These No Bake Clean Eating Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispy Bars are a play off one of the most popular recipe posts on New Nostalgia. That post is called Best Recipe I’ve Ever Messed Up has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
I’m feeling like a proud peacock because I took the base of that recipe and came up with another delicious recipe that you are going to LOVE! These bars are to die for!
These little Fudgy Buttons make an easy and thoughtful homemade gift that can be put together in minutes.
Fudgy Buttons are delicious little morsels of peanut butter and chocolate, and are perfect as a gift because—who doesn’t love peanut butter and chocolate? They use just 5 ingredients most people will have on hand. Although far from healthy, they are so much better for you than buying the typical peanut butter and chocolate candy.
Case in point? Let’s compare ingredients:
Peanut Butter, Cocoa, Powdered Sugar, Milk, Vanilla
Peanuts, Milk Chocolate, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, (Chocolate, Nonfat Milk, Milk Fat, Lactose, and Soy Lecithin, and PGPR, Emulsifiers)Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cottonseed, Soybean, Palm Kernel, and Palm Oil)Sorbitol, Dextrose, Chocolate, Nonfat Milk, High Maltose Corn Syrup, Refined Palm Kernel Oil, Cocoa Butter, Salt, Corn Syrup, Whey, Whey Protein Concentrate, Caseinate, Soy Lecithin, Artificial Flavor, Glycerin, Lactose, Mono and Diglycerides, and TBHQ.
See what I mean? Simple recipes like these Fudgy Buttons are a great way to have sweets without ingesting a bunch of preservatives and ingredients, some that are impossible to pronounce!
My Colsie is a big fan of these Fudgy Buttons and of her Grandpa, so making them for him as a homemade birthday gift was the perfect idea. This recipe is one of the few recipes that will get her in the kitchen, especially when she has a sweet craving. My youngest, Avery, makes them, too, especially when there are no sweets to be found in our kitchen cupboards. The recipe has been a family favorite for a while, and was even part of our “Head Shaving Party” food back in 2010 when I was going through chemo. Chocolate and peanut butter truly DO make everything a bit better!
Colsie is very close to her Grandpa and loves him so much. He is an amazingly generous man, but is not a big fan of receiving gifts. He always loved homemade cards from the kids when they were younger, but now Colsie is 15 she wanted to do something a bit more.
I had supplies on hand to package them cute, which is key to making homemade goodies into a meaningful gift.
You can purchase the tins here on Amazon, and can buy these fun little mini baking cups, or just separate layers of fudgy buttons with parchment paper. I love raiding the dollar bins at Michael’s craft stores for different ribbon and tags to have on hand for homemade gifts.
This is the perfect gift not just for Grandpas, but for teachers or friends, young or old. You may want to do what Colsie did —double the recipe and keep some for yourself!
4 Tablespoons butter
3 teaspoons baking cocoa
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoons milk
4 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter
by Teniel Moore, our Aussie Raw Foods Contributor
At this time of year I get so inspired by all the American fall recipes. So I decided to make up these chocolate bites using sweet potato. This is not a fully raw snack due to the sweet potato being cooked but its still an amazingly healthy treat for you.
Of course with pumpkin so readily available in the States right now you can substitute the sweet potato for pumpkin.
These are not overly sweet as I made them when I was doing a strict candida cleanse so I used stevia instead. Like all my recipes please use whatever sweetener you prefer as long as its a healthy version.
1 large sweet potato, baked
1 cup of coconut butter (3-4 cups of dried unsweetened coconut blended until smooth)
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
tiny pinch salt
1 Tbs of melted coconut oil
10 – 12 drops or more of stevia (or 1 tbs or more of rice malt syrup or maple syrup)
In a high speed blender blend well till combined, smooth and creamy
Set in fridge for a while to firm up then roll into bliss ball size balls and place on a lined tray in the freezer to harden. This will help set the chocolate fast.
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Here are the balls rolled and on a tray ready to go in the fridge & firm up before they get the chocolate topping:
~About 1 Tbls of raw cacao powder
~Melted coconut oil (enough to combine well with cacao)
~Stevia to taste (or your sweetener of choice as above)
~Tinniest pinch of himalayan salt to bring out the chocolate flavour (optional)
Take the frozen sweet potato balls from the freezer and roll into the chocolate mix.
The chocolate will set fast so work quickly giving at least 2 coats.
Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt to decorate if you desire (optional)
Set again in freezer and store in freezer
I enjoy these straight from the freezer as a great little snack or dessert.
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Here are a couple of great ways to get the most out of this recipe & any leftover ingredients you might have:
~Instead of cleaning out your blender and trying to get all the remaining mix out, just add some almond milk, ice, more spices and stevia and make your self a smoothie.
~Keep some of the sweet potato mix in the fridge to make sweet potato creamy smoothies during the week. The mix will keep for a week in the fridge.
Enjoy!
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Raw Foods Contributor
August is a great month to use a recipe that does not require heating up the oven, although these No Bake Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites are great to eat any time of the year!
Speaking of August, we are a week and a half away from my 3 girls heading back to school. I will have 2 girls in high school, a freshman and a sophomore, and one in middle school.
As you might have noticed, the summer got the best of me and I have been pretty MIA when it comes to blogging. There are many reasons why, of which I will share with you in upcoming posts, but it sure felt strange to step away from the computer and just focus on getting through a very challenging and busy summer. I have had this blog since 2007 and have never taken time off of writing regularly in it. I feel that things are starting to get back to normal, not just myself emotionally, but also with a fall schedule coming. I do best with a schedule!
One thing that happened this summer was that we got a complete kitchen makeover! I was out of a kitchen for about a month, and we had to get pretty creative with meals around here. Now that the kitchen is finished (I will show you in a post coming soon!) my youngest has been very eager to get in there and make something! She is my little baker and is constantly surprising me with fun recipes that she finds on Pinterest. Yesterday I was back- to- school shopping with my Colsie girl, and came home to cocoa powder scattered on my new countertops, a sign that my little one had been busy whipping something up and enjoying the new kitchen.
She proudly presented these No Bake Cookie Dough Bites, and let me tell you, they are GOOD! They hit the spot when it comes to a chocolate craving, as the chocolate is pretty intense. They are almost like a dark chocolate, but still sweet enough for my two older daughters to enjoy who usually don’t care for dark chocolate. They are rich and fudgey and oh so good!
{inspired by this recipe}
¾ c all-purpose flour
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter or margarine, melted and cooled
¼ c unsweetened applesauce
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ c light brown sugar
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, and salt in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, applesauce, and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Mix in the brown sugar, smearing any clumps along the side of the bowl. Add in the dry flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated.
If the dough is too sticky to shape, refrigerate for 20-40 minutes (or freeze for about 10 minutes).
Line a baking sheet or large plate with wax paper. Roll the cookie dough into 32 little balls, using between 1-11/2 teaspoons of dough 9in each ball. Place on the wax paper until ready to serve.
Keep the cookie dough bites in the refrigerator. Their flavors meld over time, and they actually taste best after sitting in the fridge.
by Teniel Moore–Raw Foods Contributor
I am a sucker for anything sweet. I always have to have something in my fridge I can grab to enjoy for that sweet fix.
My chocolate nut log is another super fast treat to make that you can adjust to include what ever you have in your cupboard. This recipe is full of some great healthy fats and lots of chocolatey goodness from the raw cacao. I hope you enjoy making this the next time your sweet tooth calls!
1/2 cup of raw cacao powder
1/2 cup of raw coconut oil
Few pinches of good quality pink salt
1 heaped tsp of peanut or almond butter
1/4 cup of rice malt syrup * see alternatives
Large handful of macadamia nuts and almonds
Handful of shredded coconut
Turn your oven on and toast the nuts and coconut until the coconut is slightly golden.
Keep an eye on it as it can burn fast. Should only take about 10 minutes.
Melt your coconut oil and mix in all the other ingredients including your nuts and coocnut together in a large bowl.
Line a small dish or tin (I use a loaf tin) with wax proof paper and pour your chocolate mix in making it even and level. Then set in the fridge for at least an hour.
Cut into small squares and keep in fridge.
I have also made this log using walnuts and brown rice puffs. I’ve even skipped the cacao & sweetener altogether and used carob powder instead. So feel free to play with this recipe and add your favourites. Just keep it healthy!
*Alternatives:
If you can’t find rice malt syrup then add any sweetener that you enjoy.
maybe 2 -3Tbs of maple syrup tasting as you go and add more or less as needed.
Raw Foods Contributor
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My husbands favorite candy bar is Butterfinger. He loves them! He makes grunting noises when he eats them–no joke.
My youngest wanted to make him a fun, homemade gift for his birthday, and was determined to find a recipe that utilized her Daddy’s favorite candy bar. She has become quite the baker this last year, and it is one of her favorite ways to show love to others. It is a bonus that she gets to lick the spoon and bowl and serve herself a sweet piece of whatever she makes for others. I have yet to convince her to make a vegetable dish. She is all about desserts!
She got busy searching Pinterest for a Butterfinger candy bar recipe. I was happy when she found this recipe for Butterfinger Cookie Bars–happy that it was simple, only used 2 ingredients, and wouldn’t mess the kitchen up too much. This would not be a recipe that we would work at making healthy–not when a candy bar is the main character! Instead, we embraced the junk food as a way to celebrate the most special man in both of our lives.
As you can see from that smile, he loved them!
Servings: 20
Ready in: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
16.5-oz. package refrigerated sugar cookie dough, at room temp
6 Butterfinger bars, 5 whole and 1 coarsely chopped
Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat an 8×8-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
2. Press half of the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Top with 5 whole Butterfinger bars. Top that with the remaining cookie dough mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until dough is cooked through (test with a toothpick).
3.Remove from oven and top with remaining chopped Butterfinger bar. Let cool and cut into small squares.
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