I love caramel slices, or millionaire’s shortbread as some know it. There’s nothing more indulgent for me than a caramel slice with a cup of tea on an afternoon. I love these so much I decided to try a clean version. With the clean version of a lot of things I am almost setting myself up for a completely different taste, because after all they are not loaded with sugar and often do taste very different. But trust me, I was pleasantly surprised when these were just as indulgent as their sugar counterparts. These are clean enough to give to kids as a treat too and you can cut smaller pieces, my Noah loves them! And the added bonus is that they are raw – no cooking needed!

You can use any of your favourite nut butters in this recipe, just make sure it is natural. I used my favourite Meridian Peanut and Coconut butter. I also used a little less coconut oil because of this so you may want to add an extra spoon. The caramel in this is quite sweet but if you use 70% or more dark chocolate, then the bitterness of this will balance out the taste.
The caramel slices are best enjoyed straight from the freezer or left at room temperature for about 15 minutes. The caramel tends to get too soft if they are left out for too long or indeed in the fridge. These are also really hard to cut without the chocolate breaking, the trick is to drag the knife rather than cutting downwards.  Although nobody seems to mind when mine are broken!

Ingredients

70% dark chocolate

Caramel:
2 cups medjool dates
3 tbsp nut butter
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp melted coconut oil
1 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 cup unsweetened almond milk

Biscuit Base:
50g coconut flour
50g ground almonds
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp melted coconut oil

Method:

Mix the coconut flour and ground almonds in a bowl. Add the maple syrup and coconut oil and kneed the ingredients together until you have a kind of dough consistency. Press the mixture into a baking tray. I use a 2 inch non-stick baking tray for this but you can use a bread tin also. If you are not using non-stick then line with baking paper beforehand. When you have finished, put the baking tin in the freezer and move on to making the caramel filling.

Soften the medjool dates in warm water before pitting them and putting them into a food processor or high speed blender (I use a Nutri Pro 1000w). If you are using a high speed blender like me, I usually just blitz all the ingredients at once. Mine is quite the little powerful machine at 1000 watts. If you are using something a little slower, blend the medjool dates first, then add the wet ingredients and blend again, add the dry and blitz everything until you have a smooth (not runny) paste.

Take the baking tray out of the freezer after about 20 minutes and top with the caramel mixture. Place into the freezer again for another 20 minutes.

Melt the chocolate using a bain-marie method to ensure you don’t burn it. Take the baking tray from the freezer, pour over the melted chocolate and smooth it out evenly over the top. Place the baking tray in the freezer again until the chocolate hardens.
(also delicious with some sea salt sprinkled on top before you pop them in).

Now stick the kettle on while you wait for the chocolate to set and prepare to indulge!