For this month’s Taste & Create I was paired with Corina from Searching for Spice, a blog I had never heard of. It’s always fun to discover a new food blog through Taste & Create, and then search through the recipe archives to decide what to re-create. Making a decision was easy for me- I love dates and coconut and had never made coconut covered dates before, though I had considered it many times. Now that I’ve made them and see how easy they are, I can guarantee dates will be stocked in my kitchen from now on.

Here’s a link to the original recipe, and here’s what I did-

I coarsely chopped 8 large Medjool dates (my favorite kind of date) and put them in a small sauce pan with 1 TB unsalted butter. Keep an eye on this and mix it every now and then to make sure the dates start to “melt” evenly. You’ll see the texture change and it really does seem like the dates are melting at first. Add a little cardamom- I opened 2 cardamom pods in my mortar and pestle and then crushed the seeds from the pods, added them to my heated mixture, and stirred for another few minutes.

Remove the dates from the heat when they look like a sticky dough. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes so you can handle it with your fingers.

While the dates cooled, I dry toasted some cashews on medium heat for a few minutes on the stove. The original recipe calls for almonds, but I substituted with cashews this time since I had them in the kitchen.

When the date mush cools, take approximately 1TB in your hand, flatten it into a pancake, put a cashew inside, and roll the date mixture around the nut, forming a ball. Roll the date ball in unsweetened, dehydrated coconut, and try to finish rolling them all before you start to eat them. They are really delicious, very easy to make, and somewhat “healthy” if you think about the ingredients. I plan to make many different versions of coconut dates, so I’m glad I found Searching for Spice and the inspiration to make them for the first time!