This month for my ongoing series with the Free People Blog, BLDG 25, in celebration of Halloween I am sharing a series of healthy sweet treats. I always feel like the sugary stuff haunts me this month with Halloween looming on the calendar, it seems everywhere I turn there is some sweet treat lurking in the darkness.
I really don’t find myself actually craving sweets very often, but boy, this month I do. There are halloween inspired sugary treats everywhere you turn and most all of them are terrible for you, loaded with refined sugars, high fructose corn syrup and other processed junk and fillers.
So, why not have your cake and eat it, too? Or candy, or fudge, or whatever! First up in the series, I reimagined a classic candy bar that I have always loved. The combination of coconut, chocolate and almonds is a favorite of mind. It’s a joy to eat, if you catch my drift.
These treats bear a spooky resemblance to the original, but without all the yuckiness that will haunt you later. See, all treats, no tricks! What more can you ask for to kick off Halloween month?
And truly, is there anything better than dark chocolate and coconut together? I think not. A marriage made in heaven!! These Joyful Almond Coconut Chocolate Bites may have been inspired by Almond Joys, but they are so so much better!!
Joyful Almond Coconut Chocolate Bites - Vegan + Gluten-free (Refined Sugar-free Option)
Ingredients
Coconut Filling:
- 1 ¼ cups unsweetened organic coconut, finely shredded
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup, you could also use honey, a few drops or stevia or liquid monkfruit
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dark Chocolate Coating*:
- 10 ounces of high quality dark chocolate, 85% dark is my choice*
Optional:
- Plus: approximately 1/3 cup toasted almond slices
Instructions
- Lightly grease a nonstick mini-muffin tin with a little coconut oil and set aside. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine all of the coconut filling ingredients and mix together until very well combined. Evenly divide up the filling between the 12 mini-muffin cups, pressing it in very tightly, making sure it is somewhat even. Don’t worry they won’t stick. Place the muffin pan in the freezer make sure it is sitting flat, and freeze until the filling is solid, about 30-45 minutes.
- Take the muffin tin with the frozen coconut mixture out of the freezer, carefully remove each coconut treat out of the pan, running a thin knife around the edge to loosen and pop them out. Place them on a parchment or wax paper lined baking sheet, if you want to place the pan back in the fridge to keep them cool while you melt the chocolate, you can do that.
- Once you are ready to coat the treats with the chocolate you can carefully melt the chocolate using a double boiler setup on the stove top or you can carefully melt it in small increments in the microwave, stirring often. (Definitely use the double boiler if you are making the refined sugar-free version with the bakers chocolate).
- Turn off the heat on the stove and keep the bowl of chocolate over the pan, remove the coconut treats from the fridge. Place one coconut treat on a fork and slowly lower it into the chocolate, spoon additional chocolate over it to fully coat it. Lift the fork out and gently shake to release any of the excess chocolate. Scrape the bottom of the fork along the side of the bowl and place on the lined baking sheet. Sprinkle a few toasted almond slices on top into the chocolate. Repeat until all of the treats are coated in chocolate and have almonds on top. If the chocolate gets too thick, you just turn on the flame and heat slightly to melt it again.
- Put the tray back in the fridge and let them harden for about 45 minutes.
- After these are set, you could store them in the freezer to keep them really cold and totally solid or of course, you can just store them in the fridge or even at room temperature if it isn’t too hot out.
Notes
You can also use semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or stevia sweetener dark chocolate or chocolate chips.
Or n place of chocolate chips or dark chocolate, you can instead melt 10 ounces of a good quality 100% unsweetened organic dark chocolate (aka bakers chocolate in bar form) with 1 tablespoon coconut oil in a double broiler and whisking in 1/3 cup maple syrup, honey (or other liquid sweetener of your choice, a few drops of stevia, etc) after it is removed from the heat. You can then add more sweetener to your liking, if needed.
This recipe was originally shared on the Free People Blog.
22 Responses
My husband is not into coconut, so thankgoodness I wouldn’t have to share 🙂
I don’t crave sweets often, either – but chocolate + coconut + almonds are something I just cannot deny. Favorite candy combination EVER 🙂
Chocolate is a girls überbest friend. Maybe offer the people who will visit your house these lovely bites? Then for sure you will sell the house!
Yes!!!! You just made my whole year!!! I always loved almond joys but since I’ve started eating clean I haven’t had one! I can’t wait to make these. Thank you thank you.
Oh. My. Gosh. You’re a genius!! I’ve always loved those joyful 🙂 bars and never thought to make my own! Brilliant!
I’m with you–my cravings for treats go through the roof this time of year. It’s hard to even go to the grocery store without stopping in the candy aisle and ogling all of the goodies. My husband suggested we buy candy early, but I warned him that it would be gone by the time Halloween came 🙂 Thank you for the recipe–you always inspire me!
Thanks Rachel! They were always one of my favorites! I hear ya at the grocery store, really the candy is everywhere right now, it’s invading and taking over. Ahhh! 🙂
Thanks for your lovely words Rachel, means the world to me, really 🙂
You are such a genius, I never thought to sweeten up my own chocolate before!! These look incredible!! 🙂 Can’t wait to see what other goodies you have in store.
Thanks Alissa! I much prefer to sweeten my own chocolate these days so I can go as light with the sweet as I want to. I like my chocolate dark and almost a little bitter, so I can actually taste all of the cocoa goodness!! 🙂
Oh goodness, I envy your lack of sweet-cravings. I am the type that, unless I’m on a specific cleanse, pretty much need something sweet every night. I know, I know…my addiction is not very yogic! BUT, acceptance is part of yoga too, right? And that means honoring my body’s cravings in *healthier* ways. These treats will do exactly that! THANK YOU for your sweet culinary genius!
Well I do have my moments, certain times of the month, ya know 🙂 I crave salty much more than I crave sweet most of the time. Not really any better for me, either!
I agree the acceptance is definitely part of yoga and honestly, I would also say moderation. Everything in moderation! I try not to ever tell myself a firm “no” on anything across the board, (well besides gluten and a few other things), because you never know and as long as you don’t over-indulge sometimes you just gotta have something a little naughty 🙂
Amazing! These look like Almond Joys except a million times better.
So pretty, pretty. Thanks Beth.
Oh so exciting!! Thanks for the GF and SF option!! Can’t wait to try them.
[…] I am not sure if you can really go wrong with chocolate and coconut. I have followed a few recipes or come up with my own, and they always turn out delicious. I cannot seem to find my recipe at the moment, but I have even made a raw vegan version using a young coconut. I used to love Almond Joys and Bounty Bars, and these are the perfect vegan treats that remind me of them. This time, I was inspired by Tasty Yummies. […]
[…] Almond Coconut Chocolate Bites from Tasty Yummies […]
[…] Joyful Almond Coconut Chocolate Bites […]
[…] Joyful Almond Coconut Chocolate Bites from Tasty Yummies […]
I’ll have to try this refined sugar free version. Sounds good!
This recipe is BS! The coconut mixture is NOT enough to fill 12 muffins, it’s barely enough to cover the bottoms leaving you with disks of coconut after frozen that crumble when removed from pan, brake up in the melted chocolate which makes it impossible to let excess choc drip off as you now have coconut shreds mixed in with melted chocolate. The final product was overly sweet. I’ll stick to the real thing.
Wow Nicole, sorry you had such a rough experience. Did you use a mini-muffin tin as the recipe suggests or did you use a full size muffin tin? If you used a full size tin, than you are absolutely correct, it definitely WILL NOT fill 12 muffins. What type of chocolate did you use? The level of sugar in the chocolate will most certainly affect the level of sweetness, which is why I offer options and why I prefer to use the unsweetened chocolate or a super dark chocolate. Everyone has a different taste for sweets.
This looks amazing! I’m not big fan of recipes with 2832839 ingredients, so this one sounds quite easy to make. Will try it out soon!
Hi,
These look yummy. I will give them a try. Also, loved your comparisons of the Coconut Milk. I might give it a try as it is less expensive than the Coconut Cream. I found you after searching for sites to buy Creamed Coconut. Here’s a tasty treat:
I love whipping up the creamed coconut and putting about a Tablespoon into a mini muffin silicon tray and popping in freezer…then when the urge for something like ice cream pops up, just pop one of these out of the muffin cup, let it thaw for a couple minutes til you can bite into it and voila…coconut “ice cream” snack…1T=30 calories. I use Native Forest Organic Coconut Cream Premium. Feel free to post if you like. Great for kids.. <1g sugar.
Just made these using a mini-muffin pan lined with mini-muffin paper liners, and have 21 delicious little candies. I put about 2 tsp of the coconut filling in each paper liner, then pressed, froze and topped with the melted chocolate. I opted to make more than the dozen called for so mine are probably a little thinner, but they have a healthy topping of the chocolate and the ratio is pleasing. The paper liners peel right off once they’re frozen. They taste great and are a sweet treat. Thank you!