Toffee Crisp Bars

I was a candy bar junkie when I was a child. I went through phases with the bars I liked the most, but Rice Krispie Treats were always a favourite. The only missing was….. CHOCOLATE! Is a dessert really a dessert without chocolate? The jury is still deliberating on that point. While they do, let’s you and I get on with the party at hand. The crispy “filling” of this bar is very similar to me as rice krispie treats I loved as a child, but, obviously, not as sweet and not as gooey (no marshmallow),
but that light crispy yum yum factor is very much present here.

Toffee Crisp Bars

Makes approx 12 bars

100g ( ½ cup ) buckwheat
100g ( 1 ¾ cup ) desiccated coconut

150g ( ¾ cup ) coconut sugar, powdered
4 drops caramel medicine flower extract ( optional )
2 drops vanilla medicine flower extract or ½ tsp vanilla powder
1 tsp sea salt

Praline
80g ( ⅓ cup ) cashew or white almond butter
50g ( ¼ cup ) cacao butter, melted
30g ( 2 tbsp ) maple syrup or runny honey

Method

• Soak the buckwheat in enough water to cover for 1 hour. Drain, rinse and sprout for 12-20 hours. Just enough time for the slight emergence of a tail. Once the tail grows, the seed becomes bitter and earthy.

• Soak the coconut in enough water to cover for 1 hour. Drain it off using a sieve and reserve the coconut soak water to drink because it’s a delight.

• Combine the prepared coconut and buckwheat in a mixing bowl and add the remaining first set of ingredients. Mix well with your hands.

• Transfer to a teflex lined dehydrator tray and dry at 115f for 10 hours, flip onto mesh and dry additional 10 hours or until dry and crisp.

• Once dry and crisp, transfer to a food processor and pulse till broken into a crumb.

• Add the praline ingredients and gently pulse to combine. Alternatively, you can add these ingredients by hand. Be careful not to over pulse the mix or it’ll have no texture.

• Press the mix into bar moulds of your choice
  ( this is the one I used ) and pop in the freezer to set 10 minutes or fridge for 20 minutes.

• To finish, enrobe them in chocolate of your choice. Check out my enrobing video below to learn how to enrobe using cacao paste. Alternatively, use any chocolate of your choice and the methods in this video to enrobe the bars in chocolate.

• If you want to add drizzles of chocolate to the top, just save a little chocolate, pop it in a zip bag, cut a tiny piece of the corner of the bag off and drizzle like you don’t have a care in the world.