Tagalongs

Chocolate Covered Katie

Ingredients

• 2 cups raw whole almonds and grind in food processor (Or make your own by grinding slivered almonds in a vitamix, blender, or coffee grinder until very finely ground) (200g)
• just over 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda (I accidentally used 1 t instead, but turned out fine)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey
• 1/2 cup peanut butter OR allergy-friendly sub, thinned out with milk of choice until spreadable
• 1/2 cup carob powder. choco chips work too (80g) melted with 1 tsp oil, OR use healthy chocolate sauce (recipe below)

Total Time: 20m

Yield: 12-16 bars

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment, and set aside. In a measuring bowl, stir together the almond meal, salt, baking soda, vanilla, and sweetener (and water, if using) to form a dough. Transfer the dough to the prepared pan, and use a second sheet of parchment to smush the dough out evenly, pressing down again and again until it covers the bottom of the pan. Bake 12 minutes on the center rack, then let cool at least 20 minutes before either frosting right in the pan or removing from the pan and then frosting with the peanut butter. Spread the chocolate on top, then chill to set the chocolate layer.

Healthy Chocolate Sauce or Hot Chocolate Butter

• 4 tablespoons (60g) virgin coconut oil
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (52g) carob/cocoa powder. (For a sauce, decrease to 1/4 cup)
• 2-4T honey

Melt the coconut oil and honey  in the microwave. My honey was old and granulized, but the micro smoothed it out. Add the cocoa. Stir stir stir! Stir until it gets thick like Artisana Cacao Bliss.

For Magic Shell or Healthy Chocolate Sauce:

Decrease cocoa powder to 1/4 cup and keep all other measurements the same. Also, if you re-heat it for a few seconds, it’ll get thinner. And if you freeze it, you can make incredible chocolate bars… or even chocolate chips! Just break up the chocolate bars into little pieces.