A sweet natural taste of chocolate with the crunch of soy beans. This vegan recipe has no added sugar and makes delicious snacks.

Finding unsalted roasted soy-beans might be a challenge. They’re typically sold as a finished product, meant to be thrown on salads, where they are also delicious. In this case, use them and omit the added salt from the recipe. Don’t worry if they have a bit of oil on them either. That should be fine.

You may use raw cacao beans instead, it’ll have that slightly sour fermented taste. If you like unroasted beans, then you’ll enjoy the bar the same way. Though I find this bar’s chocolate flavour really comes from the roasting. You could roast your raw ones on your own. Each time I roast them I get a slightly different flavour out, depending on temperature and roasting time.

The fresh lemon can be substituted with bottled lemon juice as well. Though please, not that fake stuff! I’m sure it’d work, but you’d lose the lovely flavour.

Crunchy Chocolate Date Bar

Ingredients

  1. 120 g ³⁄₄ cup
    Cashews
  2. 40 g
    roastedCacao Bean
  3. 60 g
    roastedSoy Bean
  4. 100 g ⁵⁄₈ cup
    pittedDried Dates
  5. 60 g ³⁄₈ cup
    Raisins
  6. ¹⁄₄ teaspoon
    Salt
  7. ¹⁄₂ medium 4 teaspoon
    juicedFresh Lemon

Equipment

  • plastic container 15x20cm
  • food processor
  • knife
  • mixing bowl

Directions

Dry Bits

  1. In the food processor chop the cashews to a fine grain (like flour). Transfer the cashews to a mixing bowl.
  2. In the food processor chop the cacao beans to a slightly larger grain, dusty, but some 1-3mm chunks should remain. Transfer the chopped cacao beans to the mixing bowl.
  3. In the food processor briefly chop the soy beans to a larger grain than the cacao beans. You want visible chunks remaining to give the bar its crunch. Transfer the chopped soy beans to the mixing bowl.
  4. Add the salt to the mixing bowl.
  5. Mix the ingredients in the mixing bowl to evenly distribute them.

Wet Bits

  1. If you like torturing your food processor add the dates and raisins and chop them up. Otherwise, grab your knife and cut them into small pieces. They don’t have to be tiny, since the later mixing will break them up more. Add the raisins and date to the mixing bowl.
  2. Juice the half lemon and add the juice to the mixing bowl.

Mixing

  1. Make sure the plastic container is ready.
  2. Using your hands, mix all the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Apply a good amount of force to squish the ingredients together. Keep doing this until it roughly sticks together in a large ball.
  3. Transfer the mixture into the plastic container. Press it firmly into the container. You may use a spoon or a spatula to flatten the top.
  4. Place it in the fridge and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Cut

  1. Remove the plastic container from the fridge.
  2. Tip it over onto a cutting board. Tap the bottom until the set mixture drops to the board.
  3. Cut the mass into bars. If using the 15×20 container you can use one slice lengthwise and 6-8 along the width to produce 12-16 bars.