Coconut Bacon Chocolate Bark

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I didn’t intend to post this as a recipe, to be honest, but the reaction it received on FaceBook made it inevitable.

Just to be clear, there’s no bacon or animal products in this recipe. Bacon has made a come back in the past few years largely because of the Paleo food movement. This movement has told people they can eat bacon again. For a long time it was believed to be a “bad” food. It’s no longer considered so. Since then, it’s been everywhere. Heston Blumenthal did a bacon ice cream years back and chocolatiers are using bacon in their latest and greatest creations… Amazingly, I saw a chocolate bacon doughnut making its way around the internet for a while.

Why bacon in sweets ? Well, it’s smokey, salty and crunchy. All of those pair well with chocolate and sweet stuff. I haven’t decided to start using bacon in my recipes, so coconut was an obvious choice for me. Why ? Because, when you soak and dehydrate coconut, it goes very crispy. When you add some coconut sugar or maple syrup to it, it works especially well. Also, coconut is a rather neutral flavour (the exception being people who dread coconut, which I still can’t understand, but it’s fair enough)

There we have the crunch factor of the coconut “bacon”, now, how about the smokey and salty components ?

Great, natural ways of making something taste, well, like meat, is with the following ingredients — not necessarily all used in conjunction.

• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Nutritional Yeast
• Smoked Paprika
• Chipotle Pepper – whole or powder
• Tamari / Soy Sauce

Balance these out properly and add some acid (lemon, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar) and fat (avocado, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc) and you have yourself a treat.
Let’s get into the recipes…First things first, we need to make the coconut bacon.

Candied Coconut “Bacon”

200g (5 cups) coconut flakes/chips – soaked 1 hour and sieved
50g ( ½ cup ) coconut sugar
45g ( ¼ cup ) apple cider vinegar
15g ( 1 tbsp ) tamari
30g (2 tbsp ) coconut flour

Spices:

• 8g ( 2 tsp ) smoked paprika

 

• ½ tsp chipotle pepper powder

 

• ½ tbsp onion powder

 

• 20g ( ¼ cup ) nutritional yeast flakes

 

8g ( 1 tsp ) salt

Method

• Make sure you sieve the coconut very well so there’s no excess water remaining— this will just dilute the flavour.

• In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients.

• Transfer to a Teflex-lined dehydrator tray. Don’t spread the mixture out too much, you want it to “cluster up” when it’s done drying.

• Dry at your desired temp for 8-12 hours. Once the sugars have dried and crystallised, flip the clusters onto a mesh tray and finish drying until they are completely dry and crisp.

• Use them as a snack, salad topping or use them in chocolate (see recipe below) for a real treat! They will keep well in an airtight container for several months.

Coconut “Bacon” Chocolate Bark

200g ( 7 ounces ) chocolate, ( I used homemade 85% raw chocolate )
100g ( 1 cup ) candied coconut “bacon”
30g ( 2 tbsp ) banana powder or freeze dried banana pieces ( optional )

Method

• Melt the chocolate over a double boiler, following the same instructions as you would for enrobing ( click here for step by step instructions )

• Once your chocolate is melted, add the remaining ingredients (reserve some banana pieces and coconut “bacon” for garnishing ) and mix well to combine.

• Pour the mix onto a Teflex or greaseproof paper lined tray of your choice ( you could also set this in a silicone mould, if your prefer ) and sprinkle some freeze dried or dried banana pieces and coconut bacon on top.

• Set in the fridge for 15-20 minutes or until the chocolate is set.

• Break the chocolate into shards and store in an airtight container for at least 1 month.