Almond Butter and Dark Chocolate Bars

If you know me, I love anything peanut butter and chocolate. I have been eating more almond butter lately instead of peanut butter. I love Elana's pantry and used her recipe to make bars instead of butter cups or balls. I was actually going to make the balls and think they will turn out better than my bars. I finally caved about bought Guittard Extra Dark Chocolate Chips. Yikes they are expensive at almost $3 a bag but they are dairy free and made in a gluten free facility so I knew I was safe. I usually get the dark chocolate chips in bulk at Winco for almost the same price but those have dairy in them.  I classified them under healthy whole snacks: a 94 year old patient told me dark chocolate helps with her pain plus the benefits of almonds and flax. Here is what I made:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vanilla almond butter (1/2 cup almond butter, 1/2 tablespoon honey, 1/4 tsp vanilla, pinch of sea salt)
1 1/2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 cup dark chocolate chips (Guittard)

What to do:

• combine the vanilla almond butter and ground flaxseed
• melt 1/2 cup dark chocolate in the microwave
• spread in a small shallow bread pan (next time I will use a pie plate or a shallower dish)
• cool the chocolate in the freezer for 10-15 minutes
• press the almond butter on top of the chocolate (see my picture below)
• cool again in the freezer for 10 minutes
• melt the remaining 1/2 cup dark chocolate in the microwave and spread on top of the almond butter
• cool in the fridge
• cut into bars

Check out what Elana did : http://www.elanaspantry.com/nut-butter-cups/