Easy, Healthy, & Delicious Vegan Turtle Candies
These turtle candies are made of healthier ingredients, like pecans, dates, and stevia-sweetened dark chocolate. They are ridiculously delicious and super easy to make!
Ingredients
- 80 plain, raw pecan halves (4 pecan halves per turtle=20 turtles)
- 1 cup Medjool dates, packed and pits removed (roughly 12 dates. You must use MEDJOOL dates.)
- 1 tbsp maple syrup, 100% pure
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 100% pure
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 cup Lily's Sweets Dark Chocolate Stevia Sweetened Premium Baking Chips
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- Flakey sea salt, for sprinkling on top of the turtles
Instructions
- Line a large sheet pan with a sheet of parchment paper. Make 20 pecan turtles in the shape of an X. Each turtle gets 4 pecan halves.
- Now, bring a small saucepot of water to a boil. Ensure the pits are removed from the dates and then boil them for 1 to 2 minutes to soften them. Drain them off well.
- Add the softened dates, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and kosher salt into a high powered blender. Blend until extremely smooth, scraping down the insides of the blender as needed. This mixture is date caramel.
- In a small saucepot, add an inch or two of water and place it over low heat. Set a small glass bowl on top of the saucepot. The bottom of the bowl should be resting above the water and not touching it whatsoever. Add the vegan dark chocolate chips and coconut oil into the bowl and occasionally stir it until it is melted and smooth.
- Add a hefty teaspoon of the date caramel on top of each pecan cluster. You may need to push the pecans together again to help them stick into the caramel better. Then, if you want it to look cleaner, go through and smooth/flatten out the caramel dollops with the back of an eating spoon.
- Using a small eating spoon, drizzle/pour over some melted chocolate on top of each dollop of caramel.
- Sprinkle a tiny bit of flakey sea salt on top of the turtles while the chocolate is still melted.
- Place the sheet pan of prepared turtles into the freezer to chill and firm up, about 20 minutes.
- They are ready to eat once the chocolate is no longer melted and has turned into a shell-like texture, and the caramel is chilled. Place the turtles in an airtight container or Ziploc baggy and store them in the freezer or refrigerator. They are perfectly fine to eat straight from the freezer, as the date caramel does not harden.
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it was!