Vegan Ice Cream Snicker Bars

We recently had our good friends over for dinner — who happen to be vegan. I always have to get creative when cooking for them, which usually means I try a new recipe. For dinner, we did a simple kale salad with a vegan cacio e pepe. For dessert, I tested The Minimalist Baker’s 5 Ingredient Vegan Ice Cream Snickers, and they were a huge hit. As always, I changed things up a bit, while staying pretty true to the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pint Salted Carmel Vegan Ice Cream (I used Van Leeuwen, which I picked up at Whole Foods)

16 Pitted Dates

1/4 Cup Almond Milk

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

2/3 cup roasted salted peanuts

12 ounces semisweet dairy-free chocolate

INSTRUCTIONS:

Slice ice cream into ten (10) 1/2-inch slices and set on a parchment-lined baking sheet to freeze again until firm - about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare date caramel. I put 16 pitted dates into an immersion blender with 1/4 Cup Almond Milk + 1/2 TSP Vanilla. If dates are really dried out, soak in warm water for 10 minutes and then drain beforehand. Mix dates until a creamy paste is formed.

Remove frozen bars from freezer and spread on 1 Tbsp caramel and a small handful of peanuts. Set back in freezer.

Melt chocolate & remove bars from freezer once set and use a spoon to drizzle the tops generously with chocolate. Work quickly, then set back in the freezer to harden - about 30 minutes.

Once firm, remove bars from freezer once more and dip the bottoms in the remaining chocolate and brush away extra with the back of a spoon or spatula. Set back on parchment to freeze once more.

Serve directly from freezer as they become soft when they set out.

ENJOY!