Mayan chocolate is probably best known as a delicious, hot, and frothy drink made with ground cacao beans and corn meal and spiced with chiles and cinnamon. This rich but bitter drink – called xocolatl – has been around for thousands of years, and only became a sweet treat in the 1700s in Europe.
These days, you see the term Mayan chocolate used in all variety of desserts that use cocoa, chile powder and cinnamon in them. One of my favorite twists on the theme uses oranges; Green + Black’s Mayan Gold draws from the cocoa, oranges, cinnamon and vanilla combination used in Kukuh, a drink made by Mayan farmers in Belize.
I love to have a good stock of Mayan Chocolate fruit and nut bars on hand for on-the-go snacks or after a workout. But, I also like variety. So, here is my formula for making these easy treats – similar to a LaraBar – at home, with 13 (are you sensing a theme here?) flavor combinations to keep you from getting bored.
The Formula (1.5:3 ratio)
1 1/2 cups of pitted, mashed/minced dates (it will start out as about 2 cups of whole dates).
2 3/4 to 3 cups of other ingredients – see flavor variations below.
Notes:
- 1 bar is about 3 Tablespoons of mixed ingredients or 2 oz. Recipe makes about 13 or 14 bars.
- Nuts and seeds should be raw and unsalted; fruit should be unsweetened.
- If dried fruit is particularly dry, add a tablespoon of warm water to the food processor as you chop them.
- The dates add sweetness and hold the other ingredients together. In general, you should use a 1.5:3 ratio (for ex. 1 1/2 cup of minced dates to ~3 cups of other – mostly dry – ingredients) in order to bind ingredients together properly. You can use either deglet or medjool dates. Medjool tend to be a little plumper and stickier – and are, therefore, easier to chop up. But, it’s entirely up to you which taste you prefer.
Fruit and Nut Bar Flavor Variations
Add the following to one and one half cup of mashed/minced dates:
- Mayan Chocolate Brownie Bar: 1 ¼ cup walnuts, 1 ¼ cup almonds, ¼ cup cocoa, ½ tsp each of cinnamon, chili powder, and vanilla extract (more or less to taste)
- Coconut Key Lime Bar: 1 ¼ cup almonds, ¾ cup cashews, 1 cup dried unsweetened coconut, 3 Tbsp key or Persian lime juice
- Apple Spice Bar: 1 ¼ cup walnuts, 1 cup almonds, ¾ cup dried apples, ½ tsp cinnamon (or more to taste)
- Almond-Apricot Kuchen Bar: 1 ¼ cup almonds, 1 cup walnuts, ¾ cup dried apricots
- Baklava Fruit and Nut Bar: (ratios differ here) 2 ¼ cups walnuts, 1 cup almonds, ¼ cup honey, ¼ cup raisins, 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp vanilla
- Finnish Pulla Fruit and Nut Bar: 1 ½ cup walnuts, ½ cup almonds, ½ cup raisins, ½ cup cashews, 1 tsp cardamom (cinnamon can be used instead)
- Spicy Ginger Fruit and Nut Bar: 1 1/2 cup almonds, 1 cup pecans, ¼ raisins, ¼ cup minced crystallized ginger (or fresh ginger), 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves
- Coco-Cocoa-Cran Bar: 1 cup almonds, ½ cup walnuts, ½ cup cranberries, ½ cup coconut, ¼ cup cashews, 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
- Halva Fruit and Nut Bar: 2 cups almonds, ½ cup pistachios, ½ cup golden raisins, 2 Tbsp honey, ¼ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp cardamom
- Orange Pecan Pie Fruit and Nut Bar: 2 cups pecans, 1 cup almonds, ¼ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (or orange zest to taste), 1 tsp mace or nutmeg
- Pistachio Cranberry Bar: 1 ¼ cup pistachios, 1 cup almonds, ¾ cup dried, unsweetened cranberries
- Strawberry Fig Bar: 1 cup dried figs (stems removed), 1 cup dried strawberries, 1 cup pecans, 1 tsp each lemon, ½ tsp vanilla
- Afghan Mulberry Walnut snack bars (check out the post for details)
Preparation
Chop nuts in a food processor, leaving the pieces a bit chunky.
Measure out spices and other powdered ingredients like cocoa. Blend spices into nuts until finely ground and well combined. Put nut/spice mixture aside.
Pit dates (or check to make sure that your pitted dates do not have any pits leftover).
Mince the dates by hand to the extent possible. Powerful food processors can chop them down, but less powerful ones will struggle. Smaller pieces are better. Then, chop the dates in a food processor. Add in any liquids (vanilla, juice, honey). The dates should become a thick, sticky mass.
Combine dates and nut mixture well, by hand or in a food processor so that the stickiness is well-distributed throughout the mixture. You may need to work them together with your hands to break the date clumps apart. The dryness of the nut mixture will help you do this.
Form a small ball with some of the ingredients to see if it is “sticky” enough. If the ball crumbles too easily, you can add more minced dates to the mixture until it holds together well. You want it to be fairly sticky.
Once your mixture is ready, line a glass baking dish or bread form if you have one with plastic wrap. Pour the date/nut mixture into the dish and level it out so that the mixture is evenly distributed in the container.
Cover the mixture in more plastic wrap and press down evenly to compress the mixture into a brick shape (about 1 1/2″ high by 3″ wide). To do this, I either take a second bread form and press it into the first and then follow up by using a smaller flat-bottomed tool (whatever I can find) to further press it into shape. The goal is to press it as firmly together as possible.
Wrap the brick and refrigerate. Once chilled, use the plastic wrap to gently pull the brick out of the dish in one piece. Use a sharp knife to cut the brick into slices – or slice as you go. One serving is about a ¼ inch slice or 2 oz. Rewrap brick or individual pieces.
Happy snacking!