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:
This probably is my dream PB cup flavor, along with PB itself or coconut.
BUT I also adapted this recipe to make NEOPOLITAN CUPS! Follow instructions as above, except after freezing the base, add a tsp or so of Silk Vanilla Creamer, freeze until firm, then top with a spoonful of Trader Joe’s strawberry coconut milk ice cream, THEN top with remaining chocolate sauce and freeze again till firm.
You could also make BANANA SPLIT CUPS this way by using a little less of the vanilla and strawberry layers and putting the banana on top before the remainder of the chocolate sauce, and sprinkling with chopped peanuts. 🙂
SO YUMMY!
can you use truvia instead of the stevia drops?
Sorry, I haven’t tried.
Made these, they are fantastic! I added some crumbled walnuts to some of them. The picky boyfriend loved them! Can’t wait to try other flavors.
I will fess up right now that I am obsessed with your blog. I want to make everything on here. Your whole blog is an inspiration and has been the source of many wonderful gluten-free and vegan foods for me! (Spaghetti squash as pasta replacement? Brilliant!) Thank you so much, and please keep it up. And thank you for this adorable and delicious monkey treat. I used 1 tablespoon of maple syrup instead of agave. They were very tasty! I keep them in the freezer, and the banana, when frozen, is the best. Mmm! Very fast, easy recipe.
My favorite part of blogging is when someone actually makes one of the things I’ve posted. Thank YOU! 🙂
These sound amazing; it’s no surprise there were no leftovers. What could be better than Banana Reese’s?
I made these (double batch) for my community choir and they were a bit hit. I had 4 people ask me for the recipe and I’ve sent them to your blog. I made them in the mini cupcake pans but I’m actually going to make them even smaller, more bite size, so there will be more of them and for easier mass consumption! haha. Thanks so much. I plan to make a bunch of your other candies too!
I have a batch of these in the freezer right now. Thank you for this recipe. It was super-easy. I know they are going to taste great because I licked the bowl clean that contained the filling (I used cashew butter with the banana) and the chocolate sauce was awesome, too. Great web site!
I do not recommend making these with canola oil as a substitute for the coconut oil.
I made them last night using olive oil because I didn’t have coconut oil. The result wasn’t terrrible, and it did harden, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. It tasted olivey and very oily. Stick to Katie’s coconut oil, people!
I made these with a sweet peanut butter filling for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I used canola oil. They turned out fine, but more like peanut butter pies cuz they didn’t harden. The chocolate, I mean.
I want to make these the traditional way but with icecream and peanuts too, like the comment higher up. Those would be awesome!!