574\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The original newspaper clipping recipe from about 25 years ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>I was recently reminded<\/strong> of a recipe for no-bake peanut butter snack balls that I had cut out of the newspaper years ago. I used to make these for my little kids a lot. They loved them. I enjoyed them. But one day I forgot to make them anymore. <em>How do these things happen?<\/em> But when a couple grandkids came on the scene, we decided to make homemade play dough, which of course led to talk about toddlers eating play dough. And how edible play dough doesn&#8217;t taste good, and who wants to teach their kids to eat play dough anyway. And THEN I remembered my peanut butter balls! <em>(click on any photo to enlarge)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>There was a little<\/strong> panic as I looked for the beloved recipe, but we finally found the yellowed clipping tucked in the recipe box. It wasn&#8217;t quite as full of healthy ingredients as I had remembered. Powdered milk was one of the main dry ingredients, and I try to avoid using that nowadays, so it was time to brainstorm. I was also motivated because I had been trying to come up with some better snacks for myself that would be good right before and after a workout. \u00a0What I came up with was delightful. I have named them <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Yummy-High-Energy-Peanut-Butter-Snack-Balls.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Yummy High Energy Peanut Butter Snack Balls<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> and that name is a link to a pdf if you want to print out the recipe.\u00a0I think these peanut butter balls should be good for toddlers and athletes who are looking for healthy and appetizing options. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25568\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25568\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-mixed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25568\" title=\"All the ingredients for the Yummy High Energy Peanut Butter Snack Balls are mixed here, except for any chocolate.\" alt=\"All the ingredients for the Yummy High Energy Peanut Butter Snack Balls are mixed here, except for any chocolate.\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-mixed-300x187.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25568\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All the ingredients for the Yummy High Energy Peanut Butter Snack Balls are mixed here, except for any chocolate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cream together (really, a wooden spoon works best):<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>3\/4 cup chunky peanut butter &#8211; I used Skippy. We use natural peanut butter sometimes, but I find myself avoiding eating or cooking with it because of how it separates or gets hard in the refrigerator, so I often revert back to Skippy.<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup honey<\/li>\n<li>1 teaspoon real vanilla<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">In a separate bowl mix:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 cup old fashioned rolled oats (I expect quick cooking oats would work, too)<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup flax seed<\/li>\n<li>1 cup recently ground pastry flour (which at my house means flour from soft, white wheat berries, I would use store bought flour if that&#8217;s all I had)<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 teaspoon sea salt<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Add the dry ingredients to the creamed ones<\/span> and stir well. It didn&#8217;t take very long at all, even though it seemed stiff at first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Then I thought of chocolate<\/strong>, because one should always consider if it can be added to a snack, breakfast, beverage, or dessert recipe &#8230; \u00a0 I was pretty sure chocolate chips would be too big. I didn&#8217;t want to mix in cocoa powder. There were some <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004N5HLA0\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B004N5HLA0&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=dailyimprov-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scharffen Berger Cacao Nibs<\/a><\/span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=dailyimprov-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B004N5HLA0\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>\u00a0in the pantry, one of the two bags of them I had ever purchased in my life. We had used the first package quite some time ago, but hadn&#8217;t figured out how to try the second one. I couldn&#8217;t even remember what size &#8220;nibs&#8221; are. Upon opening the package, I found they were basically finely chopped cocoa beans. Unsweetened. Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chocolate tree nuts or not,<\/strong> I wasn&#8217;t ready to risk making the whole batch with the nibs, being concerned they might be too bitter. So, I started forming the mixture that I had into balls. The original recipe specified using a tablespoon of peanut butter mix for each ball. However, when my 2 year old grandson asked for the first one right as I was making it (he could see clearly what I was doing from his little chair hanging on the kitchen counter), I knew I didn&#8217;t want to give him one that size. It was immediately sized down to about 1\/2 inch diameter.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25572\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25572\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-formed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25572\" alt=\"Approximately 1\/2 - 3\/4 inch in diameter.\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-formed-300x187.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25572\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Approximately 1\/2 &#8211; 3\/4 inch in diameter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>I made myself one<\/strong> next and realized that was a very handy size. It might take a bit more time to form them all, but I would be glad later. I kept forming them and my\u00a0grandson kept asking for more. He was lightening fast popping them in his mouth, then making audible mmmm noises, nodding his head, and smiling. I nibbled on a couple more, too.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25577\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25577\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-cocoa-nibs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25577 \" title=\"Putting in the cocoa nibs.\" alt=\"Putting in the cocoa nibs.\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-cocoa-nibs-300x187.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25577\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Putting in the cocoa nibs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>When I was down to<\/strong> about 1\/2 cup of snack ball mixture, still not made into balls, I added pretty close to 1 tablespoon of cocoa nibs. Of course, I had to try one right away, only to discover that I wished I had put them in all the peanut butter balls! They were not bitter at all. They weren&#8217;t even overtly chocolate flavored, but there was a slight nutty, barely chocolate essence that added a lot to the snack ball. If I remember correctly, they are a bit on the expensive side, so I may try finely chopped dark chocolate next time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The original recipe calls for<\/strong> rolling the balls in powdered sugar, presumably to help with the greasiness, but I skipped that step and don&#8217;t think it made much difference. I did have a higher ratio of dry ingredients in my recipe, so that may have helped. It was an all around success and I hope you will make some.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_25579\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25579\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-layered.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25579 \" title=\"Peanut butter snack balls layered with wax paper to keep them from sticking together while in the refrigerator.\" alt=\"Peanut butter snack balls layered with wax paper to keep them from sticking together while in the refrigerator.\" src=\"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/PB-balls-layered-300x227.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25579\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peanut butter snack balls layered with wax paper to keep them from sticking together while in the refrigerator.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was recently reminded of a recipe for no-bake peanut butter snack balls that I had cut out of the newspaper years ago. I used to make these for my little kids a lot. They loved them. I enjoyed them. But one day I forgot to make them anymore. How do these things happen? But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,30,3],"tags":[65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funfitnessafter50.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}