Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars

Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars

Today we are making Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars! These vegan treats are a triple-layered threat, with shortbread, caramel and chocolate all in the same bar.

They’re the perfect treat if you can’t decide on what you like better – Cookies? Chocolate? Caramel? Now you don’t have to choose! With just a handful of ingredients, you can have these homemade candy bars ready to go. If you want to make vegan desserts for a Halloween party, chocolate bar recipes to store in the freezer for a midnight snack, or whatever the reason – this is it!

Inspired by Twix

If you haven’t heard of a Twix bar before, you may be missing out on one of the best chocolate bars to ever exist. It was one of my childhood favorites growing up, and is still very popular today. Every Halloween, this was the chocolate bar I’d scour through my candy bag to find! Sorry mom, hiding my garbage bags of collected candy did nothing for my sweet tooth – the excitement was real, and I always found the hiding spots!

So Twix candy bars have a shortbread cookie crust, a caramel filling and a soft chocolate topping. Like, the type of chocolate that doesn’t necessarily crunch when you bite into it – unless you freeze the bar. It’s more of a soft chocolate topping, and the crunch comes from the cookie base. So many textures and flavors!

Vegan Chocolate Candy Bar

Turns out Twix candy bars aren’t vegan though – they do contain dairy, which falls under animal products. And unfortunately, there’s no vegan version on the market yet (shoutout to the new vegan Kit-Kat bars though)! So once I did go vegan, those were out the window and I had to make my own copycat recipes at home.

Now these no bake dessert bars aren’t really a copycat of the original recipe, but they’re made with super simple ingredients that makes a very similar, cookie-caramel-chocolate tasting bar!

Why You’ll Love These Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars

Triple Layers of Goodness: The best part about these bars is that they have three delicious layers with a healthy twist! With each bite, you get a raw, buttery shortbread crust, followed by a soft and sweet raw caramel, topped with a sugary, velvety layer of melted chocolate (and optionally, a bit of sea salt on top). Layered desserts are a favorite – you get so many textures and flavors in one bite!

No Refined Sugar: These vegan candy bars have almost no added sugar aside from the naturally occurring sugar in the dates! Dates also contain fiber, which is a great way to eat dessert but also get nutrition. When you choose the chocolate for the topping, you can opt for an unsweetened baker’s chocolate, then melt some pure maple syrup with it to keep the chocolate coating naturally sweetened as opposed to refined sugar laden chocolate.

No Special Equipment: When I hear the words “triple-layer vegan candy bars,” my mind jumps to a complicated recipe that uses different equipment, a ton of ingredients and multiple steps. I’m here to tell you that’s not true! In fact, we only need a blender and a saucepan. Blend up the base and the caramel separately, melt the chocolate in the saucepan, and you’re good to go! No oven either – we just chill these in the refrigerator or freezer. So hide your candy thermometers and your double boiler – let’s make this easy!

Substitutions: Dry Ingredients

Dates: For best results, use Medjool dates, as these are large, soft, caramel-like and work the best with this recipe. You can also use Deglet Noor dates. Soak your dates in hot water for 20 minutes until they’re soft, then drain and pat out the water, if needed.

Chocolate Chips: Look on the package label to make sure there are no milk ingredients in the chocolate. You can use vegan milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate, dark chocolate chips or even plain chopped chocolate bars, as they will be melted anyways.

Almond Flour: Almond flour uses almonds without their outer coating (blanched almonds) and it’s a great way to get a buttery, gluten-free, vegan and raw flour! You can also use almond meal, albeit not tasting as buttery because the almonds are not blanched and they still have the skin on.

Other raw nut flours like cashew flour, macadamia nut flour, or even oat flour may work for a nut-free option. You can make these flours at home by using a spice grinder to powder up oats or nuts.

You may need to adjust the amount of dates in the crust layer if using oat flour. Start by adding one extra date if needed to make a crust dough, and add more as needed. It should make a soft dough that’s easy to shape. You can find almond flour at your local health food store, online or in the gluten-free or natural baking aisle of a general grocery store!

Substitutions: Wet Ingredients

Almond Butter: You can a different kind of nut butter. For example, cashew butter, macadamia nut butter, hazelnut butter, creamy peanut butter and more. Different types of nut butter will have different tastes.

Coconut Oil: Use refined coconut oil, not virgin or extra-virgin. This type of coconut should not smell like coconuts. Substitute this with another healthy fat, such as almond butter, cashew butter, cocoa butter, or another nut butter.

Coconut oil will make the chocolate crunchy and harden it in the freezer, but nut butters will make the chocolate layer taste more like a soft fudge. Depending on the ingredients you have available, either work and it‘ll be delicious both ways!

Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars Notes

• Looking for peanut butter caramel candy bars? Substitute the almond butter with peanut butter! Make sure to choose natural peanut butter that only has the one ingredient – peanuts (and no added sugar or oil).

More Sweet Treats You’ll Love

O’Henry Caramel Candy Cups

Vegan Peanut Butter Cups

Peppermint Matcha Nanimo Bars

Vegan Toffee Bark

Chocolate Bark

Vegan Fudge (S’mores)

Chocolate Maple Fudge

Peanut Butter Mousse

If you make these Vegan Chocolate Candy Bars, then leave a comment and star rating! Don’t forget to tag your photos @peanut_palate on Instagram. Enjoy!