Annnnd then I snapped my fingers and POOF. Turned these ingredients:

Into…

Twix Bars!

Well maybe it wasn’t THAT easy, but it wasn’t bad I promise. Seems daunting. First shortbread. Then a caramel. And THEN a chocolate topping. Uughhh. But it goes by quick. And you can multi task. Like while the shortbread is baking, make your caramel and take picture. But wait- you don’t have to take pictures. That’s just me. Because I’m weird and like that sort of thing…

I had to tweak this one quite a bit to get it right where I wanted it. I also made a cakey version that I’ll do another post on. I really wanted a healthy(ish) crunchy shortbread version here so I went with coconut flour +ghee combo.

Ok. So I’m going to give it to ya dirty. Ingredients first, separated by elements (shortbread, caramel, chocolate). And then pictures with the directions. The pictures really help me when it comes to things like texture/knowing when things are ready. It’s not JUST because I want to be excessive…

Shortbread Ingredients:

3/4c coconut flour (I used THIS one)

1/6c ghee (I used THIS one)

1/6c coconut oil fI use THIS one)

3 tbsp honey

Caramel Ingredients:

1c Pitted dates

1tbsp ghee

1tbsp almond butter

Pinch salt

Approx 1 Tbsp almond milk

Chocolate:

Roughly 1/2c chocolate of choice

2tbsp coconut oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a bread loaf pan with parchment paper. I would also at this point, place your dates in a bowl and cover them with hot water… this will make more sense in a minute.

2. Whisk coconut oil, ghee, honey and salt together until the mixture is creamy

3. Stir in coconut flour until a dough forms. Parts might be a little crumbly, but should pack pretty easy. Roughly this texture:

4. Pack this into a ball, then flatten it with your fingers to roughly the dimensions of your bread pan, cover in plastic Saran Wrap and chill in the fridge for about 10minutes:

5. Take out the chilled dough and place it in the bottom of the parchment lined bread pan and bake for 10-15 minutes until it is slightly browned and looks like shortbread (might as well start making the caramel while the dough is chilling…)

Caramel Instructions:

1. Hopefully you placed your dates in a bowl and covered with hot water and them soak for about 10-15min while you made your shortbread. This allows the dates to open up/plump up a bit and become more pliable.

2. Drain the water and put dates in a high speed blender (I use Vitamix) or a good processor. Blend/pulse until the dates resemble a gooey chopped texture

3. Add your ghee, almond butter, salt and blend/pulse some more. Add almond milk and blend/process until your caramel has reached a smooth consistency. Roughly this:

Shortbread Caramel Assembly:

1. Remove shortbread from oven, peel away parchment and allow to cool a bit (maybe make the chocolate here)

2. Once cooled a bit (cooled, not cold/chilled), spread the date caramel evenly over the top, like so:

3. Allow this to cool again… it helps the chocolate coating stay

Chocolate Coating:

1. Melt chocolate and coconut oil over med/low heat until it is liquid enough to pour, but viscous enough to keep shape once poured and not run off everywhere. Like this.

Chocolate Coating:

1. Now the only thing really left to do is pour the chocolate over the shortbread/date creation and let it freeze/cool!

I like to cool mine in the freezer because I love the way Twix taste frozen, but you could chill them in the fridge until the chocolate hardens. Then just cut em, store em and eat em!