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:
How about Nutella peanut butter cups? yummm!!!!
And FYI- the nutrition link isn’t working for me, either.
Caramel. And cookies and cream. and strawberry. and caramel.
In the unlikely event of leftovers, would these need to be stored in the fridge/freezer, or would they keep a few days at room temp?
Freezer
Thanks!
I guess it would keep like two days in the fridge, too?
I guess I wouldn’t like to eat these straight from the freezer! =/
I love incorporating protein powder into your recipes. I recently did a chunky monkey protein bar that was to die for.
I was definitely thinking about blending protein powder in with the banana. Might have to try that… chocolate protein powder, of course :).
peanut butter and maple syrup cups! or the classic peanut butter and jelly could taste wonderful with a chocolatey coating. and although it wouldn’t be my first choice, just throwing something random out there – oatmeal filled cups?
I almost don’t want to make these because I know I’ll eat the whole batch being home alone… dangerous. I think a S’more peanut butter cup would be awesome! I love putting peanut butter on my s’mores so a portable bite sized peanut butter s’more would be pure heaven. YUM!
I love to make PB&J cups. I picked up some chipotle raspberry jelly at the farmers market and when you mix that with crunchy PB and dark chocolate…unbeatable
This sounds absolutely amazing! What a great idea!
Peanut butter chai? I wonder how that would taste. I was going to say green tea, but the pb would definitely overwhelm the green tea. Now I want to try some sort of chocolate-green tea cup 🙂 maybe something like coconut butter mixed with matcha inside of a chocolate cup?
White chocolate and green tea should work. Not too overwhelming…
These look good, healthy and easy!! Love how you used coconut oil, i also love using it in desserts.
This looks so good and so easy! Other ideas for a filling? The ones mentioned by others here all sound good. Some of my favorite ideas: Nutella, lemon or orange cream, cake (regular/pound cake/cheesecake, etc), peanut butter and jelly, trail mix (dried fruit and nuts/seeds), mint, ice cream (any and all flavors), fresh fruits, …the list keeps going. Really, anything that tastes good with chocolate is fair game.
Any kind of citrus cream sounds good to me, but you’ve still got me thinking about a cheesecake one…an hour later! I do miss cheesecake.