RECIPE: Vegan Raw Snickers Chocolate Bar

Ok so if I ever go down in history for any type of cooking related event (assuming this doesn’t include the time that I served up dodgy fish to over 100 people – but that is another story) I think it may be for this recipe! It truly is amazing. And while I may be blowing my own trumpet here, I can promise you that you will be bee bopping and scatting all over the place to my tune if you try making this vegan raw snickers chocolate bar.

Being Halloween today I just couldn’t resist attempting a recipe that I have been thinking of trying for a while now. I have seen some inspiring raw chocolate treat recipes based on some famous sweet classics – including mint slices by the wonderful Emily at ‘This Rawsome Vegan Life’ and superfood butter cups from lovely Sarah Britton at ‘My New Roots’. So I just had to try my very own version of a vegan raw Snickers chocolate bar.

I believe that the technique I used here is unique. And while it may look and seem difficult at first, like many recipes it is actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. In fact if you think about it, you can get away with only using five ingredients to make this recipe – although I used about seven. There are also some fantastic raw cooking techniques and recipes that will teach you how to make raw chocolate, raw caramel, raw whipped cream/eggs and raw nougat – all vegan too I might add. How can you go wrong!

This recipe is dedicated to all of those people that give poor children a piece of fruit as a treat to those trick-or-treating kids on Halloween. A piece of fruit is not an appropriate treat! And it certainly isn’t a good trick. Not that I am holding any baggage here. But pick your act up and make something that is still healthy but actually a true treat…

Vegan Raw Snickers Chocolate Bar Ingredients:

Vegan whipped egg/cream

• 1/3 cup linseeds
• 3 cups water
• 3 tbsp ROAR coconut sugar

Raw Chocolate

• 100g cacao butter
• 100g virgin cold-pressed coconut oil
• 80g ROAR cacao powder
• 60g-80g ROAR coconut sugar – depending on how sweet you want it
• 1 tiny pinch salt

You can use either 200g of cacao butter or coconut oil if you only wish to use one type of fat in this recipe. I prefer using a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture. Also, without cacao butter the bars will be more susceptible to temperature and will have to be served straight from the fridge.

Raw Chocolate Nougat

• 2/3 vegan whipped egg/cream mixture
• 1/3 melted chocolate (you should only use a maximum of 1/2 of the chocolate mixture – so use less vegan whipped eggs/cream if necessary or make another batch of chocolate mix so that you can coat the bars in chocolate later)

NB: This part of the recipe is done by ratio rather than exact quantities as the amount of vegan whipped cream you get can vary wildly. You may have to make more chocolate mixture or not use all of the vegan whipped cream. Sorry I can’t be more exact.

Raw Caramel

• 30g ROAR activated almonds
• 20g dates
• 40g ROAR coconut sugar
• 1 tbsp virgin cold-pressed coconut oil
• 1 tiny pinch salt

Vegan Raw Snickers Chocolate Bar Method:

Before we start I would like to say that the measurements are quite approximate in this recipe. You will have to use your intuition quite a lot along the way. The reason for this is the fact that the yield from the vegan whipped egg/cream can be extremely variable depending on the linseeds and at what temperature you boil them at and therefore how much of the water evaporates. But don’t worry, I will give you ratios in the recipe also so you can adjust the recipe as you go along. And don’t worry this is raw cooking so it is far more forgiving than baking. The only real thing you ABSOLUTELY MUST be careful of is not overheating the chocolate. But if you don’t feel confident you can always buy chocolate and just melt it – but it is actually very easy to make and highly rewarding!

Vegan whipped egg/cream

Boil the linseeds in the water on a low heat for 20 minutes. It is possible to just soak the linseeds to keep this recipe completely raw. Read the full article VEGAN WHIPPED CREAM: An Amazing Technique Using Linseeds for more detailed instructions.

Once the linseeds and water have been boiled, strain the brownish goo from the linseeds and beat on a high speed for 5-10 minutes using an electric beater (this may take longer if you have an older/less powerful machine). Either way, beat the mixture until it has reached a stiff peak. It should in fact look very much like stiff peak beaten egg whites i.e. fluffy and white and does not drip off a spoon if you grab a spoonful. Add the sugar about a minute or two before the end.

Raw Chocolate

In a bain marie melt pour in the coconut sugar with about 2 tbsp water and stir until it is completely dissolved. This should take a couple of minutes. Scrape out the bowl and place the mixture to the side.

Now melt cacao butter and/or the coconut oil in the bain marie. Once it is melted add the cacao powder and a tiny pinch of salt (very tiny!). Don’t add it all at once. Just keep adding it until it dissolves in the fat and should have the consistency of melted chocolate.

Add the dissolved coconut sugar, again a bit at a time. Keep stirring and make sure the heat is low. You may have to take the chocolate mixture off the hot water quite often. Remember that you don’t want the mixture to go above 45°C if you want to keep it strictly raw. But you also absolutely do not want your chocolate mixture to go above about 54°C, at which point the solids in the cacao will separate from the fats and your mixture will go all lumpy and be completely ruined. If this happens you can still eat the mixture, but essentially you will have to start again. Mixing thoroughly during the process will definitely help protect you against this.

Leave the chocolate mixture to cool at room temperature and keep stirring every once and a while.

Raw Chocolate Nougat

Split half the chocolate mixture into a separate bowl. Mix in a little bit of the vegan whipped eggs/cream into the mixture. Then fold in the rest of the vegan whipped eggs/cream, making sure to lose as little of the air from the mixture as possible. You want to have about 2/3 the volume of vegan whipped eggs/cream to the chocolate mixture.

Refrigerate (do not put in the freezer otherwise the fat in the mixture will coagulate and ruin the texture) for at least 20 min. You can refrigerate for longer if you wish. This will give the nougat time to firm up.

Raw Caramel:

In a bain marie put the panela on with a tablespoonful of warm water and leave to completely dissolve.

Meanwhile blend 20g of the activated almonds into a fine meal. Add the dates and blend until it forms a kind of sticky dough. I didn’t have access to a processor at the time so had to make a much larger quantity of raw caramel in my blender. It can be used to lots of things so you can do the same if you only have a blender like me.

Add the dissolved panela,a tiny pinch of salt and mesquite powder (if you are using) and blend some more. You should have a not completely smooth caramel coloured and flavoured mixture by now. You don’t want it to be too runny – think of the consisitency of the caramel in a snickers bar. Add more water or dates to either loosen or thicken the mixture accordingly.

Assembling the Vegan Raw Snickers Chocolate Bar

Take your cooled nougat mixture and form into a bar shape. Lay them evenly out onto a flat tray that will be able to fit into your freezer laid out flat. The size you make is entirely up to you. I just stuck with a general snickers bar size, but they are very rich so smaller would work great too.

Spoon the raw caramel mixture on top – you can put as little or as much as you wish, but again think about a snickers bar. Then crush the final 10g of activated almonds into large pieces and sprinkle over the top of the raw caramel. You can also use activated hazelnuts or indeed any nuts or peanuts if you wish. Of course in a snickers bar they use roasted peanuts. So activated almonds or hazelnuts are the best (and in my view even better) raw substitute.

Now lavishly pour over some of the left over of the chocolate mixture (or make some more if you don’t have enough left) over the bars and put into the freezer to cool for a couple of minutes to firm. You may have to do this a number of times to properly cover the nuts.

Once the nuts are covered properly with chocolate, putting into the freezer between each pour in order to firm it up, cut round the bottom of the bars and lift them away from the spilled over chilled chocolate mixture on the tray. Scrape up the erroneous chocolate mixture off the tray and re-melt it. Again you may have to do this a few times during the process.

Lay the bars back onto the tray upside down and pour over some more chocolate to cover the bottom of the bars. Again put back into the freezer to firm the chocolate bars up.

They will be ready to serve after about 15 minutes. These vegan raw snickers chocolate bars are best served chilled from the freezer for the best shape. Because the chocolate has been tempered it will melt at a relatively low temperature.

Enjoy : )