Peanut butter cookie dough balls [vegan!]

sneak peak: a recipe for extremely easy and delicious vegan peanut butter cookie dough balls

We've seen energy balls made of dates and nuts and going for £3 a pop in overpriced London coffee shops. If they are ultra fashionable glamazons with expensive tastes, high-end handbags, and an ability to always look chic and polished, cookie dough balls are like their happy-go-lucky, bare-footed, dungaree-wearing cousins who eat peanut butter with a spoon and don't kill their windowsill herbs. We love both, but today is about the cookie dough cousins.

This is a very gently adapted version of a recipe from my lovely friend Nicola which is available on the Calm on Canning Street blog and has a much prettier picture of the final product. They're exquisite, they're so easy, they're so moreish, they're so worth making this very second.

Peanut butter cookie dough balls
vegan, gluten free if you use GF oats, makes 14 full size or 28 mini

Ingredients
300g oats (gluten free if necessary)
120g ground almonds (word on the street is you can use more oats instead if you don't have ground almonds)
5 tbsp coconut oil, melted
4 heaped tbsp smooth peanut butter (or other nut/seed butter)
4 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp dark choc chips or chopped up dark choc
flavouring: 2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp almond extract (for a bakewell-ish flavour)

Directions
1. Blend the oats on their own very briefly to make a flour, only three seconds or so in a Nutribullet. Melt the coconut oil - the easiest way is to bung a rough amount into a mug, microwave it, then use a tablespoon measure to measure out as much as you need. You can pour the rest back into the jar and it will harden again.
2. Combine everything except the chocolate in a bowl, and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. You may need an extra splash of coconut oil or water to help it to combine but it should be fine with some enthusiastic mixing. Once combined, add the choc chips and stir in again.
3. Scoop some out with a spoon and roll into a ball. Repeat until it's all gone. For mini balls, use a generous teaspoon's worth, or for bigger ones use a tablespoon.

How simple is that? Too simple to say no to, at least.

For a real next-level make, you could roll them into teeny weeny balls (or normal sized and chop into chunks), let some ice cream melt a bit, stir the tiny cookie dough bits in, re-freeze, ta daaa! Homemade cookie dough ice cream.

Also, mini cookie dough balls in a bowl with oat milk, as cereal?.. People are doing this with tiny pancakes so I see no reason why we shouldn't with this too. Anyway enjoy! Please tag me if you make these @imogenfin.