Vegan & Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now you'll have to forgive me for posting almost the same recipe as my last post but I've developed a gluten-free version of the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and these are SO good I had to get this recipe up right away :-) Recently my husband has been suspecting gluten, or at least wheat, is possibly causing him some problems. I've been having fun adapting recipes and making gluten-free meals at dinner but I also knew I had to make those cookies gluten-free for him. I mean they JUST came into our lives!!

I am so happy with how these turned out, I suspect no one would guess these are vegan let alone gluten-free. Now I don't have a lot, or any, experience with gluten-free baking but hey - these worked! I've simply swapped the flour with a mixture of gluten-free oat flour and cornstarch here and that's all they needed. The oats give a great oatmeal cookie kind of flavour which goes wonderfully with the peanut butter and chocolate. As you can see, I've also crammed these cookies with the highest possible amount of chocolate chips that could fit in there! Of course, you can always reduce them but I'm not sure why you would want to do that - ha! ;-)

~ Recipe Notes ~

• It's essential you use certified gluten-free oats or oat flour here, regular oats are not gluten-free. 

• For the oat flour I simply made my own by blending gluten-free oats in my fab Optimum 9400 Blender. It took seconds. You can buy gluten-free oat flour but I would assume my way is a lot cheaper.

• I used regular smooth peanut butter - the type with added sugar and salt here.

• As mentioned above - there are a LOT of chocolate chips in these, if you prefer less simply halve the amount. They'll still taste great :-)

• My vegan butter, peanut butter and chocolate chips were all naturally gluten-free but of course, do check your labels.

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Yields 12 cookies

3 Tbsp vegan butter (45g)
1/3 cup smooth peanut butter (80g)
1½ Tbsp light brown sugar
1½ Tbsp white sugar
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup gluten-free oat flour (60g)
2 Tbsp cornstarch (cornflour in UK/IRE)
1/8 tsp salt
¼ tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 Tbsp water
½ cup vegan dark chocolate chips (100g)

Preheat the oven to 190C / 375F and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a small bowl whisk together the oat flour, cornstarch, salt and baking powder.

In a larger bowl beat the butter and peanut butter together until really smooth. Add the sugars and beat until light and well mixed, beat in the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture with the water and mix until it all comes together. Add the chocolate chips and mix well.

Take about a heaped tablespoon of the dough and using your hands squeeze and roll into a smooth ball then place it on the baking sheet. Repeat until all the dough is used, you should get  12 cookies. 

Using your hand, gently press down on each ball just to flatten slightly then use a potato masher to gently press down again so you get a design on top and they go a little more flat but don't over press!

Pop them into the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are just turning lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the tray for 10 minutes to firm up. Now transfer them to a wire rack to cool (or eat them while nice and warm!)

♥

Nutritional Information: per cookie (with the full amount of chocolate chips)

Calories: 139

Protein: 2.5g

Fat: 8.3g

Sat Fat: 1.3g

Fibre: 1.2g

Carbs: 8.9g

Sugar: 8.9g

Sodium: 67.7mg

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

This was one of those recipes that came out of utter desperation - a sudden crazy craving for peanut butter cookies! I've always loved a good peanut butter cookie, it was always one of my go-to cookie recipes when I was a child - yes, baking at a young age I was :-) 

Here I decided to throw in some chocolate chips for obvious yum reasons and I am so happy with the outcome; seriously one of the best PB cookies I've had, vegan or not! Perfect texture and flavour, dead simple and ready in no time....yay! Hope you like them :-)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Yields 12 cookies

¼ cup vegan butter, softened
¼ cup smooth peanut butter
¼ cup caster or granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup + 2 Tbsp plain flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ heaping cup vegan chocolate chips (50g)

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and peanut butter until well mixed. Add the sugars and vanilla and beat until well mixed and slightly fluffy. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon until no more flour shows then stir in the chocolate chips. The mixture should look slightly crumbly by hold together if you give it a squeeze.

Take about tablespoons full of the mixture and squeeze and roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough, you should get about 12 cookies here. Now take a potato masher and give each one a gentle stamp just to flatten slightly - don't take your frustrations out on them here and pound them into oblivion :-) Just a little stamp down!

Pop them in the oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until lightly golden brown, especially around the edges. Remove from the oven, they will be soft so leave them on the tray for 5 minutes to firm up then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool. 

Note: the 2 missing cookies here were NOT from me being an impatient greedy so and so. Sadly 2 slid off the tray and straight on the floor when I was moving the tray - oh the humanity!

Now, I just slide the baking paper with the cookies onto my wire rack. Let cool slightly and either enjoy warm with melty chocolate loveliness or wait until they are fully cool. Lovely with a glass of ice cold almond milk :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1 cookie out of 12

Calories: 132
Fat: 6.5g
Sat Fat: 1.2g
Protein: 2.0g
Fibre: 0.8g
Carbs: 14.5g
Sugar: 10.7g
Sodium: 134mg

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Butterscotch Cashew Nut Haystacks & Chocolate Hazelnut Haystacks

A couple recipe variations on the Chocolate Peanut Butter Coconut Haystacks from awhile ago. First, Butterscotch Cashew Nut Haystacks and.....

I often make the chocolate peanut butter coconut haystacks when I need a sweet hit as they are so easy to whip up, require no baking and are absolutely delicious. However, I've been wanting to cut out the white sugar, or at least try to and not only do they call for white sugar but on the day I needed them I also had no cocoa powder. Tragedy!

So, out of that catastrophe came the butterscotch cashew nut haystacks. Peanut butter has been swapped with cashew nut butter, coconut replaced with toasted chopped cashews and the white sugar with dark brown sugar. Yes, I know - they still have a lot of sugar. I'm not quite ready for my sweet treats to be sweetened solely with dates or some other kind of madness (I jest!) Give me time....LOTS of time ;-) But they are a bit healthier and definitely delicious.

Eventually I restocked my cocoa powder, well, within a couple of hours as it's cocoa powder, hello?? That requires an emergency run to the grocery store! As I was so impressed with the addition of nuts to these I made a chocolate hazelnut version which my husband has claimed to be his absolute favourite of the three.

So, a couple new versions for you to try and even to experiment with your own variations. Just keep the quantities the same and swap away!

Butterscotch Cashew Nut Haystacks:

40g vegan butter

150g dark brown sugar

40ml unsweetened almond milk

40g cashew butter, all natural – unsweetened and no salt added

70g oats 

60g unsalted cashews, chopped and toasted

2 tsp vanilla extract

tiny pinch of salt

Chocolate Hazelnut Haystacks:

40g vegan butter

150g golden caster sugar (or any type of sugar)
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

40ml unsweetened almond milk

40g hazelnut butter, all natural – unsweetened and no salt added

70g oats 

60g unsalted hazelnuts, chopped and toasted

2 tsp vanilla extract

tiny pinch of salt

Both yield about 12 haystacks depending on what size you prefer.

Instructions for either recipe:

Line a chopping board or flat plate with baking or parchment paper and set aside.

In a small frying pan add the chopped cashews/hazelnuts and toast until lightly golden brown.

In a medium sized bowl add the oats, nuts, cashew or hazelnut butter and salt. Don't mix it - just set it aside.

In a small saucepan add the butter, sugar (cocoa powder for the hazelnut version) and milk. Stir and slowly bring to the boil, if it starts to boil before the butter melts then turn the heat down. Keep stirring and once the butter and sugar have melted, turn the heat up to high to bring it to a rolling boil. Once at a rolling boil, stop stirring and let it boil for exactly 1 minute. Now, take it off the heat and give it a good vigorous stir until it is no longer foamy. Add the vanilla and mix well - it will sizzle a bit. 

Scrape it all into the oat mixture and quickly give it a really good mix until the nut butter and everything is very well blended.

Working quickly as these will set pretty fast, take a tablespoon of the mixture and drop them onto the paper lined board/plate. Use another spoon to push them off - not your fingers as the mixture will be VERY hot! .....God I'm such a mom sometimes...

Once they are all on the sheet pop it into the fridge for them to cool and fully set. They set pretty fast, about an hour.

Tip - get some hot water into the saucepan now for easy cleaning :-)

Nutritional Information: per haystack, either recipe (they are more or less the same)

Calories: 148

Protein: 2.4g

Fat: 7.9g

Sat Fat: 1g

Carbs: 18.4g

Sugar: 12.9g

Fibre: 1.8g

Sodium: 157mg

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Irish Potato Candy

Monkey Squares

Ginger & Spice Cakies

Yes! Cakies - kind of a cookie, kind of a cake...kind of a marriage made in heaven ;-) I was after a very soft cake like cookie with all the flavour of gingerbread and these hit the spot perfectly, especially with a little drizzle of vanilla glaze on them! They are also a great addition to the holiday baking season, now fervently upon us :-) 

I based the recipe on a recipe in my old childhood favourite cookie cook book, Scholastic's "The Cookie Book" - I've referenced it before on the blog, it was purchased about 1983 through my school and I do still use it! If anyone else in Canada remembers this book, do let me know :-)

In the book these were called "Molasses Cookies" and the name must have put me off as I never made them. They were descibed as soft and a quick read of the ingredients indicated this recipe was probably just what I was after, a big soft gingerbread spiced cookie.

Naturally I made a few changes: omitted the egg altogether (and it wasn't missed), omitted the raisins, swapped the molasses for Golden Syrup and added a drizzle of vanilla glaze. Now, I love molasses but I was after a more delicate flavoured cookie here, molasses can sometimes overpower things I find. Plus, I already have a gingerbread recipe I absolutely adore and make every Christmas and didn't want something similar here. 

That being said, I know Golden Syrup is hard to find (if at all) for those in North America so molasses can be used instead. You will end up with a darker cookie with a different taste to these but I have no doubt they will still taste great :-

Ginger & Spice Cakies:

-makes 15 cookies

1/4 cup / 50g vegan butter

1/4 cup / 60g golden caster sugar, granulated is fine too
1/4 cup / 90g Golden Syrup
1/4 cup / 60ml unsweetened soy milk
3/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup / 200g plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Glaze:
1/2 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)
2 - 3 tsp unsweetened dairy free milk (I used almond milk here)
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.

Measure out the soy milk and add the vinegar. Give it a stir then set aside to curdle. In another bowl mix together the flour, salt and spices - set aside.

In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until well mixed. Add the syrup and mix well. Add the baking soda to the milk and vinegar mixture and give it a stir, it should get a little foamy. Add this to the butter mixture and stir. WARNING: it will look like a disgusting curdled mess at this point but that's fine - it is actually what you are after :-)

Tip in the flour mixture and stir just until there is no more flour showing but do not over mix. You should have a soft dough, slightly more akin to thick cake batter than cookie dough.

Drop by heaped tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets, about an inch apart. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for about 12 minutes. They should be lightly golden around the edges but still soft to the touch.

Let cool on the tray for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool.

Glaze: mix together 2 tsp of the milk and the vanilla with the powdered sugar, stir until all the sugar is dissolved. If it is too thick add a bit more milk - I needed just another 1/8 tsp. You want the glaze thick but "drizzable"- let it fall down from the spoon and if it's falls in ribbons that's about right.

Keep the cookies on the wire rack but place a sheet of baking paper underneath and drizzle the glaze all over the cookies in a back and forth motion. Leave for about an hour for the glaze to set then they are ready!

❤

Nutritional Information: based on 1 cookie out of 15

Calories: 121

Fat: 2.4g

Sat Fat: 0.5g

Protein: 1.5g

Carbs: 23.1g

Sugar: 8.0g

Fibre: 0.4g

Sodium: 72.9mg

You Might Also Like:

Perfect Gingerbread
(recipe link in post)

Cinnamon Roll
Cookies

❤

Chocolate + Peanut Butter + Coconut Haystacks

So, if you follow the daily blog you'll know I've been loving these lately. Haystacks are a 'no-bake' cookie type confectionery that I had often growing up, usually with oats, cocoa, sugar and coconut. They've been around for AGES....there are even versions in a 1950's cookbook I have! To be honest, I forgot all about them until I saw them again on Pinterest but with peanut butter which was a new addition to me and I had to try them.

Well, the peanut butter was definitely a welcome addition - they were gorgeous, but, I found myself missing the coconut. Haystacks for me must have coconut, SO, I threw some coconut in as well. I also swapped the vegan butter with coconut oil and upped the cocoa powder from the original recipe as I felt it needed it. 

Now, I'm so happy with these, great flavour and nice candy like, almost fudge like texture...and the best thing? They are so quick to whip up!! There have been many days the past couple of weeks I have needed something good, sweet and chocolatey and these have come to the rescue in no time at all. Perfect.

Recipe Notes

• Almost all recipes out there for these call for quick cooking oats. Honestly, I didn't bother and mine turn out fine. I do use Tesco value porridge oats though which have a very small flake which probably does make a difference. If you are not using that brand then you'll probably want to stick with quick cooking oats.

• I've used unsweetened peanut butter, soy milk and coconut here as there is enough sugar in them as is. If you use sweetened versions of those you may want to reduce the sugar a bit.

• If you use vegan butter in place of the coconut oil you can omit the salt.

Chocolate + Peanut Butter + Coconut Haystacks

• 40g / 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp solid coconut oil (or vegan butter)
• 150g / 2/3 cups white sugar, I used caster
• 40ml / 1.5 fl oz unsweetened soy milk
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder - measure then sieve so there are no lumps.
• 40g / 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp unsweetened peanut butter
• 70g / ¾ cup oats* see notes above. 
• 20g / ¼ cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• tiny pinch of salt

Line a chopping board or flat plate with baking or parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl add the oats, coconut, peanut butter and salt. Don't mix it - just set it aside.

In a small saucepan add the coconut oil, sugar, soy milk and cocoa powder. Stir and slowly bring to the boil, if it starts to boil before the coconut oil melts then turn the heat down. Keep stirring and once the oil and sugar have melted, turn the heat up to high to bring it to a rolling boil. Once at a rolling boil, stop stirring and let it boil for exactly 1 minute. Now, take it off the heat and give it a good stir until it is no longer foamy. Add the vanilla and mix well - it will sizzle a bit. Scrape it all into the oat mixture and quickly give it a really good mix until the peanut butter and everything is very well blended.

Working quickly as these will set pretty fast, take a tablespoon of the mixture and drop them onto the paper lined board/plate. Use another spoon to push them off - not your fingers as the mixture will be VERY hot! You should get 9 large haystacks out of this, or 12 smaller ones. Tip - get some hot water into the saucepan now for easy cleaning :-)

Once they are all on the sheet pop it into the fridge for them to cool and fully set. I've not timed this but they do actually set and cool pretty quickly. Usually I keep these in the fridge but they keep out of the fridge just fine too.

Source: based on Chocolate Oatmeal No-bake Cookies from One More Moore.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 large haystack out of 9

Calories: 199
Protein: 3.6g
Carbs: 27g
Sugar: 17.1g
Fibre: 2.2g
Fat: 9.2g
Sat Fat: 6g
Sodium: 19.1mg

...more no-bake treats:

Bounty/Mounds Bars

Monkey Squares

Lemon Sesame Snaps

I saw these cookies on Pinterest awhile back and was immediately intrigued. I love sesame seeds, in fact sesame snaps are probably one of my favourite treats so I loved the idea of a sesame seed cookie.

They turned out beautifully - a crisp, buttery brown sugar cookie flavoured with toasted sesame seeds and lemon. Gorgeous with a cup of Earl Grey tea!



The recipe comes from All Recipes but I have made a few little changes. Obviously, I've omitted the egg. (For the record I tend to find if a cookie recipe only calls for 1 egg you can simply omit it with no problems). I also added a pinch of salt and some vanilla but mostly changed the method of making these cookies to the more traditional way of creaming butter and sugar first, then stirring in the dry ingredients.

Just one small note though - these are best eaten on the day they are made as they do get chewy the next day. That's not a terrible thing mind you, they are still very good - I certainly happily ate mine! You'll just have to call them lemon sesame chews instead - ha!

Now, I'm not suggesting you sit down and eat 18 cookies in a day, instead, maybe have some people over, throw a tea party, halve the recipe.... anything to enjoy them at their best, that is, just slightly cooled fresh from the oven :-)

Lemon Sesame Snaps

Yields approx. 18 small cookies

• 50g / ¼ cup vegan butter

• 80g light muscovado sugar / ½ cup lightly packed brown sugar

• zest of 2 lemons

• ½ tsp vanilla

• 70g / ½ cup flour

• 1/8 tsp baking powder

• pinch of salt

• 30g / ¼ cup sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 180c / 350F. Spread the sesame seeds out on a baking sheet with sides and toast them for 10 minutes giving the pan a shake a couple of times.

Beat together the vegan butter, brown sugar, lemon zest and vanilla until light and creamy.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into the butter/sugar mixture until no more flour shows. Stir in the toasted sesame seeds.

Drop by teaspoons onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for 7 - 10 minutes. The edges on the cookies will just be starting to brown.

Remove and place the sheet on a wire rack. The cookies will be far too soft to move at this stage. Simply leave them to get firm on the baking sheet, this will only take 5 minutes or so. Once firm, transfer them to a wire rack to cool a bit BUT these are best eaten now!!

Get a pot of tea on, grab a book, curl up on the sofa and enjoy your time out :-)

♥

♥

Source: Based on All Recipe's Lemon Sesame Crisps.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 cookie

Calories: 55

Protein: 0.7g

Fat: 2.4g

Sat Fat: 0.5g

Fibre: 0.3g

Carbs: 7.8g

Sugar: 4.4g

Calcium: 23.3mg

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♥

Hazelnut Espresso Thumbprint Cookies

Well, these are another winning recipe from the latest Canadian Living Holiday Baking Magazine! A coffee flavoured hazelnut cookie filled with hazelnut spread. Absolutely delicious and quite possibly a new favourite cookie for me, yes, they are that good! If you are like me and absolutely LOVE anything coffee and hazelnut flavoured, you will love these. 

The great thing about the recipe is it never called for eggs so besides the obvious use of vegan replacements these didn't need veganizing. As such I didn't change the recipe at all so won't be reprinting it here, just click on the link for the recipe. (I only reprint recipes if I've made substantial changes.)

(Amusing side note - blogger just asked if by "veganizing" I meant "navel-gazing" - that would have been an embarrassing auto-correct!).

The taste and texture of these cookies are just perfect. When I first tried one on it's own I thought it was good but possibly not sweet enough. Then I remembered that the cookie was made to house a little nutella in them so tried it again with some vegan nutella in and Oh.My.Word. Incredible. So yes, they need the nutella ;-) An altogether beautiful cookie.

Hazelnut Espresso Thumbprint Cookies - click for recipe.

Recipe notes:
♥ I swapped the butter with vegan butter, I used Vitalite.
♥ I used blanched hazelnuts and processed them in my food processor until as fine as they would get. They weren't like flour, just really finely chopped. I think this gave the best texture. I was also really lazy and didn't bother roasting them first. I'm sure that would have added even more flavour but just to let you know that if you are feeling lazy too there's no need to roast first ;-)
♥ I used store bought vegan nutella. Here in Ireland Spar's own label Hazelnut spread is "accidentally" vegan. There are other brands out there that do specifically vegan hazelnut spread OR you can make your own, although I haven't tried this you can always trust the recipes at Seitan is my Motor.
♥ Recipe said to use a teaspoon measure for the cookies. I thought these would be too small so used a measured tablespoon instead. Once they baked I thought, oh dear, these really are too big. Then I ate one and changed my mind ;-)
♥ I piped the hazelnut spread in with a star tip and love the way that looks.
♥ If you thinking of giving these as gifts, just keep in mind that the hazelnut spread in there makes these unable to stack or pack really well.

Roll the dough into a ball and place on a cookie sheet. I then used the round end of a knitting needle I have to make the indentation.

Once baked the hole does puff up a bit so make sure you make that indentation quite deep and large.

Wait until they are fully cool before filling with the hazelnut spread.

♥

Monkey Squares

Chocolate cookie base topped with peanut butter frosting, crunchy salted peanuts and chewy banana chips then drizzled with chocolate :-) No bake too!

These were inspired by another recipe in the latest Canadian Living Holiday Baking Magazine - told you I would be making a lot out of it!! Unlike the cinnamon roll cookies, these ones needed more veganizing so I've really just used their idea for the squares and made them my own.  

Ever since I made that Grasshopper Pie I've been wanting to use that amazing base for a bar or square and since the original recipe called for Oreo crumbs (which I can't buy here and they probably aren't vegan anyway) I knew it would be the perfect replacement.

The recipe then called for sweetened condensed milk to be poured over the base and peanuts and banana chips. Heck, I wasn't even going to attempt to veganize that! I love peanut butter frosting and thought a layer of that on top of the base would be delicious. Then I chopped up some roasted salted peanuts and banana chips and sprinkled them generously over top and a drizzle of chocolate. 

Oh my word....these are amazing!! Oddly enough though, I had trouble finding banana chips! I ended up with chewy banana chips from Tesco which I wasn't sure would work as I was expecting the crisp dried banana chips but you know what? I think it works better. You already have a crunchy factor going on with the salted peanuts so the chewy banana chips adds yet another texture. Lovely.

Monkey Squares

• 150g digestive biscuits or vegan graham crackers (1¼ cup crumbs)

• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• 2 Tbsp caster sugar (or granulated)

• 50g vegan butter ( 1/4 cup + 2 tsp)

• 100g chopped plain or semi-sweet chocolate (or chips)

♥

• 70g vegan butter (¼ cup)

• 100g smooth peanut butter (1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 180g icing sugar (1½ cups)

♥

• roughly chopped roasted salted peanuts

• roughly chopped banana chips
(apologies, I didn't measure how much I used here, just enough of both to cover the surface.)

♥

• about 50g plain or semi-sweet chocolate to drizzle.

Either line an 8" square baking tin with several sheets of overhanging cling film or lightly grease an 8" square silicone baking mould. I used a silicone mould and it worked great.

Process the biscuits until they are fine crumbs either in a food processor or place in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. You don't want any chunks left. Tip this into a large bowl and add the cocoa powder and sugar.

In a smaller bowl add the vegan butter and chopped chocolate. Place this over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until both are melted.

Pour this over the crumb mixture and stir well until it all comes together. Tip it all into the prepared pan and with greased hands press it all down until even and into all the corners. Pop into the fridge to set - it should be ready in a couple of hours.

To make the frosting simply beat the vegan butter and peanut butter together until well mixed. Add the icing sugar a little at a time beating well after each addition. When it starts to get a little dry add the vanilla extract and beat well. Once all the icing sugar is added you should have a frosting that is slightly thicker than if you were icing cupcakes.

Remove the base from the fridge and spread with the frosting. Generously sprinkle over both the chopped peanuts and banana chips then slightly press them down into the frosting a bit so they don't fall off while eating. Pop this back into the fridge for the frosting to firm up a bit, a couple hours should do it.

Remove the whole thing from the pan, either by just popping it out of the silicone mould or by lifting it out via the cling film. Melt the chocolate, I just used the microwave and drizzle back and forth all over the top. Place back in the fridge for the chocolate to set, about an hour.

Slice into a minimum of 16 squares (they are RICH) get some coffee on and enjoy! Note - you might find it easier to slice if it is out of the fridge for about half an hour first. Once sliced you can keep them at room temperature.

♥

Source: Inspired by Canadian Living's Monkey Squares.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 square out of 16.

Calories: 260

Protein: 3.6g

Fat: 15.3g

Sat Fat: 5.7g

Fibre: 2.6g

Carbs: 27.5g

Sugar: 20.2g

Sodium: 20.2mg

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♥