Healthy Buckeyes
 
 
Low-carb, Sugar-free, THM:S, Gluten/Egg free
Author:
Serves: approx. 60 buckeyes
Ingredients
  • ½ cup salted butter, softened
  • 2½ cups natural peanut butter, as creamy as possible
  • 1 15.5 oz. can Great Northern Beans, rinsed very well and drained
  • ½ cup refined coconut oil, melted/softened
  • 1½ tsp. vanilla extract
  • ¼ tsp. THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder (or a powdered sweetener of choice, such as THM Gentle Sweet, to taste, for a more authentic flavor)
  • 1 cup + 2 T oat fiber (use gluten free if necessary)
  • Dash of salt, if needed
Chocolate for dipping:
Instructions
  1. Blend the first three ingredients together in a food processor until totally smooth (I use the food processor that fits onto my Ninja blender and it works great). Add the other ingredients and blend again. Refrigerate to let the dough firm up a bit. Once it's like firm cookie dough, scoop it out onto a wax paper-covered cookie sheet using a one-tablespoon cookie scoop. Freeze until solid. (If you didn't end up with a neat product by just scooping the dough out with a cookie scoop, you may wish to roll the dough into neater balls with your hands once it has chilled for a little while.)
  2. In a microwave-safe bowl (you could also do this in a double boiler), microwave the ingredients for the chocolate coating in 15-20 second intervals on the defrost setting of your microwave. Stir at each interval. Once the chocolate coating is smooth and combined, you're ready to dip.
  3. Dip the frozen peanut butter balls in the chocolate mixture one at a time (you can coat them all the way or leave the traditional dot at the top). Stir the chocolate every once in awhile so the sweetener doesn't settle to the bottom of the bowl. Once the chocolate coating is hard, transfer to a freezer-safe container and store in the freezer. Even when frozen, these buckeyes are bitable. Freezing keeps them nice and firm. You can let them set out for a few minutes before eating to soften up if you like. Yields approximately 60 buckeyes.
  4. If you have chocolate coating left over, add peanuts to make nut clusters and freeze spoonfuls on wax paper. When they're hard, store them in the freezer in a sealed container.
Notes
One can of Great Northern Beans has 35 net carbs, which translates to a little over 0.5 g net carbs per buckeye. This is well within THM:S guidelines.
Troubleshooting:
-If your natural peanut butter is pretty "dry", you probably won't need the full amount of oat fiber. For best results, make sure all the oil is stirred into the jar of peanut butter so it's smooth and oily. If your peanut butter is on the dry side, you may wish to add a couple extra tablespoons of coconut oil to the buckeyes.
-Use refined coconut oil, such as Louana brand, so you don't have a coconut flavor in these buckeyes.
-I would not suggest substituting anything for the oat fiber. You may be able to substitute another low-carb flour such as almond flour or coconut flour, but I'm not sure how that would taste (and it would definitely be more calorie-dense than the oat fiber). Oat fiber absorbs a lot of liquid, so take that into consideration. I know some people use protein powder as a substitute for oat fiber in recipes, but I haven't tried that and have my doubts that a cup of protein powder would taste good in this recipe (not to mention that it would be pretty expensive.).
Recipe by Briana Thomas at https://www.briana-thomas.com/healthy-buckeyes/