Ever since I made my pecan pie I’ve been mulling over using that recipe as a basis for making a raw version of millionaire’s shortbread…and I finally did it!
I’ve made this many times over the past few weeks, tweaking ingredients in all 3 layers to get it right, my kids have loved getting to eat all my experimenting!!
And I thought I’d share this recipe now as they will make a wonderful Valentines day treat for the people you love – delicious, decadent, and a lot healthier than the traditional variety 🙂
The raw base is a protein packed mix of pumpkin seeds and ground almonds, sweetened with dates and held together with coconut oil. The almond butter ‘caramel’ is also sweetened entirely with dates and is a blissful sticky layer of yumminess. For the chocolate topping I melted dark chocolate chips made with coconut sugar, but of course you can use any chocolate of your choosing for this.
My whole family loves this sweet treat, and a tray of this gets eaten very quickly in our house!
| Servings |
squares
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- 50 grams pumpkin seeds
- 100 grams ground almonds
- 1/4 tsp salt or less if low salt diet
- 80 grams dates
- 2 tbsp odourless/mild coconut oil
- 100 grams dates
- 1/3 cup boiling water
- 80 grams smooth almond butter *
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 140 grams chocolate chips I used dark chocolate chips
- 2 tbsp coconut cream optional (makes the chocolate a very thick ganache and therefore easier to cut through and bite)
Ingredients
Base
Almond butter caramel
Chocolate topping
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- Firstly start with the caramel layer by pouring the boiling water over the dates and leaving them to soak for 15 minutes - while these are soaking you can get on with the base.
- Place the pumpkin seeds, ground almonds and salt in your food processor and blend until a coarse flour is formed.
- Add the dates (not the soaking ones!) and blend until they're well chopped and mixed through.
- Add the coconut oil and blend again until the mixture begins to stick together (see photograph)
- Prepare a dish (approx 16cm by 21cm, anything close will do!) by sprinkling very lightly with ground almonds. Now turn out the base mixture into this and spread around evenly before pressing down firmly into the dish (or your base may crumble when you take a piece out)
- Pop this into the fridge to firm up while you make the caramel layer.
- Once the dates have finished soaking put them, together with the water they're soaking in, into the food processor (I just use the same one I made the base in - no need to wash it out between the 2 layers). Add all the rest of the caramel layer ingredients and blend until relatively smooth, scraping down the sides of the blender when necessary.
- Gently heat your chocolate chips in a bain marie (I use a pyrex glass bowl over a small saucepan with hot water in). If you want your chocolate topping softer to cut and bite through then melt the chocolate chips in the coconut cream so it all warms together. If not then just melt the chocolate chips on their own until melted through!
- Take your base out of the fridge and smooth the caramel over it.
- Now pour the melted chocolate over the top and spread evenly over the caramel
- Chill in the fridge until it's cooled through and the chocolate has hardened. Cut into squares and enjoy!
* or another nut butter of your choice. Cashew nut butter would work particularly well here as the subtle sweetness of the cashews would carry the caramely flavour of the dates beautifully. Though we do love it with the almond flavour too!
Apart from Valentines day I had to get these millionaire bites on the blog as my wonderful sister asked for the recipe in time for a birthday, and as she’s one of the best people in the whole world it was a must! Definitely a great excuse to get out the food processor and blend up these mouthfuls of deliciousness…I hope you love them too 🙂
Oh my goodness, these are amazing! My family have just declared it “one of the best things we’ve ever eaten” – and they don’t even have dietary restrictions! We’ll definitely be trying more of your recipes 🙂