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Vanilla Toasted Coconut Bars

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Dude… it’s been rough times at my house. While Andy and Zoe were in Colorado for a few days I got glutened and I’m still dealing with it. Then after we picked them up at the airport yesterday Ashley got the stomach flu, poor baby. Ginger is either feeling under the weather now, or just tired, it’s too soon to tell. My mind is racing with healing foods to help us all replenish!

Meanwhile I wanted to share these Vanilla Toasted Coconut Bars. They are really simple to make, and so satisfying. They’re also very nutrient dense, which makes me happy.

I used lightly toasted coconut in the ones above, but you could add other ingredients to the base, or even change the base. For instance, we also made a mock-peanut variation by substituting SunButter for the almond butter. I’ll include both variations we’ve made so far in the recipe (below).

When our family is traveling we like to maintain the kind of diet we eat at home. We don’t want to be eating lots of high carb, high sugar, highly processed gluten-free foods. I pack these bars (in a container with a lid) on ice packs in the cooler (the cooler which seriously never leaves my trunk 🙂 ) since they will melt if they become warm. They’re perfect for camping or road trips!

Vanilla Toasted Coconut Bars

Ingredients

2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup melted coconut cream concentrate (also called coconut butter or coconut manna)
1/2 cup soft pitted medjool dates
1/4 cup almond butter
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon vanilla stevia (to your taste)

  1. Toast shredded unsweetened coconut at 350 degrees, stirring every few minutes until golden colored. Set aside.
  2. Add coconut butter, dates, almond butter, water, vanilla, salt, and stevia to food processor. Puree. Note: You may need a couple more tablespoons of water, depending on how dry your nut butter is. Add extra water slowly so your base doesn’t become thin. You want it to look like thick nut butter.
  3. Combine the shredded coconut and the base. Using a flexible spatula (or your hands), press the mixture into a square dish lined with unbleached parchment paper.
  4. Freeze for half an hour then cut into bars and store in the fridge.

Makes about 8 bars.

Mock-Peanut and Chocolate Chip variation:

  1. Omit 1.5 cups of the shredded coconut and all of the sea salt.
  2. Substitute SunButter for the almond butter.
  3. Add 1 cup of salted roasted sunflower seeds and 1/4 cup of dairy-free chocolate chips.

♥, Kelly

Also check out my Sour Cherry Homemade Lara Bars!

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  4. Hi,I’m 12 years old and love to bake gluten and dairy free. I think your idea for a gluten and dairy free cake business is a really fun idea and I would like to try it! I have, from the library, a cookbook with ALL KINDS of gluten free cake recipes that use a cake mix, it’s called The Cake Mix Doctor bakes Gluten free. But I wanted to ask you a few questions. I was wondering, just for some ideas, how and where are you going to sell your cakes? Who will you sell them to, people that are gf/df, or not? I was thinking of making your frosting recipe for the cakes, but I don’t know if I should use expensive ingredients just for people that don’t even need dairy/sugar free. And also, can you use other people’s cookbook recipes to sell according to the Cottage Food Law? I live in Michigan, so it may be different. That’s okay if you don’t know. Thanks so much!!

  5. Kelly I just made these and they turned out awesome! I was looking for an alternative to larabars because they are quite expensive and my husband and I aren’t crazy about them. These are so much tastier. Thanks so much for the recipe!

  6. I just made these today…They are so addictive, I was eating them even from the bowl!! I didn’t have coconut butter, so used regular dairy butter, turned out just right! Delicious! My 22-month old son loves them. He calls them “”Cake”. Will definitely include these in my “healthy snack” repertoire.

  9. Could you increase the coconut butter as a substitute for the nut butter? I would like to use these for school lunches but would have to cut out the nuts…
    😉

    • Maybe, I’m not sure. Maybe you could try SunButter (sunglower seed butter)? That would get around the nut ban, and it would still have a nutbutter texture and flavor.

  12. Thank you for this! We have made this twice now. My two year old calls them “Magic Lara Bars” – ha! We like them better than Lara bars, for sure. We found that they were plenty sweet sans added stevia. Woo-hoo for delicious and easy treats!