In recent years, I have really been into the smell, texture, and taste of coconut in baked goods. I’ve found that it goes with many things, but my favorite other food to combine it with is chocolate – of course! 😉

So, when I stumbled across these No-Bake Coconut Crack Bars, yet another fantastic recipe by Chocolate Covered Katie, I knew I had to make them.

However, I wanted to do something a bit different. I had just made those Sea Salted Dark Chocolate Bars, and that gave me the idea to turn the Coconut Bars into Mounds!

If you’re not familiar with Mounds Candy Bars, they’re simply a luscious, flaky, coconut-filled candy that is covered in dark chocolate. And I love them. I decided to give Katie’s recipe a go, coating the bars with dark chocolate chips. (I initially thought about melting down the dark chocolate bars I had made, but……decided to save them for eating. 😉 )

Homemade Mounds Candy (E, N, D?, GF)
makes about 12 rounds

Ingredients:
– 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
– 1/4 cup honey
– 2 tbsp. coconut oil
– 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
– 1/8 tsp. salt

– 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, dairy-free if needed

Directions:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor, and blitz until they come together in a sort of “dough”.
2. Press dough into the bottoms of a mini muffin tin.
3. Allow candy to solidify in the fridge for at least one hour.
4. Melt chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Pop one of the candies out and onto a fork, letting it rest on the tines (in other words, don’t stab it onto the fork 😉 ). Dunk the fork and candy into the chocolate, take it out, and tap tap tap the fork along the side of the bowl, allowing all excess chocolate to come off.
5. Place the coated candies on wax paper, and allow them to sit in the fridge for about an hour. It’s really difficult to resist them, but I found that they were much better cooled off than straight out of their chocolate bath!
6. Store in the fridge. Enjoy!

Notes:
– If you don’t have a mini muffin tin, you could simply press the dough into the bottom of a 7×5-inch container, as Katie suggests, then cut it into bars.
– I think the best part about these candies is the ingredient list. Granted, if you use store-bought chocolate chips, you’re increasing the amount, but just five ingredients for the coconut filling is hard to beat. Just take a look at what the original Mounds candies have in them:

(source)

Now, I’m not going to sit here and complain about Hershey’s candies (!), but it really is amazing to see the difference at-home cooking can make!

Anyway, these little babies were gone within hours. The good news is they’re super easy and fun to make, so I’ll definitely be enjoying many more in the upcoming weeks! 😉