We were recently sent a package full of goodies to try from Boutique Vegan. One of the items they sent us were these delicious vegan dark chocolate chips. It’s difficult for us to find chocolate chips we trust to be vegan here, so this was awesome! Recently Athanasia found this recipe for vegan turtles so she had to try it (she loves cute little things like these little vegan turtles). We adapted the caramel recipe to one that worked a lot better for us. We decided we would use some of the chocolate chips from Boutique Vegan to make this recipe.
A special note about the caramel used in this recipe: It is a good idea stuff the blender with enough dates to make them into a creamy caramel, otherwise you get clumps and not a smooth caramel . So I am writing down the single batch recipe of caramel that worked for me, however, to make 16-20 vegan turtles I needed to make 3 batches.
Recipe for one batch of raw vegan caramel:
- 8 medjool dates (without the pits)
- 2 teaspoons of coconut oil
- 4 teaspoons of maple syrup
- 5 Tablespoons of water
- A pinch of vanilla powder
- A pinch of sea salt
Instructions for the raw vegan caramel:
- Add all the ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.
Ingredients for 16-20 vegan turtles:
- 1 1/2 cup (250 grams or 8.8 oz) of vegan chocolate chips that melt and harden when cooled
- 3 batches of raw vegan caramel
- 1 1/4 cup (100 grams or 3.5 oz) of pecans
Instructions for the vegan turtles:
- Prepare the raw caramel and keep it in the fridge.
- Break the pecans in smaller pieces and set them aside.
- Make room in your freezer.
- Melt the vegan chocolate chips in double boiler and use half of it for the first layer of chocolate and the rest for the top layer of chocolate.
- Place parchment paper on a pan or cutting board that fits inside your freezer. Use a spoon to create 16-20 circles by dripping chocolate (use only half of the melted
chocolate now) onto the sheet. - Put the pecan pieces on top of the chocolate circles as you see in the photos (try to work fast if it is cold so that the chocolate doesn’t solidify).
- Put some raw caramel on each of them.
- Put them in the freezer for about 10 minutes. In the meantime keep the rest of the chocolate on the double boiler over low heat.
- Remove the chocolate and pecan circles from the freezer and cover them with the rest of the melted chocolate.
- Keep them in the freezer until the chocolate hardens and enjoy a cool treat!
Jake and Athanasia and we currently live in Patra, Greece. Jake is from Minnesota in the United States and Athanasia is from Athens, Greece. Their blog was born and officially launched in October of 2013! It started with them wanting to create a menu of food for themselves for times they didn’t know what to make or eat. However, it evolved into so much more than that in such a short time! they began veganizing some of their favorite foods and realized quickly how incredible these recipes taste. Their friends and families became impressed by how delicious gluten free vegan food can actually be as well! Check out more of their recipes on 2 Broke Vegans.
