vegan caramel peanut chocolate bars
Are you ready to sink your teeth into these incredible vegan caramel peanut chocolate bars?! I’ve eaten my fair share of Snickers and trust me, these are way better!
Servings 14 chocolate bars
Ingredients
cookie bar base
- 1 C rolled oats (not quick cooking), ground in a food processor to make oat flour (equals ¾ C oat flour)
- ¾ C all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ C granulated sugar
- ¼ C packed brown sugar
- ¼ C + 2 tablespoon melted vegan butter
caramel peanut filling
- ½ C vegan butter
- 1 C packed brown sugar
- ⅔ C canned coconut cream
- ¼ C natural peanut butter
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 ½ C roasted and salted peanuts
chocolate coating & garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Line a 7" x 7" or 8" x 8" baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a food processor, pulse oats to flour. Then add all-purpose flour, sugars, sea salt, and melted butter and process until everything is combined evenly and the mixture is crumbly. You should be able to pinch it together and it relatively holds the shape.
- Press the dough mixture into the bottom of the parchment lined baking pan to form an even layer.
- Bake for 12 to 14 minutes until the edges are just golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and cool completely in the baking pan on a wire rack.
- Meanwhile, make the caramel filling by heating a medium sauce pan over medium heat with the vegan butter, brown sugar, coconut cream, peanut butter, and sea salt. Whisk together to combine everything as the mixture melts together and becomes smooth.
- Once it starts bubbling steadily, lower the heat but keep it on a low bubble while you whisk constantly for about 3 to 4 minutes. It should be thicker but still run off the whisk. It will be coating and sticking to the sides of the saucepan. Do not heat it further than this. Remove it from the heat and fold in the roasted peanuts. Continue stirring to cool it down. Let it rest for 15 minutes before pouring over the mostly cooled cookie base.
- Pour the caramel on top of the cookie base and move the peanuts around if they appear to be uneven at all in the caramel. Let it mostly cool at room temperature before refrigerating for at least 24 hours or until firm to the touch.
- Once chilled and the caramel feels mostly solid to the touch, you can slice into bars. It will be soft but solid. Remove the whole thing from the pan with the edges of the parchment. Pull the sides of the parchment down. Cut in half and then each half can be sliced into 7 x 1-inch bars.
- Keep the bars refrigerated until ready to coat in the chocolate coating.
- To melt the chocolate wafers, place them in a heat safe glass bowl over a sauce pan with a bit of boiling water. Stir until melted and smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat.
- To coat the bars, have a wire rack placed over a baking sheet or a sheet of wax paper on a baking sheet to lay out the coated bars. Dip the top, sides, and ends of the bar in the chocolate and allow the excess to drip off. Place bottom down on the wire rack or wax paper. Before the chocolate cools too much sprinkle with a bit of Maldon salt flakes on the top.
- Once all the bars are coated, place the baking sheet in the freezer for about 5 minutes. Then you can go in and coat the bottom of the bars, if desired, and lay the bars on their side to allow the bottom to drip off and solidify.
- You can serve immediately or keep refrigerated until ready to serve. I doubt they will last this long, but you can keep them in a container in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks.
Notes
Instead of coconut cream, you can also use the thick cream scooped from a can of refrigerated full-fat coconut milk.
