Crispety, crunchety, deliciously peanut buttery homemade healthy Butterfingers!
Healthy candy bars that defy all logic
As if by magic, the homemade Butterfingers have that exact same toffee-like crunch of store-bought peanut butter Butterfinger bars!
Yet these are whole-grain, high in iron, vegan friendly, and completely free of high-fructose corn syrup. It’s one of those recipes you really have to try to believe.
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Homemade vegan Butterfingers
The inspiration for these healthy butterfingers came from a dollar-bin cookbook that I saw at the fabric store a few weeks back.
The book recipe, which yielded an 8×8 pan just like mine, called for a full 1 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of corn syrup, and 1/3 cup of shortening!
Yes, 3/4 cup of corn syrup in addition to the cup of sugar…
It was basically screaming for a healthy makeover!
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Healthy Butterfinger recipe video
Screaming so loudly that I had to get to work on the challenge as soon as I got home.
Luckily, this is one of those recipes that turned out perfectly on the first try – they really do taste like actual Butterfinger candy bars!
If you’re looking for a healthy or vegan dessert that will impress even the most skeptical or pickiest of eaters, these healthy Butterfingers are definitely the recipe to try on all your friends.
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In the years since I first posted them here on the blog, it’s become one of the site’s most popular recipes.
Readers often write in to tell me that even their health-food-hating dads, moms, brothers, sisters, girlfriends, or boyfriends love the bars too!
Healthy Butterfingers
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup, honey, or agave (For keto, try these Keto Candy Bars)
- 1 tbsp regular or blackstrap molasses – Or omit and increase agave to 1/3 cup
- 3 1/2 tbsp sugar, unrefined if desired, or additional maple syrup
- 1 cup peanut butter or allergy-friendly sub
- 1 1/2 cups bran flakes or corn flakes, or another flake cereal (56g)
- 1/8 tsp salt, plus a little extra if using unsalted pb
- optional topping: 2/3 cup chocolate chips or 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil mixed with 1/4 cup cocoa powder and vanilla stevia drops or liquid sweetener to taste
Instructions
- Notes: Honey works, but it’s not for strict vegans and will also add a slight honey flavor. Corn syrup will also work, and commenters have said brown rice syrup works as well. If subbing out the molasses, the bars will taste less authentic but still delicious. Almond butter or Sunbutter work, or use peanut butter for the flavor that most closely resembles real Butterfingers.Homemade Butterfingers Recipe: Combine first three ingredients in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil on medium heat. Boil about a minute, stirring constantly, then remove from heat. Add the peanut butter and salt, and stir until it makes a paste. Add the cereal and stir very well to coat, partially crushing the cereal flakes as you stir. Make sure the flakes are very evenly coated. Press into an 8×8 pan—either lined with wax or parchment paper, or greased very well—and freeze until completely hardened. (Cut into bars while only somewhat frozen, or thaw the block a little before cutting.) If you wish to cover in chocolate (they’re good even without it), you can cover them at any time—either pre-cutting or post-cutting. Simply melt the chocolate chips over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth, or mix the coconut oil with the sweetener and cocoa. Then spread over the bars with a spatula and re-freeze to harden. Store in the freezer for optimum “snap.”View Nutrition Facts
Notes
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These Better-Finger bars are simply amazing and easy and living in my freezer right now. (Well, some of them. The ones that are left.) Thank you so much!
Wowowow – these are so good! and all I’ve had is the off cuts from the batch I just made, yum thank you yum.
Katie you will make a great cookbook aruthor.
Im not even vegan a d lose your recipes and ideas. your so creative.
Your oatmeal chocolate has been made in batches of 5 dozen and last 2 days in the house. girlfriend loves them so much i make dough put in the freezer and she eats it un cooked.
Just wanted to tell how great you are.
I love butterfinger in my ice cream with chia seed, cacao nibs, yummmy!
Brian
I made these so delicious! I love all the healthy version of “junk food” now my son can eat these and me too! love them. I used some organic bran flakes that were like 7 grams of fiber!!
Okay, so, I REALLY need to buy some more peanut butter! Butterfingers are like, my second favorite candy. I will SO make these!
These were great! So yummy. I haven’t had Butterfingers in so long that I couldn’t tell you how they compared but they were delicious in their own right. I followed the recipe exactly except I used 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup sunflower seed butter. They were very sweet though. If I wanted to make them less sweet, which sweetener would I cut back on?
These were perfect to satisfy that craving!
Have these freezing up right now – the “batter” was delicious (used brown rice syrup, molasses and regular sugar) but cleaning the saucepan is not going to be fun!
Katie,
I just made these tonight for my parents, husbands and kids and it was such a hit! So easy to make and soooo yummy. I used a mix of honey and agave because I had both. Just felt compelled to share how great it was and I didn’t bother telling my ominivorous family it was a) vegan and b) healthy, just kept it to myself. I can see this being their most frequent dessert request!
Ooops, I just realize I put “husbands”, I don’t have more than one husband, don’t practice polygamy, just wanted to clarify! LOL
These look so good, but I’m living the Atkins lifestyle, so I want to figure out how to make these sugar-free and low-carb, while staying natural. It can be done, just not sure how it could come out w/o the cereal, or what to sub for that cereal…nuts?
This is HEAVEN! I want to marry these bars!
Thank you for this amazing recipe!
I’ve made this a couple of times with almond butter (and no chocolate topping). Tastes like fancy candy!
Thank’s again.
http://lostinkrakow.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/beurre-de-cacahuete-et-chocolat/
Have a good day
I actually used two cups of bran flakes for this recipe and the bars turned out to be more like chewy peanut-butter flavored caramel. I think it needed even more bran flakes to get the texture similar to Butterfingers. Did anyone else have this issue?
I used 1 1/2 cups. I liked the texture at that amount, but would not say the texture is similar to butterfinger. But I prefer it this way – I like the taste of butterfinger but not the texture so much.
Yes, I did a bit too. I am going to let them freeze longer and see what happens. I commented way below on how mine turned out. Basically I want even more crunch, and a bit less PB flavour.
How fabulous is this? Thanks!
As someone who’s a huge fan of butterfinger bars (but rarely eats them because woe, the calories!), I can hardly wait to try this recipe out!