Another chocolate recipe?
My goodness, you’d think this was some sort of chocolate-covered blog.
Oh wait; that’s right. It is.
The first time I tried a Larabar, I didn’t really like it. My mistake was in choosing a cherry-flavored bar. Someone should’ve shaken me and said, Hello! Of course you didn’t like it, Katie. It has no chocolate!”
When I tried a Jocalat chocolate Larabar, it was love at first bite. As a busy college student with no time to bake brownies, these bars offered a quick cure for my chocolate cravings (or a stopgap anyway. I doubt I will ever find a cure for my chocoholism… but that’s perfectly ok with me!)
Recently, I’ve been having trouble locating Jocalats. Thank goodness I know how to make my own chocolate Larabars.
Plus, they’re cheaper than store-bought and save packaging too.
Hot Fudge Brownie Larabars
Based on the recipe for Fudge Babies.
- 1 cup walnuts (120 g)
- 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (220 g) (I love SunMaid dates, as they’re much softer.)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 3-4 tbsp cocoa powder (or even Dutch cocoa)
- optional: 1/8 plus 1/16 tsp salt (I always add it)
- optional: chocolate chips or even a piece of a chocolate bar or baking chocolate
Blend all the ingredients, using a food processor or Magic Bullet. No need to blend the dates first; I just blend everything all at once in my MB. If you use drier dates than SunMaid, you might have to add up to 1 tbsp water. Form into bars. It might help to put dough in a plastic bag and close the bag, then shape into a bar. (Feel free to experiment with different nut combinations. I often sub almonds or cashews for some of the walnuts.)
Click for more flavors: Homemade Larabar Recipes.
What are your favorite Larabar flavors?
One of my favorite homemade larabar flavors: Homemade Oatmeal Cookie Larabars.
As for the real Larabars, my favorite flavors are the plain chocolate Jocalats and the cookie dough Larabars. I love making up my own flavors and am thinking chocolate-raspberry might have to be next! Any other flavor suggestions for homemade Larabar recipes you’d like to see?
I made these as soon as I discovered them on your site. They are amazing. I took them to a vegan potluck and we all voted on best recipe. Of course these won.Thanks! I’m so happy to have found your site and look forward to making some more goodies:)
Wow, I can’t even tell you how much that made me smile!
So, you have me making all kinds of lara bars. I have wiped out my dried fruit, and chocolate stock and almost my whole nut stock. Today, inspired by this recipe I made a chocolate covered cherry lara bar w/ cashews…So yum! Thanks again for the inspiration, I have seen other lara bar recipes on other blogs, but they all seemed blah to me…but you added the missing ingredient…Chocolate! Thanks!
LOL those are the only real Larabar flavors I like… the ones with chocolate!! 🙂
I made these last night and they are seriously amazing. I’ll be sharing this recipe with everyone. Instead of walnuts, I made a batch with only cashews. I also made another batch with 3/4 cashews and 1/4 peanuts. Using a little bit of chocolate chips, it tastes like a chocolate chip peanut butter cup 🙂 Even my hard to please husband loves them! Looking forward to making more soon!
Hi Katie. My 4yr and 2yr old girls cannot get enough of these! I have to make sure the fridge is stocked with them on a lower shelf so they can “sneak” them out every morning right when they wake up! It’s fun for them to make them into the babies balls too! Thank you so much!
Hi! I have a nut allergy, and I was wondering if you have any suggestions for a nut substitution. I also just wanted to let you know that I read your reason for not having a “nut free” section, and I appreciate your sensitivity to the difficulty in finding nut free products 🙂 Thanks!!
Try the Samoas Larabars! 🙂
https://lett-trim.today/2011/08/18/girl-scout-cookie-larabars/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Thank you so much! 🙂
Katie I just made these and your Girl Scout cookie Larabars and they are SO AMAZING. You are seriously the best. Can’t wait to make them for my mom, we love Clif bars and Larabars but they’re so expensive! So glad we have a cheaper, easy to make alternative now. You are a wizard, Katie. Keep up the amazing work.
PS this week I’m on spring break so guess who is going to be making a lot of these recipes? Thank goodness I have a wonderful church youth group and college and career group to give away the results to. I’ll let you know what they think and I won’t tell anyone that they’re healthy or vegan up front, just to see what they say. So excited. =)
Aw you’re too sweet!!
LOL good luck… I hope they like the recipes!
I made your delicious HFB Larabars! One problem I had was with forming the bars. Mine fell apart easily. When I blended them they seemed to dry to be able to form so I added a bit more vanilla. They still aren’t a firm bar. Any ideas?
They taste incredible btw. My own little healthy candy bar!
I highly recommend sunmaid dates, because they’re much softer and tend to be stickier!
i made these last nite! deelish!!! BUT throwing everything into my MB was ‘interesting’!! lol i had to break it down into batches and mix dates with already mixed mess. still worth every little bit of trouble. i rolled them into balls and i’m eating one right now!! yummm
Just made this recipe last night and they were a hit. I love your recipes!
We just call these date-nut bars here, and I make a huge roll to cut into bite-sized pieces every major holiday. They are delicious! 🙂
so yummy
I just made these with 1/2 walnuts, 1/2 hazelnuts…hello, nutella larabars!! Sooo good!
i would love to see you make a larabar that instead of sticking it together with dates you stick it together with the melted chocolate
yum yum yum. i LOVE these! made them over the weekend and i just ate a bite of one right now! a brownie, you ask, at 9 in the morning? yes! because it’s all good stuff! thanks!!
I just made these, eating them now. My 3 kids (ages 2,3 and 7) LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I shaped them into balls to make myself think I was eating truffles. Very good! I will try the peanut butter ones next and I will probably triple the batch bc this one is already almost gone, didn’t last 10 minutes with my kids. I will have to hide some in the freezer next time to have on hand for snacks. My daughter said she wants them every week. I used ghiradelli (sp?) cocoa and added chocolate chips.
I just made these a few days ago and they are gone. All eaten by me! And I LOVE THEM! Thank you so much! I’m so excited to try more of your recipes!