I just realized that I’ve turned on my oven maybe once in the past week. What a glorious thing.
What could be worthy of turning on the oven during a heat wave, you might ask? Two words: sweet potatoes! Yes, even in the summer, heat wave be damned, I need my sweet potato fix.
This is my favourite way to eat sweet potatoes lately: Dice the sweet potato (leave the skin on), roast until tender, and then toss the cooked potato with coconut oil, sea salt, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Finally – and here’s the best part – a generous spoonful of hemp seeds sprinkled on for good measure. The hemp seeds stick to the coconut oil, coating every delicious bite of sweet potato. I seriously drool when I think about it!
But this post isn’t about roasting things like a crazy person when it’s 40C with humidity, it’s about not roasting things! Aside from my precious sweet potatoes, I’ve been relying heavily on raw foods to make up much of my diet. Raw Pad Thai, Detox Tabbouleh, hummus and veggie wraps, fruit galore, and a huge smoothie every single morning, just to name a few. Summer rules and winter drools. Period.
Speaking of drooling. These raw almond butter cups! Oh my goodness. Eric declared them one of his favourite treats and this is coming from a non-almond butter fan. I’m not buying it, Eric. I have a peanut butter cup recipe on the blog already (oh, and peanut butter cups in a jar, let’s not forget), but I wanted to make something with the batch of raw almond butter I made recently.
For the almond base, I initially tried a combo of almond butter, coconut oil, and sweetener, which was super tasty, but the cups melted and were pretty greasy. In an effort to make the base more substantial, I reduced the almond butter and added in almond meal and a touch of oat flour. It was the perfect solution. Not only did it hold up better, but it tasted like cookie dough! What’s not to love about that? noooooothing.
I used a mini silicone muffin holder since they are so flexible and I just popped the cups out after freezing. Easy! You can certainly use a regular muffin tin lined with paper liners though. For the thick chocolate coating, I made my own chocolate using cocoa powder, coconut oil, and sweetener. Feel free to simply use melted dark chocolate if that floats your boat! I added some sliced almonds on top before freezing which added a nice crunch.
As you can see the chocolate topping started to melt during my photo shoot because it was a gazillion degrees, so I recommend enjoying these straight from the freezer for best results. Either way, I wasn’t complaining too much!
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Raw Almond Butter Cups
Yield
1 dozen cups
Prep time
Cook time
0 minutes
Chill time
45
Total time
Like the peanut butter cup candy, but so much tastier and better for you! These raw almond butter cups are the perfect solution to any sweet craving. I used a mini silicone muffin tray since they are so flexible and I just popped the cups out after freezing. You can certainly use a regular muffin tin lined with paper liners too. For the thick chocolate coating, I made my own chocolate using cocoa powder, coconut oil, and sweetener. Feel free to simply use melted dark chocolate if that's what you have on hand. Be sure to keep these chilled until just before serving and store them in the freezer for best results. I personally love them straight from the freezer.
Note: Use certified gluten-free oats to make this recipe gluten-free. NEW: See below for a nut-free version!
Ingredients
For the base
- 3/4 cup raw almonds, ground into a meal
- 1/4 cup rolled oats, ground into a flour
- 2 tablespoons raw almond butter (or nut butter of choice)
- 1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, warmed if necessary
- 1.5 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or agave nectar)
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste
For the topping
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or 2 tbsp agave nectar)
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste
Directions
- Add almonds and oats into a high-speed blender and blend on high until a flour forms. Dump into a large bowl and break up any clumps with your fingers.
- Add the nut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup (or agave), cinnamon, vanilla, and salt into the bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined. The dough should be fairly sticky like cookie dough.
- Line a mini (or regular) muffin tin with paper liners or use a silicone muffin holder. Portion the dough into each muffin cup and press down until even and smooth.
- To make the chocolate sauce: Whisk together the coconut oil, sweetener, cocoa powder, and salt until no clumps remain. Spoon the sauce over top each of the cups, distributing evenly. Garnish cups with sliced almonds if desired.
- Place in the freezer in a flat area for 30-45 minutes, until firm. Pop out the cups & enjoy immediately! These are best consumed straight from the freezer.
Tip:
If looking for an oat-free option, you might be able to substitute the 1/4 cup of oats for more almond meal. My guess is that you’d need to add another 1/3-1/2 cup almonds to avoid the dough becoming too sticky. Please report back!
For a nut-free version, sub the almond meal for an equal amount of rolled oats (so use 1 cup total rolled oats). Sub the almond butter for sunflower seed butter. Works great!
these look awesome! i am thinking of sub-ing coconut flour for the oats (allergy…boo). any thoughts?
This is a fantastic idea to keep them firm .. I had the same problem with mine cups, I used the butter, oil and sweetener and right out of the freezer they were delicious but they melted too quickly to have anywhere else (or even photograph). I think I’ll try this with my next batch. Thanks!
My go to snack when I have cookie cravings.
Just made these using leftover almond pulp from making almond milk. Pretty good. I used the almond pulp, homemade oat flour, and some PB2. I then realized I should have skipped the PB2 as I had some peanuts so I added some that I pulverized in my ninja also. I then added a dash or two of cinnamon, the coconut oil, and agave. I got 24 mini muffin size cups and had to make almost double the chocolate to cover them all. I was hoping for a stronger peanut taste….I mainly taste coconut. I like coconut so that is not a bad thing lol. :)
I just made these… Love them so much…
I make these every 2 weeks. The only change I’ve had to make is to double everything because everyone I know loves these!
I made these almond butter cups and they are so tasty! I like how you put cinnamon inside; it makes the flavor stand out. These are my moms favorite, so sometimes my mom asks me to make some for her.
I’m 18 and just started my own food blog and I love it! It’s been quite an adventure; I’m just happy there’s websites like yours to give me inspiration.
Hi! I made these this morning (I had to go by the equipment that I have, so I opted to press the dough in a tupperware box lined with parchment paper and cut it into squares after freezing, worked well enough) and had one just now, delicious!
The last few weeks I’ve been using some of your recipes and bookmarked a good bunch more for meals and treats to come, they make for some of the best dishes! Tonight even I’ll be serving your ‘red lentil and squash curry stew’ to some family members, they’re not the easiest ones to cook for, but I’m feeling confident ;)
Have a great day!
Hi Indi, Thanks so much for your kind feedback! I’m so happy you are enjoying everything :)
I made these yesterday for my family. They are fantastic! I have problems eating raw oats, so I substituted raw, unsweetened coconut flakes for the oats. I processed the flakes in my mini-chopper until the coconut was very fine.
Your recipes inspire me. Thank you
Thank you Angela for following your bliss and sharing it all with us. My 4 year old loves to look through your recipes and pick one for us to make and create :) We made this one and replaced the almond butter as there is an allergy in our household with cashew butter. They were amazing. It is in past tense because they didn’t last long around here lol. May we all have the courage to follow our own bliss as it shines so brightly from you and is a reminder that the world needs us all to do what makes our hearts sing :) Infinite love and gratitude
Could you use blanched almond flour instead of whole almonds? I’m trying to stay away from almond skin. How much would I use?
I have made these several times for dinner parties and my friends always ask me to make them again! Thanks so much for this recipe. When I make them, I do not use the oats. I just add an extra cup of almond flour. I also don’t use the maple syrup or cinnamon. Instead, I use stevia to sweeten them. My boyfriend loves the taste and feels no guilt because it’s sugar free. We both follow a low carb no sugar diet so these are perfect!
I made these tonight and they are phenomenal! I made them exactly as you listed, and they are perfection. Thanks!
I made the cups without oats as you suggested and it worked perfectly! I definitely added at least an extra half cup of ground almond in place of the oats so the dough was a good consistency. I also used stevia drops in place of the maple syrup and adjusted the amount of coconut oil. They turned out great! Thanks!
Absolutely so excited to make this afternoon for Valentine’s Day. Should i be melting the coconut oil though or leave it solidified? Sorry, if it’s a silly question; still trying to get used to cooking and baking solely vegan.
These are yummy. But I probably should have found out how many calories are in each cup before I ate them. ;)
I have just tried making these. I’m in the UK so bought some American cups so I could measure as per your recipe accurately. Not sure what happened, but the base mixture only stretched to make 11, and I also needed to add a dash more coconut oil, agave nectar and a little warm water to get the dough to hold together. The topping I had to 3 times the amounts in the recipe! Made to the measurement given it was really really thick and hardly nothing of it. As well as multiplying the ingredients by 3 i also had to add a dash of warm water to get a good consistency. All the coconut oil I ended up using has really pushed the calories up, which is a shame. They’re in the freezer now…I’m wondering if they are going to set properly as the topping wasn’t to spec. Fingers crossed! I used ready ground almonds, I’m guessing this made by dough drier because the measurement of whole almonds ground down will probably result in less almond powder being produced, so I can see what has happened here perhaps which meant I had to add more wet ingredients to get right consistency of dough. But I really don’t know what went wrong with the topping? Any ideas? They’re also nowhere near as deep as in your picture, but I used normal size fairy-cake/cupcake paper cups…Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks :)
Update :) mine have taken a good few hours or more to set, but this is probably because the topping wasn’t followed to the letter. They taste really great! I’ll definitely be making them again, but next time will make mini fairy cake size (looking at your photos, I think my standard fairy cake/cupcake moulds are bigger), and also I’d like the base to be thicker (mine came out quite thin). I need to adjust the topping though, although it tasted nice the consistency is a little soft and doesn’t set as well as I’d like…do you think it would work melting a bar or organic dark chocolate with a little agave nectar? Thanks for the great recipe!
Mmmmmm! Can I tell you how much I love you for this recipe?!!! I can’t have processed sugar or peanuts or oats and these are the perfect answer to my sweet tooth. I substituted flax meal for oats flour and they turned out marvelously! Can’t wait it share them. :) yay!
I finally made these last night for my boyfriend and I and they were seriously delicious, but they didn’t quite taste like an almond butter cup to me because the coconut taste was so overpowering. Is there a way to cut back on the coconut taste bit still keep the consistency?