Gooey double chocolate turtle bars with a chewy chocolate cookie crust, a dreamy salted caramel pecan layer and lots of chocolate drizzled on top. They’re grain free, dairy free and Paleo made with real food ingredients yet taste completely decadent.
My impulsivity is not always a good thing. This time, I got lucky and it was – a random Friday night experiment that I dove into with no plan whatsoever – just visions of creamy chocolate and caramel floating around in the “dessert” section of my brain, but really, that’s nothing unusual for me.
Fast forward to the next morning (I stuck the bars in the fridge after baking and went to bed) and with the first cut I knew right away that something good had come out of the experiment. Texture can be everything, right? That first cut was all I needed to know – I had already given a thumbs up to the unbaked dough/caramel layer the night before, and obviously the chocolate on top was good to go.
But, the texture of bars/brownies/other baked goods (especially Paleo) is often a mystery when you’re trying something new. You might not know exactly what you’re cutting into until your recipe is baked and fully cooled.
I would take Forest Gump’s “life is like a box of chocolates..” and one-up it with “life is like a pan of Paleo brownies – you won’t know what you’re dealing with until they’ve cooled for 3 hours and you can cut through the center” um, or something. If that makes any sense to you, please fill me in.
But anyway, I’m impulsive (ah, as you might be able to gage from my writing.) When it comes to recipes for the blog, I would say I do 90% of my cooking/baking in the morning/early afternoon. I’m at my sharpest before lunch, it’s light enough for photos, plus the days tend to get crazier as they go on. Between the hours of 3pm and 7 my life becomes a drop off/pick up/make dinner and say boring mom things like “did you do your homework?” and “clean up the living room” and “stop hurting each other!”
It works well this way, because generally my impulsive nighttime recipe testing results in disasters like adding twice the amount of coconut oil to something because I temporarily forgot that 4 TBSPs is not 1/2 cup. That is no flipping joke – I literally made that mistake two nights ago. Ugh. I’m still mourning that loaf of bread.
But sometimes, like with these double chocolate turtle bars, things magically work out. The bottom layer is sort of a cross between a chocolate cookie crust and a brownie, baked about halfway before pouring on the second layer.
The caramel layer is perfectly salted with just the right amount of chopped pecans, and is baked to gooey perfection right before sprinkling with lots of chocolate chips that melt and swirl – and then cool – to form a chocolate shell on top. Double chocolate turtle bars! Perfect dessert for the holiday season or really anytime you’re craving caramel and chocolate, AKA ALWAYS! Let’s get started!
Paleo Double Chocolate Turtle Bars
Paleo Double Chocolate Turtle Bars
Ingredients
For the chocolate cookie layer:
- 1/2 cup creamy cashew butter
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder or raw cacao
- pinch salt
For the Caramel Pecan Layer:
- 1 and 1/3 cups full fat coconut milk*
- 5 Tbsp organic coconut sugar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
- 3/4 cup chopped pecans
- 1/3 cup dark chocolate morsels I used Enjoy Life Brand or your favorite dark chocolate chips/chopped chocolate
Instructions
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Make the cookie layer first. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line an 8 x 8" baking dish with parchment paper along the bottom and up the sides.
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Mix together the cashew butter, coconut sugar, and eggs until creamy. I used a hand mixer for this part.
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In a separate bowl, combine the coconut flour, cocoa powder and salt, then stir this mixture into the wet ingredients until fully combined. The dough will be sticky - chill it in the fridge for about 5 minutes - this will firm it up a bit as well as give the coconut flour time to settle and absorb moisture.
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Now it's time to press the chocolate cookie dough into the parchment lined baking dish. The dough will still be sticky to work with even after chilled - I recommend wetting your hands just slightly to press/spread the dough evenly into the bottom of the dish. After pressing in the cookie dough, bake it in the preheated oven for 10 minutes**
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To make the caramel, heat the coconut milk* and coconut sugar over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring to blend. Bring the mixture to a boil (I typically raise the heat to medium/hi for this, you can increase the heat depending on your stovetop) while stirring.
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Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer (this might be med/low or med depending on your stove, it should be bubbling but not boiling over) and continue to cook, stirring to avoid the sugar burning, until the mixture is thickened and deep caramel in color***
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Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, salt and chopped pecans, then spread the caramel pecan mixture over the chocolate cookie layer (after baking 10 minutes) and return to the oven to bake for another 12 minutes or until the middle begins to bubble.
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Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with the chocolate chips. Once they melt, use a toothpick to gently swirl the melted chocolate all over the top of the bars.
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Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until completely cooled, then cut into squares and serve. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*I chill the can prior to opening, discard half the "water" and blend up the rest before using
**be careful not to overtake since you'll be baking it again with the caramel layer
***This can take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on your stove, mine seems to take less time than others!
What I Used to Make my Double Chocolate Turtle Bars:
Want more Paleo brownies and bars? Try one of these!
Flourless Caramel Frosted Brownies
Triple Chocolate Sweet Potato Brownies
Caramel Pecan Fudge Bars with Cookie Crust
Paleo Magic Cookie Bars {Vegan}
Paleo Caramel Pecan Cheesecake Bars
Tell Me!
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These look amazing! Cashew butter for the win. My best recipes are always the ones I didn’t plan and just have a thought that comes together just right.
I live for those recipes! Such a nice boost they give us 🙂
I LOVE all of your paleo bar recipes; so so good and gooey and delicious. This one looks like a winner too, and I usually am not a good ‘night baker’ either. 🙂
Oh my, what have you done! My sweet tooth is thanking you while my dress size is not 😉 So excited to make these for Christmas party desserts!
Ahhhh don’t you just love the feeling when your recipe turns out better than expected? I always feel inadequate when I’m baking paleo, because I truly never know what I’m going to get. Thankfully, these delicious looking bars turned out amazing! I love turtle {the flavor and the animal ;)} and chocolate together 🙂
It’s hard to experiment sometimes and I HATE failed recipes! But such a nice surprise when things are better than expected, even better when it can be replicated and then tweaked with a new flavor.
Wow, these look insanely delicious. Can you Fedex some my way? I’ll be waiting! 😉
Haha they are definitely yummy! Hope you try 🙂
They look delicious, but I’m a bit confused by the instructions for the cookie layer. Vanilla is listed as an ingredient for both layers but when I printed the recipe I can’t find it in the instructions for the cookie layer. Do I add it with step two, three, or was it a typo and it’s only for the other layer?
Turtle bars are some of my favorite and these look just as magical. Congrats on the impulsive win.
What’s the best sub for cashew butter? And would chia eggs work for the eggs? Unfortunately dealing with multiple allergies and leaky gut in our household??
I’ve never used chia eggs so I’m not sure, sorry! If you do try it, let me know.
For the nut butter you can sub any nut or seed butter and the texture will remain the same, however the flavor will change depending on what you use. Hope this helps!
I made these and they were beyond delicious! I have to pace myself from making them again too soon.
Oh my gosh, these look so good! I am trying to think about whether I have all these ingredients right now, if not I’ll improvise. I gottagotta have them!
Thanks
Tara
These are amazing! I was at a party last night whereby someone brought them for dessert! They were the winner!! Delicious and just perfect! The caramel, pecans, chewy chocolate brownie… amazing! I made sure that I received the recipe before she left! Thank you for sharing! Also, will be trying more of your recipes!! 🙂
I’m so thrilled you liked these – yay!
Oh my, these were so delicious. I am 29 weeks pregnant and have been having such a sweet tooth with this pregnancy. Your recipes have certainly been fulfilling my cravings. These especially don’t taste Paleo but are so ridiculously delicious. My only problem is that the when I put the chocolate chips on top, they just kind of melted into the Carmel when I sweetie it in. But it was still yummy.
So happy you liked these and it helped that sweet craving!
Has anyone made this in a skillet? If so, it sounds amazing to eat warm with vanilla halo top on it.
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How in the world did you spread the sticky batter into the parchement covered pan??? My parchment was sliding all over the place even with some coconut oil in the corners. The batter just stuck and did not want to spread anywhere. I switched to my fingers and I think more of it stayed on my hands than in the pan! Help!
Chilling might help, or wetting your hands a bit.
take another piece of parchment paper and press batter down- it worked perfectly!
You are a very clever smart woman, Yours is one of my favourite blogs in the whole world
I used coconut cream that’s been in the fridge for a day and coconut sugar. It won’t thicken. Why not?
Hi I have coconut milk and coconut cream. Can I substitute the coconut cream for the coconut milk?
Yes that should work well for this.
Would flax eggs work with this recipe?
I believe so, not totally sure though since it uses coconut flour. You can probably use my double chocolate cookies (the dough) as a base which uses flax eggs and almond flour.
someone please help…. I have tried this recipe twice and I cannot get the carmel layer to thicken. Any ideas?
Turned out beautifully! Noticed the vanilla in the crust but there is no instruction on when to add it. I added to wet ingredients but thought you might like to know it’s missing in the directions.