Relationships stress me out. And I’m not even in one. But many of my friends are, and their relationships REALLY stress me out. They’re so overwhelming at times. They like each other, then they hate each other. They complain about each other, then they can’t take their hands off each other. They’re like children. And I don’t like children.
I know for a fact my food will never complain, that’s why I’m in a relationship with it. I take good care of my food and it takes good care of me. We have a very understanding and healthy relationship. I may seem weird and kind of like a leper with the amount of time I spend in the house, in my kitchen, on a Friday night, but I’m sure as hell not fighting with my food at the bar, while others stare on with drunken eyes. I hate drunken people fights. I love watching them. Car wreck in human form.
The moral to this story is – annoying relationships suck. So get out of them if you are one of the people that fills their friends ears with complaints about their significant other. We don’t care. Your significant other obviously doesn’t care. So you shouldn’t care. And you should find yourself a new partner. Meaning paleo food. Like this recipe. Why wouldn’t you make CARAMEL BARS your new lover? I’ve done it twice now. Two times. Two times a lady, if you will.
Chocolate Coffee Caramel Bars
- Yield: 3-4 1x
Ingredients
For the crust
- 12 dried figs (or dates, if you prefer), stems removed
- 1/2 cup almond butter
- 1/4 cup Unsweetended Shredded Coconut
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch of salt
For the caramel
- 12–14 medjool dates, pitted and soaked in water for an hour
- 5–6 tablespoons canned coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
For the topping
- 1 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips or dark chocolate, melted
- 1/4 cup canned coconut milk
- 2 teaspoons ground coffee
- coarse sea salt, to top
Instructions
- First make your crust. Add all of your crust ingredients into a food processor and mix until well combined. Add the crust mixture to abread pan and push down until the mixture is flat. Like a crust. Duh.
- Now add your dates and pulse until dates have broken down (less than a minute) then add your coconut milk tablespoon by tablespoon to the dates while the food processor is still running. Then add your water as well.
- And add your vanilla extract and pinch of salt.
- Process until you get a caramel. BOOM. May take 3-5 minutes, tops.
- Pour caramel over your crust and spread evenly.
- Now you will want to melt your chocolate. You could do this in a double boiler or just the microwave. I chose the latter.
- Melt chocolate and coconut milk together in the microwave. Heating for 30 seconds then mixing well and reheating when necessary.
- Once your chocolate is completely melted, add your ground coffee and mix well.
- Pour melted chocolate over your caramel and spread evenly.
- Add coarse sea salt on top of the chocolate.
- Put in freezer to let chocolate harden. Around 10+ minutes.
- Eat!!
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More Layered Ideas For Ya:
Chocolate “Peanut Butter” Cookie Bars
Holiday Raspberry Caramel Tart
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Oh my goodness, these might just be able to replace the turtle cake I used to make! I intensely dislike coffee, though, what could I use instead that would be powder like that?
Just remove the coffee, no need for a replacement!!
Oh my goodness, these were heavenly! I doubled it and put it in a 9×9 pan since the kids would want to eat it, and we have friends new to paleo that we’d lake to share with. I loved licking out the topping bowl with a spoonful of caramel, yum! Thanks for the great paleo treat! Seriously, I don’t know why people would want the junky treats when these are so good.
Oh, you’d love my children, by the way 🙂 My 6 yr old does Crossfit when she can with her dad, and my son is the kindest little boy! They’ve never hissed at anyone…
Those look great. I’m gonna try and make some this weekend.
And I don’t like children either.
I like you Vance
okay. I don’t crossfit 2X a day and I do eat the entire pan of whatever dessert delight you post. So my question is: can I freeze any of the above, either components like filling or the complete finished product?
Yeah I’m sure you could freeze all of the ingredients!
P.S. I think you should work in paleofied uses for a kitchen blow torch, as kitchen bad ass as you!
ooops, link ==> http://crystal-smith.suite101.com/10-ways-to-wield-your-butane-torch-in-the-kitchen-a359883
Ok…in the past three days I’ve made the sweet lemon pepper chicken, chicken enchilada stew, and these caramel bars. I have a serious problem….as in, if you post it, I will cook it. Moth to a flame here. You need shirts that say ‘WWJBC?’…what would JB cook. Ok…I have to go give the rest of these bars away….now….
Bahahaha you’re awesome! You liked the bars?!
Like them? Um…I had them for dinner. Remember how I said I was going to give them away? Ya…that totally didn’t happen. I didn’t eat the whole pan…but the night is young. Just kidding. I think.
Lol that’s epic. Glad you liked them. PS-I did the same thing
If there was a WWJBC? shirt…i’d buy it. I cannot create endlessly like you do, and it is an amazing ability in my mind. I may or may not being going page by page through your desserts and bookmarking almost all of them to my computer… I’m trying to get my body used to burning fat instead of just sugar right now, but when I am fat adapted I should be able to handle eating entire pans of your desserts, right? 🙂
Very excited to make these! I will try them with sunbutter and report back. My youngest doesn’t like almonds, but both my kids love coffee-flavored desserts & dark chocolate cuz they’re awesome like that.
Best.kids.ever.
Whoa snap…food-gasm.
right??!
Built a bridge yet Juli?
I tried pasting a Homer drooling pic in here to stress my mouth party at the pics, but also as in damn you make good gnosh num num num is an understatement
What does that even mean Alistair lol?
These were wonderful!!! YUMMMM!!!
They are!! You gotta try it!!
Seriously the most amazing thing ever!!
YAYYY!! Glad you liked them!!