Healthy “Snickers”

I’m a fan of dessert! Anyone else?

Ask anyone in my family and they will tell you that there were years, many years, where my sweet tooth ruled the day. I loved a good treat or a sweet peach iced tea! After figuring out that refined unnatural sugars were having serious negative side effects on my health, I began to make changes and experiment with healthier options.

To my surprise, I grew to love the natural sweetness of dates, berries, and fruits over the heavily sweetened goodies I had always enjoyed. From brownies, to raw caramel layer bars, no bake key lime “cheesecake”,  and mango nectarine crumble to name a few, I was enjoying really amazing desserts without any negative physical side effects!

In addition to the raw and fruit forward desserts, learning to bake and cook with maple syrup, agave or honey, and coconut sugar became the norm for me. 

At first, my family was not huge fans. But we’ve all come a long way and today, the most often requested desserts in our home are the raw and healthy versions we’ve adopted over the years. Desserts so healthy you could eat them for breakfast! And we have!

So here’s a quick little dessert for you to try!

Healthy “Snickers”

Ingredients:

— 12-15 large Medjool Dates Pitted

— 1/4 C of peanut butter

— 1/4 C chopped peanuts

— Dark Chocolate for melting (85% dark)

— Coarse Sea Salt

— Optional: coconut flakes 

Directions:

1. Pit your dates, fill each date with 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and a pinch of chopped nuts.
2. Melt your chocolate over low heat or in a microwave safe glass bowl.
3. Cover each date in dark chocolate.
4. Sprinkle with some coarse sea salt (grey sea salt is great) and coconut if desired.
5. Allow to cool in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

Tips: 

1. Place a sheet of parchment under a cooling baking rack.
2. Using tongs, place your dates one by one into the chocolate, stuffed side up.
3. Use a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the top to ensure all sides are covered.
4. Drain the extra chocolate off the spoon and transfer the chocolate covered date to the baking rack.
5. Gently slide the date off the spoon onto the rack allowing extra chocolate to drip on the parchment below. 

Additional Options:

— Almond butter + chopped almonds

— Cashew butter + chopped cashews

— Pecan butter + chopped pecans

— Sunbutter + chopped sunflower seeds