Healthy Chocolate Almond Bars

Let’ see… healthy, easy, quick and yummy. Check, check, check and check.

Healthy? Okay- almond butter is the all-natural fat used, sucanat is the natural sugar, and dark chocolate keeps these antioxidant rich (when in doubt, always tout the antioxidant benefits with chocolate). Good so far.

Easy? Oh my gosh, these are unreasonably easy bars to make. You simply stir the ingredients together and spread them in a pan- then let the chocolate melt on top. The hardest past is stirring through the almond butter if it’s stiff, which is an embarrassing point to make because it’s not even that a hard of a job.

Quick? Yep. No time spent blending, rising, crimping, tempering or caramelizing. It bakes in 15 and you’ll be eating it within a few minutes of that.

Yummy? Yes, especially considering that it’s totally healthy and natural. When eating it you know that it’s not full of fat and other sinful things, so don’t expect a decadent pleasure… but DO expect a darned good dessert for such a clean and wholesome recipe.

Adapted from my Healthy Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe…
Gluten-free! Dairy-free!

1 cup unsalted almond butter

3/4 cup Sucanat (see Tips below for notes on sugar)

1 lightly beaten egg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (or about 5 oz.) dark or bittersweet chocolate chips (or chopped small chunks)

1/4 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted
1. Preheat oven to 350°, and grease a foil-lined 8″ baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir first five ingredients together until well blended.
3. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes (until lightly browned). Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips or chopped bits onto surface, and return pan to oven for 3 minutes. Using an offset spatula (or your spatula of choice), spread melted chocolate into a smooth layer. Immediately sprinkle toasted almond slices over top of chocolate. Allow to cool to room temperature before slicing.
Tips:
- Sucanat? It’s a minimally refined kind of cane sugar with more vitamins and minerals than anything you’ll find in a processed sugar. Completely natural, it’s grainy and sweet, and has a light molasses taste. If you don’t have available, use an evaporated cane sugar (still pretty natural) or light brown sugar in a pinch. (Just try to avoid white sugar in these “healthy” bars. White sugar = kitchen crack. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
- Spreading the dough into the pan is so much easier with hands that are a bit wet… just be careful not to pack the dough down bigtime… it’s not a graham crust.
- No 8″ square pan? You could use an 8″ round cake pan. Or you could use a 9″ square pan BUT they’ll be very very thin. Maybe that’s okay if you’re looking to eat less?
- Toasting the almonds is easy. Just spread on a baking sheet and put in oven while bars are baking (but just for 6 – 8 minutes, or until light brown and almondy-smelling).
- Cutting notes: definitely do when at room temperature, or the chocolate will crack all to hell, like my latest mistake in this post here- The Chocolate Crevasse.
- Freeze these! They’ll keep for a few months. Nice.
- Enjoy…
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June 30th, 2012 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: Brownies & Bars, Nuts