This is one of those recipes…
One of those recipes that’s impossible to stop eating until every last chocolate bite has disappeared. Rich dark chocolate, complemented by creamy banana filling…
I made two batches (for five of us who were watching the Olympics last night). One batch was just banana and a second batch was peanut butter banana, where I blended a big spoonful of crunchy peanut butter into the filling.
There were no leftovers.
Monkey See Monkey… Eat
The summer after I finished third grade, my family took a trip to Vermont and stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s factory to see how ice cream is made. (I think that same summer, we visited a brewery and got to see how beer is made. It was a very educational summer for me!)
After touring the factory came the best part: sampling ice cream. We tried chocolate, we tried Cherry Garcia, and finally we tried their #1 seller, Chunky Monkey. I decided this flavor was my favorite, mostly because I thought the name was funny. The tour guide then informed us that this particular product had a different name in Japan; it was simply called Banana Nut. Apparently, if you try to translate the name to Japanese, you get “Chunks of Monkey.”
Ever since that trip, whenever I see anything chocolate-and-banana flavored, my mind automatically thinks of chunks of monkey.
So… who’s hungry now? 
Chocolate Monkey Bites
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
- 20-30 nunaturals vanilla stevia drops (or 3-4 tbsp liquid sweetener, such as agave)
- 1/2 a banana (see “nutrition info” link below for all substitution notes in this recipe)
- tiny pinch salt
- optional: 1-2 tbsp peanut butter (or pb2, or another nut butter)
Combine first three ingredients in a bowl and stir until it makes a chocolate sauce. Pour a little of the sauce (saving the rest for later) into the bottoms of cupcake liners, mini cupcake liners, or candy molds. Then freeze 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, blend (or mash and stir with a fork) the banana, salt, and optional ingredients. Take liners out of the freezer and top each with banana mixture. Now evenly distribute the rest of the chocolate and re-freeze until solid. This recipe makes 9-10 mini cups (as shown in the photos).
View Monkey Bites Nutrition Facts
Link of the Day:
“Chunks of monkey” ——–> Seriously, too funny!
Oh why do you do this to me!?!?
When I lived in Germany one of my favorite treats from the holiday market was chocolate-covered apples, yes, whole apples on a stick dipped in yummy bittersweet chocolate. The chocolate-covered fruit kebabs were good too. But the apples were amazing; crunchy and juicy with chocolate that melted quickly in your mouth.
Hmm, my favorite chocolates in a mixed box are always the fruit cream ones. So really, any fruit-filled chocolate cup would probably be amazing. My second choice would be for caramel – the melty kind like in Cabury caramel eggs or Caramello bars.
Or you could stick with a recurring theme and do cookie dough chocolate cups. Those sound really yummy too.
ohh i love making the fruit creme chocolates at christmas. my family always loves the cherry ones the best. they’re not really healthy at all but maybe cck could do something to make them a bit better. the filling is almost like a flavoured butter cream icing but a bit firmer. maybe a fruit flavoured creamy tofu version would work well? you could either use real cherries or maybe the cherry flavouring instead.
A caramel cup sounds great! Katie, didn’t you want to recreate that caramel sauce from your vacation in NY anyway? That would be great in chocolate cups!!!
WOW. Chocolate and coconut is a dynamit combo. I am absolutely trying this. Thanks for the fun recipe that doesn’t require the oven 🙂
hmmm, probably peanut butter, but with something mixed in, like bits of marshmallow, or dried raspberries, strawberries or bananas!
this combo sounds amazing! I love chocolate and strawberries 🙂
It won’t let me see the nutrition.
Um….. You could do double chocolate…. except I think you could not keep the chocolate inside melted when you froze it 😛 Have you every thought about trying to put ice-cream in it??
omggggg ice cream inside?! Epic idea.
Since I love chocolate covered strawberries, I would love a strawberry chocolate cup! (I don’t think you could use peanut butter . . . but macadamia nut or cashew butter, perhaps?)
http://www.pincookie.com/inside-out-chocolate-filled-strawberries/
I just made these with raspberries – just smashed up raspberries with no nut butter. They were lovely just as they were.
Strawberries and yogurt inside!
These look great! I think a nutella filling would be delicious. 🙂 Lots of chocolate flavor in that one! 🙂
I agree too!