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) (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.
Links Of The Day:
(How to make it the EASY way)
YUM – made these bars a few days ago and they ARE delicious. I used regular chocolate (Nestle) for the choc chips and the full 2/3 cup or slightly more. For the protein powder (I’m in NZ) I used Sculpt brand. Very fudgey and moreish and they feel good to eat! If that makes sense.
They never really dried out for me in the fridge and don’t have any chewy or crunchy crust (though I didn’t expect that), so next time I will either cook them a little longer (I did 16 mins) or add a bit more protein powder to make them drier. YUM. Will definitely make again!!!
I don’t remember any class trips. I don’t think they did them as much when I was in school as they do now. I love this recipe! I have tried myself and failed every time before. I ran out of vanilla so I added mint and sprinkled chopped pecans on top. Mint chocolate nut, mmmmmm.
yum these look amazing, I just made some carrot cake protein bars and i’m in the mood for baking cookies! Do you think this recipe would hold together as cookies instead of brownies??
The batter is all liquid, not cookie doughish at all. However, once cooked and cooled overnight, I cut them 6 x 6 and now have 36 delectable little super chocolatey incredible protein bites! And they ARE incredible! Great recipe CCK
thanks for the heads up!
Oh my goodness. I completely disregarded the part of the instructions that said to refrigerate overnight. I tried them warm from the oven and now a quarter of the pan is gone! These are amazing and taste just like a brownie! Thanks for another great recipe!
Hi Katie,
Question…..
I am on WW. When 3 points seemed to good to be true, I plugged all the ingredients into WW recipe builder. Each bar ended up being 7 points each! Could you please share how you arrived at 3?
Thanks so much. I love your site and have made many of your recipes.
Blessings~~angela in maryland
I use this for calculations: http://www.calculatorcat.com/free_calculators/weight_watchers_calculator.phtml
Oh my word!! these are potentially one of the mot delicious dessert-y, things i have ever tasted, and thats saying a lot, because I do Love my dessert.:p Despite being healthy and preservative free protein bars, they boast a completely fudge brownie, almost shortbread-y taste! They are stupendous!!!:)
I subbed the chocolate chips for carob chips, and that gave a neat flavour variation.
Thank you for this awesome recipe. Best protein bar I’ve made to date. I mixed it in my Blendtec and they turned out great!
Katie, just had to tell you, I made the protein bars yesterday. I had planned to have them on hand this week for snacks. Well, they didn’t make it past yesterday. My 21 yr old son who turns his nose up at my “healthy” desserts, devoured them! I finally told him what they were made of(hoping to be able to enjoy some of them this week) his reply was, “oh cool, these are great” Then my husband tried them and my diabetic brother tried them, needless to say, I managed a couple of small bars and the crumbs in the dish. So, I will be making more of these and maybe hiding a few???? Thank you, thank you for your healthy desserts!
I made the fudge brownie chocolate protein bars! SO delicious! I then made two more batches and started adding more things to them! (banana, craisins, walnuts, coconut flakes, oats, flax seed, and a little almond milk to soften it up a bit in the processor) You can do anything with this recipe! Thank you so much!
Hey, do you think it’s possible to make these without the black beans? I really truly cannot stand black beans but love everything else in this recipe!!! Cheers, Stana.
Hey Katie!
As much as I loved the flavor of these they don’t hold together! I took a couple out of the pan after they had cooled and they “gooed” all over the place. I popped the rest of the pan in the fridge, but they are still soft. I followed the directions exactly… Am I missing a trick?
Angie
If you let them cool and then let sit at least 5 hours in the fridge uncovered, you will not have a problem cutting them. At least that’s what I did when I made the recipe and they turned out very well.
Hey, just wanted to share my experience. I love these bars, but I have to bake them at least 23 minutes. I set my timer for that, and then check them until they look almost done in the middle. It took some trial and error, but I found that if it’s still totally batter thin in the middle, chilling them does NOT help them firm up, they need to bake longer.
Oh. My. Goodness. This is the first recipe of yours that I’ve ever made and it was amazing–I’m pretty sure I love these more than Ghirardelli brownies. 🙂 Also…I may have eaten the entire pan in two days…oops. Will definitely be making more of your recipes!
Will any bean have the same effect? If I wanted to use a kidney, white, pink bean instead of black bean? If it’s pink, my boys may be less likely to eat my stash.
That would be fine.
Holy smokes! I was skeptical about the black beans but this recipe is DELICIOUS! I had to stop myself from eating them all out of the pan! Thanks for the fabulous recipe – I’ve tried to make MANY protein bars and this one is the best by far!
I just made these and I used the same pan size and they were much thinner! But they still taste really good.
I decided to try these out because I wanted to look into cheaper alternatives to expensive 5-packs of protein/energy bars that I’ll go through within a few days. Being young, I have a really fast metabolism but (unfortunately?) a small stomach. So I can’t eat a full meal in one sitting. I have to eat smaller portions, feel full, and then feel hungry again a half hour later. My eating schedule is pretty much constantly grazing/eating at nontraditional hours. If I don’t get enough food or nutrients in a day, I’ll get sick.
Geeze I accidentally hit ‘enter’ before I wanted to. Anyways: I just made ’em, and they’re currently in the fridge overnight. Though while I bought some store brand whey protein powder (since I’m not vegan), and I also found some multi-vitamin shake mix on sale and have decided to use it for this batch.
I kinda just put a big handful and a half (or something) of milk chocolate chips in there because I could. Probably a good amount of sugar but I think I can take it. I’m probably going to drizzle some chocolate syrup over them in the morning.
I’m also going check out this recipe tomorrow (college is closed due to snow!) and substitute peanut butter/etc with Nutella: http://ohsheglows.com/2013/08/29/quick-n-easy-no-bake-protein-bars/
Thanks for the recipe!