Choconut Treats

Sometimes I can work at a recipe for weeks, making it over and over again, changing it slightly each time until I’m happy with it. And sometimes I can chuck a load of ingredients in a pan, throw chocolate on top and it turns out better than I ever expected. This is one of those accidental recipes.

If you follow Pesky Recipes, you’ll know I’ve adopted a healthy eating regime this year. I’m still having treats and cheat days, but 6 days a week I’m sticking to a low carb, low sugar, high protein, high fat diet, see the details in my post My 2021 Healthy Eating Plan here if you’re interested. So I’ve been taking dark chocolate and mixed nuts into work to snack on instead of crisps and other treats. But when my stomach is rumbling and my colleagues are tucking into the biscuits, a handful of mixed nuts really wasn’t cutting it, I needed a more substantial snack. This is what I came up with. It’s sugar free (apart from the small amount that might be in the dark chocolate), carb free, salt free, gluten free, and they taste fantastic!

As the ultimate test, I took a few into work and offered them out to those who I knew weren’t dieting. Everyone who tried them loved them, and they all immediately asked for the recipe. They couldn’t believe there was no sugar, salt, carbs or gluten in them as they tasted so good.

I don’t use any crazy ingredients in my recipes. If I can’t easily find it in my local supermarket, I don’t cook with it. So many times, I’ve found a recipe online that really appeals to me, but when I go to make it, I need the dehydrated sap from a rare Columbian flower, or something equally as difficult and expensive to get hold of, and it puts me off. So don’t let how healthy this snack is fool you into thinking this recipe is going to be complicated, it really isn’t. I use honey instead of sugar for sweetness, pistachios and walnuts for a lovely crunchy texture, desiccated coconut to cancel out some of the bitterness of the smooth dark chocolate and a small amount of unsalted butter to combine it all. That’s it. You probably have most of the ingredients in your kitchen already. So even if you’re not following a low carb, low sugar diet, give this a go and snack away guilt free.

Ready in 10 mins plus setting time. Makes 8.

Ingredients:

• 75g of pistachios
• 75g walnuts
• 25g of unsalted butter
• 25g of desiccated coconut
• 25g of honey (I’ve used acacia)
• 250g of 60% or higher dark chocolate

Method:

• Roughly chop the nuts (I like them chunky, but if you want a smoother snack, blitz them in a food processor)

• Put the chopped nuts, butter, coconut and honey in a pan and melt over a medium heat.

• Once the butter has melted and all the ingredients are well combined, take off the heat and spoon the mixture into greased muffin tray segments and push it down with the back of a spoon to compress it slightly.

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• Melt the dark chocolate (I do it in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between to make sure it doesn’t burn)
• Pour the dark chocolate over the nuts evenly.

• Let the chocolate set completely in the fridge, then run a blunt knife down down the edge of each treat before turning out.

If you liked this recipe, you may also like:

No Cream Chocolate Truffles

Mushroom Scrambled Eggs

Aubergine (Egg Plant) And Courgette Bake