"Twixers" - healthy candy bars

Twix-Snickers Hybrid 

No refined sugar, gluten free, and nondairy!

 

Layers of chewy shortbread, gooey "caramel,"and crunchy chocolate.

Okay, full disclosure... I didn't even like chocolate until sophomore year of college. You might think, oh wow, you must have been really healthy as a child, but you'd be wrong. I did not eat chocolate, but I also refused most vegetables and all fruit. My high school boyfriend joked that I would get scurvy due to the lack of vitamin C in my diet. I'm honestly surprised I didn't get it, with corn and potatoes being the only vegetables I ate. Can we even call those vegetables? I believe senior year of high school I could force down about a handful of blueberries if I mixed them with yogurt and about a cup of granola. It's a texture thing... I actually still don't enjoy a lot of fruit raw. Frozen blueberries, yes. Blended into a smoothie, yes. Mashed up into jam, yes. But just to straight up eat a blueberry... have you looked inside those things? It's like white goo. 

Anyway... I kept at it, trying to eat chocolate every few years but to no avail. Finally, in college I tasted a brownie one of my housemates had made. No, not that kind of brownie... although, I did go to UC Santa Cruz. The brownie was, I'm pretty sure, from a box of Duncan Hines brownie mix. It was so good. So sugary. So rich. Oh, this is chocolate. I also feel compelled to assure you that by that time, I had begun eating most vegetables and had added many more fruits to my diet as well. 

 

Topped with flaky Maldon sea salt... or rainbow sprinkles.

I tried my first candy bar at 24 when I was getting my Master's degree in France. There was a vending machine down the hall from my dorm room and I was hungry and homesick and figured I'd smother my sorrows with some sugar. It was a Snickers bar and I ate 3 of them in a row. But... refined sugar makes me a little anxious, breakout, and unable to fall asleep at night. So, I refused to have any more. Plus, the packaging! Individually wrapped bars of candy... what a blight to the environment and the creatures who end up with it in their stomachs. I'd rather we end up with these in our stomachs, right?? I mean, have you ever seen a candy wrapper somewhere in nature? I would be shocked if the answer was No. 

So, the quest to bake my own treats really began in college. I was trying to eliminate both plastic waste and refined sugars and grains from my daily life... while satisfying an unquenchable sweet tooth. It can feel like quite the undertaking. But we can all do a little here and there -- it will eventually add up to more -- without compromising our quality of life. Plus - it's another excuse to make treats from scratch... procrastination and quarantine approved!

Sink your teeth into these!

Short bread layer Recipe: 

• 1 cup almond flour 
• 1/2 cup coconut flour 
• 1/3 cup melted coconut oil
• 1/4 cup melted raw honey (or maple syrup)

Caramel layer 

• 1/2 cup tahini (or peanut butter!)
• 1/3 cup cashew butter 
• 1/4 cup coconut oil 
• 10-20 drops stevia 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• Shake of salt 
• Peanuts 

Chocolate layer 

• 3/4 cup dark chocolate chip
• 2 tbsp coconut oil 

How to:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease 8x8 pan and then line with parchment paper.
3. Combine shortbread ingredients and press into prepared pan.
4. Bake 10-15 minutes until starting to turn golden. Let cool completely. 
5. Melt coconut oil in a pot and mix in the nut butters and stevia. Pour over shortbread and put into freezer to set for 30 minutes. 
6. Melt coconut oil and chocolate chips. Sprinkle peanuts on top of hardened caramel. Pour chocolate over caramel layer and put back into freezer for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with coarse salt (or rainbow sprinkles!) and put back in freezer for another 10.
7. Slice and enjoy! Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Notes: 

• You can sub out any nut butters- peanut, almond, etc. 
• You can use maple syrup or honey instead of stevia in the caramel layers, but it will increase the amount of sugar in the recipe.
• I like to use stevia-sweetened chocolate chips, but any work.