Lately, things have gotten entirely too healthy around here. Roasted vegetables? Lentil stew? Baked oatmeal? If it is true that this is the Healthy Dessert Blog, where are all the desserts?
Where is all the CHOCOLATE?
Oh there it is.
When I compiled my candy recipes into the Healthy Chocolates & Candy page, many of you lamented the absence of a healthier copycat Twix bar. I put it on the to-do list, but the list keeps growing longer and longer… Luckily, my incredibly-talented friend Leanne agreed to take on this healthy-Twix-bar challenge, for the benefit of all of us!
Please welcome Leanne and her allergy-friendly, gluten-free Twix bars:
Hi Everyone! My name is Leanne Vogel. I’m a holistic nutritionist and the lady behind Healthful Pursuit – a space where I share my pursuit of self-discovery through allergy-free recipes, travel, and a whole lot of yoga.
I’m super stoked to be here with you guys today. I’ve had to pinch myself multiple times as I prepared this post. Katie is one of my favorite bloggers so to be here sharing a recipe with you is a bit too exciting for words!
The food we surround ourselves with has a dramatic impact on the way that we live out our lives. If we feel good about what we’re eating, if food makes us feel like we can accomplish anything and gives us a sense of balance, we’ll be so much more open to the experiences life has for us. And ya, this includes finding a replacement to our favorite candy bars.
What’s more indulgent than creating your very own a vegan and gluten-free homemade Twix bar?
I couldn’t think of anything else either.
Healthy Twix Bars
(makes 12 bars)
- 1/2 cup white rice flour or buckwheat flour or sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup arrowroot or tapioca
- 2 tbsp evaporated cane juice or regular sugar or coconut sugar
- 3 tbsp sunflower seed butter (or another nut or seed butter)
- 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
- 1 tbsp freshly ground flax mixed with 2 tbsp water (Allow to sit for 5 minutes before using.)
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
Caramel:
- 100g pitted dates (approximately 6 dates)
- 3 tablespoons sunflower seed butter (or another nut butter of choice)
- 1 tsp water
- pinch salt
Chocolate Coating:
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. Begin by preparing shortbread. Add first three ingredients to a medium-sized bowl. Whisk to combine. Then add sunflower seed butter, coconut oil, flax mixture and extract. Mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer until fully combined. The dough should stick together well.
Shape dough into twelve 3-inch cookies. To do this, scoop out about 1 1/2 tablespoons at a time into your hand and roll into a ball. Slowly shape into a long tube by rolling back and forth between the palm of your hands until it’s about 3-inches long. Set down on prepared cookie sheet and flatten with fingers. You can make the cookie even straighter by using the side of a knife to press up against the edges. Place cookies in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until tops are slightly cracked and sides are golden. Set aside to cool. Meanwhile, place caramel ingredients in the bowl of your food processor. Process until smooth. If the mixture will not get smooth, just add a touch more water.
Once cookies are cooled, top with caramel and place on a second cookie sheet that’s lined with parchment paper. To do so, roll caramel like you did the cookies; into 3-inch tubes, and place over top of cookies. Place in the freezer and allow to set for at least 10 minutes. This will make the cookies easier to dip in the chocolate. Melt chocolate chips by dropping into a metal bowl and place over top of a sauce pan filled with water. Bring water to a boil and stir chips until melted. Remove from heat.
Remove the cookie sheet from the freezer and; one by one, coat the bars in chocolate. To do this, drop the bar into the chocolate and coat it with your fingers. Remove excess with your fingers and place back on the parchment. Repeat with remaining cookies. Place back in the freezer and allow to set for 15 minutes.
Leanne’s question of the day: How do you create balance in your life?
Link of the Day:
Meeka says
You should be famous! You need to appear on the cooking network or something, with your own cooking show! EVERYONE would watch it. (Or, you could just consider coming to live here as our personal cook!) -Meeka from Texas
Maria says
How do you think the shortbread part would turn out with omitting the sugar? There’s enough sweetness in the other parts – caramel and chocolate..
Tracey says
These look amazing. How can I print out the recipe without the whole copy/paste ordeal. Is there a link?
Joanne says
Howdy!
I made these last night and they taste great- very much like Twix bars! I used pepita (pumpkin seed) butter instead of sunflower seed butter as every shop in Canberra seemed to be out of sunflower seed butter. I had issues with the consitencies of the shortbread and the caramel. In the end, I added and extra tablespoon and a half of the pepita butter to the shortbread mixture and and extra 2 tablespoons of water to the caramel mixture. Not sure if anyone else has had this problem but thought I’d mention it to you.
All in all, a very tasty recipe!
Cheers,
Jo 🙂
Juju says
I’m a tad sad, I used sweet rice flour hoping it would work…but I guess it didn’t since that was the only ingredient I improvised. The batter came out very crumbly it did not stick together. D; In the end I had to throw away the batter (it was a waste). Why does sweet rice flour not work?
Juju says
This is still not working, I bought rice flour and the batter continues to crumble. I wonder what I am doing wrong.
Chocolate Covered Katie says
It’s best to ask Leanne about troubleshooting issues. Just visit her blog linked in the post. 🙂
Juju says
I went to her blog, thank you Katie for the response & suggestion.
Love your blog too <3 you should make a youtube channel xD
: )
Holly says
Thank you for the recipe. I was all sorts of excited to try this recipe. I had gotten to the step of smearing the caramel over the biscuit when my son sneaked one. On first bite he said, “they taste like dog biscuits.” I decided to try one before coating them in chocolate and sure enough, he was right.
I’m sorry for the bad review. The caramel is delicious, but the cookie part was not tasty.
Thank you for the vegan & GF recipe though 🙂
Nicole says
Hey,
Thanks for the healthy twix bar recipe. Does it have to be arrowroot or tapioca powder? The recipe does not specify and I guess Tapioca pearls are more easy to find. Can you use those?
Thanks!
Michelle says
Ive made these before!!! (my own crappy recipe though – this one is SO much better!! – mine used oat flour as the base which made them kinda cookie-ish, but this caramel is SO good!!)
Thank you oh so much!
Heather says
do you think these would travel well if i wanted to ship them? or do they need to be stored in the fridge? thanks!
Unofficial CCK Helper says
I would advise asking Leanne, as this is a guest post. Perhaps she has an answer for you. Good luck!
Sophia says
These look delicious (like everything else on your blog)! I was wondering, though, if I could use xylitol instead of evaporated cane juice?
Laurel says
We made these and they were wonderful! My kids and husband loved them, which is a good thing because they were a little labor intensive. Worth it, though. I used rice/tapioca flour mix for the shortbread and did use an egg instead of the flax substitute. The rest was as written. I’d make the cookie part a little less next time and add a bit more date filling (I had some left over–didn’t use enough.) They didn’t look anywhere near as pretty as yours but who cares when they taste great? Thank you!
Christy says
My 8 yr old and I made these today. They are good for sure but we didn’t feel like they tasted like a Twix.
Amber says
Could chia seeds be a replacement for the flax? If so, how much would I have to use?
Lorna D'Bore says
Excellent recipe! Just wanted to point out the spelling errors (grammar ho here): in the last paragraph when dealing with the chocolate, it says “remove access with your fingers and place back on the parchment” when it should say “remove excess…”
Again, simply incredible-tasting recipe! I love this blog!
Chocolate Covered Katie says
Thanks for the comment. This was actually a guest post… I am a grammar nerd too 🙂
Fixing it now!
Mary says
It’s very sad that you think baked oatmeal and lentil stew are healthy.
Random. says
Watch it