Chocolate Cherry Bars with Coconut

Nanaimo bars have long been a favourite of mine – something I look for particularly at Christmas. However in experimenting with how I might make them more Eat2Run friendly, I got a little off track – and ended up with these Chocolate Cherry Bars, which are absolutely delicious not to mention contain three of the top five Eat2Run foods! I’ll get around to Namaimo bars again later… Or maybe not, now that I have these 😉

Makes 16 squares (one 8×8″ pan)

Ingredients 
Chocolate base

• ½ cup grass fed butter (or coconut oil)
• ½ cup raw cacao powder
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 2 Tbsp honey (or brown rice syrup)
• 1 egg, beaten (or 2 Tbsp chia seeds)
• 1 cup ground rolled oats (ground in a blender or food processor)
• 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• ½ cup hemp hearts
• ½ cup chopped almonds (optional)

Cherry top

• 1 cup dried tart cherries
• ½ cup tart cherry juice
• ½ cup coconut butter (or coconut mana)
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 2 Tbsp honey (or brown rice syrup)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ¼ cup grass fed butter (or coconut oil)

Directions

1. Soak the dried tart cherries with the tart cherry juice overnight in the fridge.
2. For the chocolate base, heat the butter (or coconut oil), maple syrup and honey over medium heat in a heavy saucepan. Whisk in cacao.
3. Add the egg, whisking while doing so (or chia), and whisk for 1 minute. Remove from heat.
4. Fold in the ground oats, shredded coconut, hemp hearts and almonds.
5. Press this mixture into a parchment paper lined 8×8 baking dish. Place in fridge.
6. For the cherry top, place the soaked tart cherries with juice in a food processor. Add the maple syrup and honey and process until smooth and creamy.
7. Put the sweetened tart cherry mixture into a saucepan over medium heat, and add coconut butter (or mana), butter (or oil) and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.
8. Pour the topping over the base and smooth. Sprinkle with ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut. Refrigerate until set (about 3 hours).

To deliciously healthy food and stronger faster running… Cheers,

Sarah J Cuff, RHN