Gluten Free Peanut Butter Balls

When I started to create this recipe, I aimed it to be sugar-free, but I found its flavor bland without chocolate. I would either settle for a bland flavor or give up on its being sugar-free. As always, I was on the flavor side and chose the second option. However, by using a low-sugar chocolate with a high cocoa content, I at least reduced the amount of sugar.

Gluten-free peanut butter balls are a recipe made up of four simple ingredients. Oatmeal is one of them. Whether or not oatmeal is gluten-free is somehow confusing. Oatmeal is an intrinsically gluten-free product. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) counts oats among gluten-free foods. However, it is a product with a high risk of cross-contamination, as it is usually produced in the same factories as gluten-containing products. But there are also "gluten-free" oatmeal products produced in a gluten-free environment.

There is another confusing issue about whether oats are gluten-free or not. Oats contain a substance called avenin, which can be allergenic to some. People with oat/avenin sensitivity may experience gluten allergy-like symptoms. But that doesn't mean everyone with a gluten allergy has an oat/avenin sensitivity. The odds that you are allergic to oats are no more likely than to any ingredient in one of the other ingredients used in the recipe.

Now let's talk about other ingredients. You can use any type of raisin you want in the recipe. it only needs to be soft and processable in a blender. If your raisins are hard, you can soak them in boiling water for a while before using them. By the way, you can use dried apricots or dates instead of raisins as well.

I chose peanut butter as the source of fat in the recipe. If you wish, you can also use hazelnut or almond butter or tahini instead of peanut butter. I used the amount controlled as I didn't want it to be too greasy. Although this made it a little dry, the flavor was good. I think it was worth the sacrifice I made. You can increase the amount of peanut butter if you want it to be more greasy and more paste-like.

Enjoy the recipe...

Enjoy...