My parents had a strict no-sugar policy when I was a kid, so we ate some unusual desserts.  One of my favorites was "golf balls," a conglomeration of nuts, dried fruit. and fresh lemon that a family friend came over and helped us make each Christmas in a hand-cranked sausage grinder.  I decided to try blending my own version out of our home-dried fruit (and a few purchased additions), and liked the result enough to share with you.

Here's the original recipe, as best I can remember it:

• flesh from 1 coconut
• some amount of nuts, all kinds (probably largely pecans and walnuts)
• some amount of dried apricots, dried figs, and dried dates (roughly equal parts?)
  
• 1 whole lemon

And here's my homegrown alternative:

• 8.9 ounces dried Chicago Hardy figs
• 7.2 ounces dried white peaches
• 8 ounces dried dates
• 4.6 ounces English walnuts
  
• 1 whole lemon (seeds removed)

I ground everything up, a bit at a time, in a food processor, then rolled the dough into fifteen balls.  Without apricots, the fruit balls weren't as cheerfully orange, but the flavor felt richer (probably because of the tartness of the peaches).  I also observed that the food processor made a chunky texture rather than a blended whole, which has its own pros and cons.  (I liked the chunks, but kids would probably prefer the blended version.)

On the whole, I'm happy with the experiment, although I might try again with coconut taking the place of some of the nuts.  (I didn't leave out the coconut on purpose --- the one Mark bought for me was moldy.)  The fruit-and-nut balls make me think of a vegetarian pemmican and are pretty healthy for something that tastes like a dessert (145 calories per ball, 9% protein, with 15% of your daily allowance of fiber).

Of course, Mark still thinks this is one of my crazy family dishes, best avoided.  Maybe if I came up with a better name than "golf balls," he'd give it another try.  Want to help redub the dessert?

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.