Who doesn't love a Snickers bar? Growing up this was my favourite- combines the perfect balance of sweet caramel, chocolate, nuttiness and that crunchy texture all in one gloriously satisfying bite. For this recipe we were lucky enough to use some of Divine's vegan chocolate bars designed for baking which they kindly sent us. Divine Chocolate are a brilliant company who are working hard to champion the rights of cacao farmers worldwide, ensuring they get a fair deal. Every bar of Divine Chocolate that you buy will help end exploitation in this industry.

We've just launched a competition to win a very generous bundle of their vegan premium chocolate collection including a salted caramel hot chocolate, a smooth dark chocolate with raspberries chocolate bar and their dark chocolate with ginger and orange bar to name a few! 

We always like to have a mixture of nuts in all our recipes so we've gone with a pretty good range here! Peanuts, hazelnuts, ground cashews and ground almonds as well as a mix of almond and peanut butter here for good measure as well as lots of deliciously sweet and creamy dates! You could of course simplify the recipe by only using one type of ground nuts, or just peanuts as is traditional, for the crunchy toasted nut layer.

The bars are coated in Divine Chocolate's 70% Cacao dark chocolate for baking and we LOVED the result.

 

Vegan Snickers Bars Recipe: 

(Makes roughly 12 bars)

For the base:

150g ground almonds

30g ground blanched hazelnuts

70g ground cashews

3 tbsp maple syrup

3 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp peanut butter

 Peanut, almond and date caramel layer

330g pitted soaked dates

40g smooth almond butter

40g crunchy peanut butter

2 tbsp melted coconut oil

½ cup almond milk

1 tsp vanilla extract of seeds from one vanilla bean

½ tsp sea salt

 Crunchy nut layer:

100g of a mixture of toasted blanched hazelnuts and peanuts + an extra handful for the topping.

 Chocolate Coating:

2x 100g bars of 70% Cacoa Divine Dark Chocolate Bars

 

Method:

 Start by making the biscuit base

1. Preheat oven to 150 Celsius.
2. Mix the ground nuts with the coconut oil, nut butter, maple syrup and salt in a high speed blender. Then press the mix into a baking tray (we used a 20x 20 cm square Brownie Tin) and place in the freezer to firm up.
3.  Spread the nuts out in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for 20minutes until fragrant and golden.
4. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
5. Roughly chop and set aside.
6. To make the nut caramel: Add the pitted dates to a food processor and blend until creamy. Add the nut butters, vanilla extract, and sea salt.
7. Spread the nut caramel in an even layer over the biscuit base. Cover the caramel with the chopped toasted nuts, and press them down so that they are slightly sunken, reserving a few for garnish.
8. Place the pan in the freezer to firm up for at least 4 hours (frozen bars are easier to cut and coat with chocolate).
9. After the bars have frozen, melt the Divine Chocolate in a glass bowl over very gently simmering water- ensure the water doesn’t touch the glass bowl.
10. Cut the frozen bars and then roll them in the melted chocolate.
11. Lay them out on a rack and then sprinkle over the reserved toasted chopped hazelnuts and peanuts whilst the chocolate is still molten. Et voila! The most indulgent home-made snickers bar you will probably ever taste! Thank you so much to Divine Chocolate for their quality vegan chocolate bars.