Move Over Almond Joy: The New Vegan Candy Bar in Town

Perhaps I'm a bit late to the game on this one, but today I just had my first Go-Max vegan candy bar. Wandering down the numerous isles of vegan-friendly booths at the Animal Aid Fayre in London, I couldn't help but be caught by the plethora of vegan snacks. In fact, I may have gone a bit overboard with 2 packs of Cheezly, 2 AMAZING cupcakes from Ms. Cupcake, some oat milk, hemp tea... I could go on.

While all of these products turned out to be fantastic (and I will post more about them soon), one stood out: the Mahalo vegan coconut-almond candy bar! Evident by my name (Coconat), I'm sure its little secret that I have a small (... large) obsession with coconut. Almonds? Yes. Vegan milk-chocolate?! YES, please.

The candy bar turned out to be just as good as I hoped, in fact, indistinguishable I'd say from an almond joy... except this is a healthier and cruelty-free alternative. The chocolate was milky in the melts-in-your-mouth type of way, with the perfect amount of almond crunch, a gooey coconut inside, not too sweet, but just right.My only regret is only trying one of the four bars they had on offer! There are numerous locations and online sites to order Go-Max candy bars from, so you can bet I'll be trying the others soon enough. I'm thinking the Jokerz will be the next big success (who doesn't love peanuts in their candy bar?).

My favorite part about Go-Max is that it leaves one less thing for would-be vegans to worry about missing. I say this with Toni in mind--a candy-bar fanatic who doesn't quite have a tongue for dark chocolate. When you have a hankering for a sin-fully delicious, creamy treat, you should definitely try out Go-Max Candy bars.

Healthy Vegan Hedgehogs

For my Birthday, my lovely boyfriend made me a veganized, healthier version of this one of his favorite desserts: Hedgehogs. Supposedly they are of German origin, but I can't seem to confirm either way. If anyone knows, drop me a line.
Here is the recipe for these bite-sized treats. They are the perfect dessert because they are filled with heart-healthy walnuts and medicinal dates, a great energy booster. Plus, you can eat more than one of these without feeling sugar sick since dates are already quite sweet, it only requires a minimal amount of extra sugar.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups crushed walnuts
1 cup dates
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch, mixed with 2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 unsweetened shredded coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking pan with non-stick parchment paper
2. Place shredded coconut in a small bowl.
3. Make sure walnuts are crushed are finely crushed, but not powdery. Mix walnuts, dates, brown sugar, cornstarch mixture, and vanilla in large bowl together. The resulting mixture will be quite sticky so mixing with your heads is best. (I put a small bit of water on my hands to keep mixture from sticking).
4. Take about a tablespoon of the mixture and roll it out into a 3 inch long log. (Feel free to choose any shape you like however, round balls or shorter logs works as well).
5. Roll log in shredded coconut and place on baking sheet. Repeat until all the mixture is used up. You can space logs relatively close together since they do not expand in baking.
6. Please baking sheet in oven and bake for about 10 minutes or until the coconut is just beginning to brown. Enjoy!

Peace&Love