What We Ate Wednesday--Healthy Butterfingers

Hello lovelies! Lately we have been looking at healthy nutrient dense recipes, but as Halloween is today, I thought I would share a sweet recipe that we have fallen in love with. When I was in the US visiting my lovely daughter in February, we made a recipe that involved peanut butter, lots of sugar and lots of corn syrup and rice krispies cereal. It was so good that we made it twice. But it was crazy high in sugar. Or maybe I was just crazy high after eating two batches. Who knows. Anyway, I saw this recipe on CHOCOLATE COVERED KATIE’s blog for Healthy Butterfingers and knew I had to try it.

We were not disappointed. It is not ridiculously easy like PEANUT BUTTER CUPS as it involves 1 extra step but they are still super easy to make. Last night Spiderman says—all casual like—“Did you say these were easy to make? “ I replied, “Yes, quite easy. Why?” To which he just shoved the remainder of the Healthy Butterfingers into his mouth and made puppy eyes at me. So I know that’s a vote for having them again.  

It does have three kinds of sweetener but all of them together only add up to about 7 TB rather than a cup of sugar and a cup of corn syrup. Plus 1 TB is molasses (Blackstrap if you can get it) which is very high in both iron and calcium. Perhaps this makes them "Betterfingers"? The chocolate coating is completely optional. I used it this time as I had a 100g chocolate bar to melt, but it would be equally delicious without it.

you can even use them as building blocks 

Healthy Butterfingers

Ingredients

1/4 cup liquid sweetener like agave or maple syrup or golden syrup (I used the last one as it has a butterscotch sort of taste)

1 tbsp regular or blackstrap molasses 

3 TB demerara sugar (I used 1.5 TB demerara sugar with stevia)

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: 100g chocolate bar, melted or 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil mixed with 1/4 cup cocoa powder and liquid sweetener to taste

Instructions

1. 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.

2.Add the peanut butter and salt to the melted sugary syrup 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. 

3.Press into an 8×8 pan lined with wax or parchment paper (careful as it is warm) and freeze for about 10 minutes then cut into bars and pop back in the freezer until completely frozen. If you want to add the chocolate, then just freeze and don't cut yet. 

4. If you wish to cover in chocolate then simply melt the chocolate chips over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth, or mix the melted coconut oil with the sweetener and cocoa. Then spread over the bars with a spatula, cut your bars and pop back in the freezer to harden.

5. When solid, carefully remove from pan and store in an airtight container. Store in the fridge. Or freezer if you like a bit more “snap.”

Now Chocolate Covered Katie says it makes 12 to 16 bars. LOL and ROTFL and all those cliché internet acronyms, We cut it into 8 as we are greedy vegans.

Enjoy And have a spook-tacular Halloween