Vegan Guiltless Chocolate Coconut Layered Fudge Bars (Gluten-free)

Last night, Hubs was digging through the cupboards looking for something sweet to eat (a rather common occurrence). He found a strawberry Kit Kat from his trip to Japan months ago.

Apparently, Kit Kat is huge in Japan and comes in a wide variety of flavors, including wasabi and green tea (gross!). Needless to say, Hubs brought home a sampling of flavors.

So, today I made a sweet, healthy vegan treat. Bonus! – it’s an easy, no-bake recipe.

I found the recipe for Guiltless Chocolate Coconut Layered Fudge Bars by Kathy Patalsky on The Family Kitchen blog on babble. The photo got me. Tempting, very tempting.

Side note: Kathy Patalsky also writes the Healthy.Happy.Life blog, which is an excellent resource for vegan recipes. And she’s the brains behind findingvegan.com, which is kind of like Pinterest for vegans.

The verdict? These bars are RICH. Really, really, really rich. They have the texture of super creamy fudge. And they are best served cold. They get all melty and messy if left out at room temperature. Hubs just got home from work and put in his two cents.

He says if you’re expecting a peanut butter – fudge – caramel bar, you might be disappointed. But if you’re expecting a banana – coconut – “fudge-y surprise” (his words), then you’ll probably like them. I would agree.

Ready to make your own batch? Here we go…

Oh, wait, one more thing… if you go to the original source for this recipe, it makes 9 large squares. Which, in my book, would be about 18 squares because these suckers only need to be about 1″ square – they are THAT rich. I doubled the recipe, so the ingredient list below is for a double recipe (about 36 – 1″ squares).

Ingredients

• 1½ cups melted unrefined coconut oil, virgin organic cold-pressed
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup agave syrup*
• 2 large bananas
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ cup raw cacao powder*

Optional: add in ¼ to ½ cup nut butter of your choice for added creaminess*

Topping: ¼ cup raw cacao nibs (or vegan chocolate chips) + some coconut flakes

Notes

*I didn’t have agave syrup, so I used pure maple syrup. You could use cocoa powder instead of cacao powder. I opted for the add-in and chose almond butter.

Instructions

STEP 1
Add all of the ingredients – EXCEPT the cacao powder – to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.

STEP 2
Spread a thin layer of the blended mixture in a 9 x 13 glass dish. Place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes, until slightly firm. While it’s firming up, move on to STEP 3.

STEP 3
Spoon about a third of the blended mixture into a bowl (this will be the third layer). Leave the rest in the blender. Add cacao powder to blender and blend until smooth.

STEP 4
Spread the chocolate mixture over the first layer. Freeze for 10-15 minutes, until slightly firm.

STEP 5
Spread the reserved blended mixture (in the bowl) over the chocolate layer. Sprinkle cacao nibs (or vegan chocolate chips) and coconut flakes on top. Freeze for 15-20 minutes, until the bars are firm enough to slice. Cut into 1″ squares and store in the fridge or freezer.

Tip: I found it easiest to cut the bars into extra-large squares, remove them from the dish with a thin metal spatula, then cut into smaller 1″ squares.

I love this kind of sweet treat because I can stop at one. Self-control is not one of my strong suits, so this is a very. good. thing.

Go ahead, whip up a batch and lose the guilt cuz Kathy says the antioxidant-rich raw cacao powder and nibs, banana, unsweetened raw coconut flakes, and virgin coconut oil make this a HEALTHY treat!