These healthy 3-ingredient chocolate caramel candy bars are gooey thanks to dates and Sunbutter. They are a chocolate fun bar that boosts your energy and mood with extra fiber, iron and magnesium and are super easy to make. Vegan, gluten-free, plant-based candy bars. Watch the step by step video in this post!
Chocolate Caramel Candy Bars
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!
However, these homemade caramel candy bars are different in a big way - they are infinitely healthier! That's because they are made with wholesome, unprocessed ingredients.
And only 3 ingredients. 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.
Table of Contents For this Post
Ingredients In Chocolate Caramel Candy Bars
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. Seed or Nut butter - I used sunflower seed butter in these bars as a way to keep my bars nut-free, but of course any nut butter will work. You'll want a healthier nut butter, one that has only seeds or nuts as the sole ingredient. If you choose to work with sunflower seed butter as I did, you'll want to look for Sunbutter brand, the green label is my favorite. It is the very best sunflower seed butter EVER, tops in quality and flavor.
Before we dive into the recipe, I'd like to invite you to sign up for my free chocolate course. Five lessons hit your inbox with detail on how to create your own simple healthy chocolate desserts.
Okay, so back to this recipe...
How to Make Caramel for Candy Bars
Healthy caramel is easy to make using dates.
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.
How to Make Caramel Candy Bars
- 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 Caramel Candy Bars
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.
Chocolate Caramel Bars with Sea Salt
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 Easy Healthy Desserts:
- Homemade Milano Cookies
- 2-Ingredient Cut Out Cookies
- Vegan Royal Icing
- Rocky Road Fudge
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies
- Chocolate Protein Balls
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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 tbsp nut or seed butter
Equipment
Instructions
Instructions
- 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.
- 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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