Chocolate protein bars that are rich, chocolatey, fudgy, gooey, and sinfully delicious.
3 Steps To Instant Popularity:
First, take a class trip to a remote location. Bonus points if the trip lasts more than a week, and double bonus points if the trip includes multiple bus rides of 5 hours or more.
Second, bring along a stash of chocolate protein bars large enough to feed a small army.
Third, wait patiently. By day 6, it is almost guaranteed your tired and hungry classmates will clamor for your attention and fight over who gets to sit next to you.
At least… this is the experience I had at age 16 when–equipped with raisins, cashews, and a bunch of Luna and Clif bars–I went on a 10-day class field trip to northern China.
The trip involved quite a lot of walking in the heat, packing up and changing locations almost daily, and many long and boring bus rides, with not nearly enough food to sustain the energy expended on all of these activities.
Somehow word got out that Katie had a secret stash of food in her suitcase, and by the end of the trip I was breaking each protein bar into eight or ten pieces so there’d be enough to go around.
What was the best class field trip you ever took… or what was the worst?
Due to all of the incredible memories made during my ten days in northern China, I look back on the trip as one of the best school field trips I ever took.
However at the time, when we were hiking through the freezing-cold mountains at 5am, eating unfamiliar foods (including a goat we’d seen alive earlier in the day), and going out of our minds with boredom on the tour bus, I probably would have told you it was the absolute worst trip I ever took!
Chocolate Protein Bars
Adapted from Black Bean Brownies
Fudge Brownie Chocolate Protein Bars
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups black beans (1 15-oz can, drained and rinsed very well) (250g after draining)
- 3 tbsp dutch or regular cocoa powder (15g)
- 7 tbsp chocolate protein powder (I used Nutribiotic)Â (45g)
- scant 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup or agave or honey (Honey is not for strict vegans.) (75g)
- pinch pure stevia, or 2 tbsp sugar of choice
- 3 1/2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil (35g)
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/3 cup to 2/3 cup chocolate chips (Not optional; omit at your own risk.)
Instructions
Homemade Chocolate Protein Bars: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients except chips in a high-quality food processor, and blend until absolutely and completely smooth. (A blender works if you absolutely must, but the texture and taste will be much better in a food processor.) Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 8×8 square pan. Optional: sprinkle extra chocolate chips over the top. Cook the homemade chocolate protein bars 16 minutes. They will still look underdone when you take them from the oven, but this is okay. Let cool, then pat down with a pancake spatula. Refrigerate overnight. The bars will have firmed up and are now ready to cut and eat. Store leftovers in the refrigerator. Makes about 10 bars.
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Links Of The Day:
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(How to make it the EASY way)
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Katie…these sounds awesome. Have you ever thought about making some of your great recipes and selling them retail? I would def. buy these. I know, sounds lazy…….nuf said. =)
I am about to make these IN China 🙂 Not on a class trip, but I am in need of chocolate anyways!
Katie, Love your site! just thought I’d let you know! I think you are adorable.Thanks for all your great recipes.
I just finished making the batter and putting it in the baking dish. I asked my husband for help in putting all the ingredients in. When saw what was going in he asked what kind of voodoo I was doing. Lol he wasn’t expecting to see those ingredients together! I have to say that the batter alone tastes pretty darn good! I’m looking forward to the final result!
Love the note on omitting the chocolate chips at one’s own risk! Cleary your history with chocolate and bars has been long and illustrious, Katie! 😉 These look delish!
xo,
Shirley
Thanks for the recipe. As someone who currently lives in China, I am always looking for creative ways to use our stash of protein powder. I can actually find all the other ingredients here. Not a small miracle.
I was looking at the nutrition facts, do you happen to know what the saturated fat is from? Is it just the chocolate chips or does something else have sat. fat in it?
The coconut oil does — if you ever see the stuff, it’s solid at room temp, haha! (at least if you live somewhere coldish!)
Amazing post! reminds me of the internship I did in Africa. I was the only one who brought an emergency supply of peanut butter and Kind bars. My colleagues were very jealous after eating the same mushy kale and dried out bony chicken for days, needless to say I refused to share because of my food sensitivities and these were the few things I could eat safetly!
Omg!! Just made these and had a sneaky taste of the mixture before putting it in the tin and boy was it delicious!! Cannot wait for these to firm up so I can have a whole bar!! Yum!
Katie! Katie! I did something really exciting and I wanted to share with you!
I just adapted your skinny vanilla cupcake recipe (which is my favorite recipe by far) to just one serving and made it in a mug. It tastes sooooo delicious, and just as good as the oven-baked cupcakes! If you want the recipe, I would love to write it for you!
Sure! 🙂
Tried this recipe yesterday! These are are delishious, it tastes nothing like beans! I subbed nutrisystem creamy chocolate protein powder instead of the rice and I used honey too! One of your best recipes!
I made these last night and have gobbled down two already today. They are delish. I couldn’t find a chocolate protein powder on my way home last night so I just used my regular hemp powder and added an extra tbs of the cocoa. Still tastes wonderful. Thank you for this recipe, I think it is going to become one of my staples. A great alternative when I crave a brownie/fudgey hit of chocolate.
I made these last night. Had a bar about 30 min before my run and cranked out 7 miles like it was my job! Perfect tasty little bite of energy! Thanks!
I’m very excited about this recipe. My boyfriend is marathon training at the moment (& I will be next spring) and he always buys protein bars for after his 20+milers, but I would love to make them for him instead! The only problem is that we live in Germany and I can’t seem to find black beans anywhere. I have chick peas and butter beans, do you think these will substitute in okay? maybe I’ll give it a go and see what happens.
P.s.absolutely adore this blog.
I’m very excited about this recipe. My boyfriend is marathon training at the moment (& I will be next spring) and he always buys protein bars for after his 20+milers, but I would love to make them for him instead! The only problem is that we live in Germany and I can’t seem to find black beans anywhere. I have chick peas and butter beans, do you think these will substitute in okay? maybe I’ll give it a go and see what happens.
P.s.absolutely adore this blog.
You can always experiment!
After not being able to find black beans in Germany, I experimented a bit and they turned out perfect using red kidney beans 🙂 however I did discovery that they are far superior made with chocolate protein powder compared to vanilla protein powder.
I made a very close variation. I am not vegan, so I used whey protein powder and added one egg. I put little dollops of peanut butter and chocolate chips on top prior to baking. My husband who does not eat legumes of ANY kind EVER–ate two Chocolate protein bars! Thanks Katie for another wonderful recipe!
My daughter and I made these this past weekend. I was blown away!! My daughter will not eat beans and I could not stop her to trying to eat all of the bars. They were awesome!!
Thank you so much for coming up with these great recipes!! The kids will not even know they are healthy for them!! I love it!!