Homemade caramel candy bars made with chocolate chips, dates and nut butter. Only 3 ingredients, all wholesome and unprocessed.
These caramel candy bars are similar in various ways to other candy bars with caramel including Milk Way, Lindt Caramel, Cadbury, Sugar Daddy's and Twix of course! Like my homemade fudge bars, these homemade caramel candy bars use dates and two other ingredients to be outstanding. Plus they are simple to make.
The filling I chose for these bars is a mix of two healthier ingredients that are easy to buy and prepare into a luscious healthy caramel that you'll want to eat with a spoon. But it's even more fun tucked in a bar, so save some.
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Ingredients
The path to make these bars is simple. First, gather the ingredients.
1. Chocolate - As with any recipe, the quality of the chocolate influences the recipe so choose the best tasting and healthiest chocolate chips or bar you have access to. I often use Enjoy life brand because the chips, especially their mini chips, are delicious and easy to melt, as well as being made of only dark chocolate and cane sugar and very few other ingredients. The problem with some of my readers is they have cane sugar in their chocolate. So, the alternative is to use HU or any other chocolate you know of that you respect.
2. Dates - Dates are becoming so popular that they are much easier to find in supermarket produce sections than a few years ago. And that's great news because dates make an excellent sugar substitute and increase the health value of any dessert with fiber, magnesium, iron and more. And they are excellent antioxidants, thus help fight disease. [source]
3. Peanut butter - Peanut butter is delicious but any nut butter or even sunflower seed butter will work.
Make the Caramel
Healthy caramel is easy to make using dates. You can visit my detailed date paste recipe here or follow the simple steps below.
Simply buy fresh Medjool dates, boil them for 1 minute. Remove the pit and toss them into a blender with water.
Process until you have a golden paste, about 2 minutes. This is called date paste and is a delicious version of healthier, vegan, plant-based caramel. No cane sugar in sight.
In general, the ratio of dates to water is about 1 cup (or ten dates) is blended with ½ cup of water. If you want to make more date paste, double it and freeze what you don't use. I often freeze date paste in ice cube trays, and then once frozen, store them in bags, removing a few cubes at a time for any given recipe.
So, speaking of recipes, let's learn how to make these caramel candy bars.
Steps to Make
- Melt 2 cups chocolate chips in microwave for 1 minute intervals and stir until melted.
- Pour first layer into chocolate mold. Tap on the counter to release any air bubbles. You'll have about ⅓ of the melted chocolate left. Set it aside.
- Set mold in refrigerator for 10 minutes to harden.
- Make date paste. Boil 10 dates for 1 minute. Pit them, blend them with ½ cup of water.
- Stir the nut or seed butter into the warm date paste until mixed.
- Spoon on top of chilled chocolate layer and spread with the back of a spoon.
- Scrap off top with a pastry scrapper
- To keep the inside caramel soft, do not refrigerate the mold - just let the bars harden at room temperature. I felt the bars could have been removed from the mold after an hour but waited longer so I could photograph it.
How to Store
Store the bars wrapped at room temperature. Refrigerate or freeze after that but know that the center caramel will harden when chilled.
Other Chocolate Bar Fillings
So if you can't get your hands on dates, but you can find sweet potato puree, you are in luck. You can fill your chocolate bars with my 2-ingredient Sweet Potato frosting.
Actually you can use any of the fillings in the recipes you can find in my Homemade Chocolate Box Collection of Chocolate Fillings post.
Variations
It's easy to change up these bars, aside from a different filling. Some options include re-dipping the bars in, say, melted coconut butter, sprinkling the filling with nuts or even mini chocolate chips, or my personal favorite, adding sea salt to the caramel before putting the final chocolate layer on.
More Healthy Chocolate Bars
- Chocolate Rice Cakes
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars
- Chocolate Oat Caramel Cups
- No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bars
- Homemade Fudge Bars
- How to Make Homemade Protein Bars
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📖 Recipe
Chocolate Caramel Candy Bars
Ingredients
- 2 cups chocolate chips or quality chocolate
- ½ cup date paste 10 dates, boiled, pitted, blended with ½ cup of water
- 1 tablespoon nut or seed butter
Equipment
Instructions
Instructions
- Melt 2 cups chocolate chips in microwave for 1 minute intervals and stir until melted.2 cups chocolate chips or quality chocolate
- Pour first layer into chocolate mold. Tap on the counter to release any air bubbles. You'll have about ⅓ of the melted chocolate left. Set it aside.
- Set mold in refrigerator for 10 minutes to harden.
- Make date paste. Boil 10 dates for 1 minute. Pit them, blend them with ½ cup of water.½ cup date paste
- Stir the nut or seed butter into the warm date paste until mixed.1 tablespoon nut or seed butter
- Spoon on top of chilled chocolate layer and spread with the back of a spoon.
- Scrap off top with a pastry scrapper
- To keep the inside caramel soft, do not refrigerate the mold - just let the bars harden at room temperature. I felt the bars could have been removed from the mold after an hour but waited longer so I could photograph it.
- Store the bars wrapped at room temperature for two days. Refrigerate after that but know that the center caramel will harden when chilled.
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