Almond Joys {R, V, GF}

In the interest of full disclosure: I hate Almond Joys. Every Halloween, I'd sort through my plastic pumpkin full of delicious goodies, and give all those nasty, super-sweet coconutty bars to my mother. 

So, I made these fully expecting to hate them. I received some insanely delicious salted almonds from Blue Diamond Growers, and I was having trouble coming up with ways to use them (aside from shoveling them into my mouth, ten almonds at a time, because yummmmmm). But those nasty candy bars popped into my head, and I thought they'd be fun to make and my mom might enjoy them. 

Little did I know that I'd be obsessed with them. OBSESSED. I could barely muster the strength not to eat them all and share them with my mom. They're the best raw treat I've ever created, and possibly the best raw treat I've ever had (those are big words, I know). So, without further ado...

Raw Vegan Almond Joys:

• 3/4 cup coconut butter (roughly 3 1/2 cups shredded coconut blended in a food processor with 1 tbs coconut oil until it combines)
• 1/4 cup cashew butter
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
• 3 tablespoons rice malt syrup
• 24 Blue Diamond salted almonds

For the chocolate coating:

• 1/4 cup cacao/cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons rice malt syrup
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• Hot water

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl and form into rectangles. If it is really wet (because coconuts are really oily) and doesn't want to stick together, squeeze it in your hand until some of the excess oil drips out. Press two almonds on top of each bar. Pop in the freezer to harden.

After the bars have hardened up, mix the cacao powder, rice malt syrup and oil together and slowly add hot water until it reaches your desired consistency. Dip each almond joy into the chocolate to coat it, and stick them back in the freezer for a few hours (until the chocolate coating firms up).