granola balls: a make-ahead sweet treat

I wish there were more hours in the day! I have so many recipes photographed (and enjoyed by my family this past week), just waiting to get posted!! Here's one that I know excited a bunch of you, so I wanted to get this up first. Inspired by a photo and recipe I saw on The Sweet Potato Chronicles, I had pinned this recipe into my "recipes I can't wait to try" Pinterest board (my holding pen for anything delicious I see). This past weekend, we gave them a whirl and oh my, were they delicious. This one's a keeper. So, if you go looking for it, you'll now see that it's been elevated to my tested and beloved "snack ideas" board. 

This is the perfect sweet treat to have on hand. It's not "healthy" per se, but it's a heck of a lot better than eating most cookies from the supermarket, and these store perfectly for several days so it's a great make-ahead recipe. You can go to Sweet Potato Chronicles for the original recipe. Or, you can follow my slight modifications, which left out the additional brown sugar and upped the sunbutter, granola and cranberry amounts:

Granola Balls

makes about 40 1" balls

inspired by The Sweet Potato Chronicles

2 cups old-fashion rolled oats

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup agave

3/4 cup sunflower butter (aka "sunbutter")

1 cup granola

1 cup unsweetened dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350. Sprinkle the oats and coconut on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven until lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes. Set aside. In a saucepan, combine the agave and sunbutter over medium heat, stirring until blended, just a few minutes. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients: the sunbutter/agave mixture + the toasted oats/coconut + granola + cranberries, and mix to combine. Allow to cool. Then, with moist hands, roll into 1" balls with your hands. Will store in the fridge, in an air-tight container, for several days-- if they last that long! 

Tip: I kept a wet towel handy so the granola balls wouldn't stick to my hands when I was rolling them!

Hope these are as big a hit in your house as they have been in ours!! Again, thank you to Sweet Potato Chronicles for inspiring this recipe and post!