So here I am. A borrowed Thermomix at the ready, an online lemon bliss ball recipe on my phone and a pretty good idea as to how this was going to play out. Simple – replace the almond meal with lupin flour. I am a genius, job done. I’m not a big emoji user but if I were I’d pick two hands dusting themselves off (not sure that is the best way to describe it but you get the picture).
I ended up with a doughy, citrusy ball that had an okay after taste, and a bit of defeatist attitude.
The absolute beauty of getting up to kids on a regular basis, i.e. two to five times a night, is that it gives plenty of time to mull things over. Despite the tiredness, and I mean the eyes-shutting-on-the-couch-when-you’re-feeding-a-baby kind of tiredness, I knew I could figure this out.
The night before, I finished at 10pm (a ridiculously late night for someone accustomed to going to bed at 8.30), and had ran out of ingredients. The next morning, kids in the car, husband behind the wheel, we travel 20 minutes to the next town to purchase rice malt syrup, desiccated coconut and almond meal (and a much needed second coffee for the day).
Now, the beauty of a Thermomix is it really lets you fiddle with the quantities of ingredients and add a small amount at a time without stuffing it up too much. It was so easy to record. And I needed this recipe to be accurate because it was going to an expo to showcase their new product – lupins! After adding ingredients in 5 grams increments and then taste testing, I really started to get a feel for how the lupin flour was working. The almond meal and desiccated coconut would make the lupin flour lighter, removing the doughy texture that I achieved the night before. I knew I was onto a winner.
My next issue was, they really wanted a ball that was rolled in the lupins. Now, the lupins come in a flour (just like your standard wheat plain flour), a coarse flour (which is a bit more like a wholemeal flour), a semolina, a crumb (just like a breadcrumb purchased from the supermarket) and a kibble. If you don’t know what a kibble is, it’s thicker than a crumb and it was quite hard but definitely chewable (I quite liked snacking on it, each to their own). I tried to roll the balls in the kibble. It didn’t stick and the kibble really stayed in your mouth so that you only had a lupin aftertaste. No matter – crumb won the day. I rolled the balls in the lupin crumb, not only did it complement the lemon taste of the ball, it also looked quite effective.
Six batches later (wizzed up in no time in the Thermi – a wooden spoon works just as well), a big thank you to my darling husband for entertaining our 17-month-old, and 2 hours of rolling in the lupin crumb, I was done. There we have it: a wholefood protein bliss ball. Thank you, lupins.
Lemon Lupin Bliss Balls
50g almond meal
35g lupin flour
60g desiccated coconut
50g rice malt syrup
10g coconut syrup
40 g lemon juice
5g vanilla extract
Lupin crumb to roll
Combine all ingredients (excluding the crumb) and roll in the crumb.
Makes approx. 10 balls.