If you love peanut butter, getting your protein hit, superfoods or just basically tasty, macro-friendly little treats, then these peanut butter protein bites are for you. Chewy, crunchy, peanut-ty and gluten free, these are the perfect treat for an on-the-go snack or pre-workout boost.

There's a lot of recipes for protein balls and protein truffles flying around at the moment, and I wanted to have a go at making my own. I also recently purchased some lucuma powder and maca powder, so thought it would be good to incorporate these into the recipe too.

These peanut butter protein balls are perfect with a coffee pre-workout.

Lucuma is a bit of a healthy buzzword at the moment - it's a Peruvian fruit and apparently make a very delicious (and popular) ice-cream in Peru. Known as the 'gold of the Incas', lucuma is packed full of nutrients including iron, which is important for coeliacs as many can suffer with anaemia. It tastes kind of caramel-y so can be used as a sweetener - I usually mix mine into a smoothie.

Maca is another superfood, this time a root instead of a fruit. It's meant to have many benefits including with sexual health, moods and clear skin. I once read somewhere (though cannot find it now!) apparently it is good to put in coffee as it prevents you from feeling as jittery from the caffeine, which is usually how I have mine and I have found it helps - whether there is any truth in it or not, I don't know!

In my protein balls I also used Meridian crunchy peanut butter, as it doesn't use palm oil and it HAS to be crunchy - I just love the texture! You could smooth if you prefer. I also used Multipower's 100% vanilla whey isolate. I was sent this to sample and find it quite tasty, plus it is gluten free.

The macros for each ball are: Cals: 105; Protein: 7.5g; Fats: 3.8g; Carbs: 4.2g - this is based on the mixture making eight balls, and not including the dusting of cacao powder which is optional dependent on taste!

Gluten free peanut butter protein balls recipe

100g vitafiber powder (I used Bulk Powers)

30ml water

50g vanilla whey (I used Multipower 100% vanilla isolate)

1 tsp lucuma powder

1 tsp maca powder

50g peanut butter (I used Meridian crunchy peanut butter)

30g coconut flour

A little extra water

Cacao powder for dusting (optional)

1. Add the vitafiber powder and 30ml of cold water to a saucepan and heat over a low heat, stirring continuously until the powder has dissolved. Simmer for a few minutes until a cloudy/clear syrup forms and then take off the heat.
2. In a separate bowl add the protein powder, lucuma powder and maca powder and mix. Add the syrup and mix together.
3. Add the peanut butter and coconut flour, and mix. You want this to form a sticky dough you can mould easily into balls, so you may need to add a little extra water, about half a tablespoon at a time, until you get this.
4. Mould the mixture into eight balls and freeze for 20 minutes.
5. Take out of the freezer and keep chilled until you want to eat them. To finish them off, you could roll them in a dusting of cacao powder.

OPTIONS:

If you want to make this recipe dairy free you could substitute to use a pea protein instead of whey. You could also change the peanut butter for a different nut butter, and roll in dessicated coconut instead of cacao. Get inventive!