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:
just finished up my take on a “mocha” monkey bite…”icecream” made from frozen banana, instant coffee crystals and cocoa powder. Inside the chocolate. Best thing I’ve had in a long while…trying to ignore the remainder of the batch in the freezer…Thanks, Katie!!!!
Those photos are gorgeous. I expected these to be filled with coconut though! I bet a peanut butter coconut cup would be an amazing duo.
lol at chunks of monkey…
as for a peanut butter cup flavor…i think a good filling would be Peanut Butter & Co.’s White Chocolate Wonderful
I think I want to make these with raspberry filling. That would be pretty intense.
You should make gingerbread peanut butter cups! Or any flavor, really. I’m pretty convinced everything you make is magic.
Ooh, gingerbread peanut butter sounds good!
I like the Nutella, cookie dough, and caramel ideas that other people suggested! 🙂
This seems like the kind of recipe that I would make and no one would no about it because I would eat them all. Probably a bad idea =/
I make something similar for Christmas with rice pufs, maybe not the healthiest, but virgin coconut oil and raw chocolat is, now I will try your banana and nut cups Thank you.
How about a smores pb cup?
Or one with almond butter and cherry?
so not into bananas 🙁
I would love to see a raspberry-cream version! maybe with cashews and frozen raspberries??
Carob powder works great too! Yum!!