Recipe: Healthy Chocolate Crackle Slice

Psst: It's Australia Week on Southern In-Law! 

Check out the other recipes: Healthy Cheesymite Scrolls

As a child, I was never really much of a chocolate crackle fan. The flavour was delicious..... until you got that funky copha aftertaste and weird mouth-feel. Not good, not good. 

For those of you that don't know, Chocolate Crackles are another Australian classic. They're commonly found at kids parties and school fetes/cake stalls and just about every Australian would have eaten at least one in their lifetime. They have almost the same texture of rice krispy treats, but without the chew you get from the marshmallows and they're made up of rice bubbles (rice krispies cereal), cocoa, icing sugar, coconut and usually copha to bind it all together.

But not my recipe!  I wanted to make a healthy chocolate crackle slice free of nasties - and ohhhh how I did just that. 

The Southern In-Law version of Chocolate Crackles is gluten free, refined sugar free (possibly sugar free if you don't count maple syrup as sugar?), vegan, lower sugar, dairy free, eggless and so incredibly simple to make.

Not to mention, it tastes really incredibly good! I am totally on the chocolate crackle bandwagon with this recipe, now that copha got the kick! This is the perfect recipe for chocolate crackles without copha but also a great healthy choice.

It uses just five ingredients so anyone can make it. Jesse's favourite recipes to make are actually rice crispy treats as all you have to do is mix, pour and set.

We made the recipe into a slice rather than "chocolate crackles" (made in muffin tins), but you can pour the mix into whatever you fancy - cake tins, muffin tins, chocolate moulds etc. 

But let me give you the recipe! >>

Healthy Chocolate Crackle Slice makes 9 large squares 

AKA: Lamington Rice Crispy Treats/Chocolate Coconut Rice Crispy Treats

gluten free, refined sugar free, vegan, eggless, dairy free

2 3/4 cup (95g) puffed rice cereal (I used Freedom Foods Rice Puffs)*

1/2 cup (50g)  dessicated coconut 

1/3 cup (70g) coconut oil/butter

1/3 cup (30g) unsweetened cocoa powder 

3 tbsp maple syrup 

Optional: pinch of salt

1. In a bowl, combine your cereal and coconut. 
2. Line an 8x8" pan with baking paper, leaving extra baking paper on the sides so it's easy to lift out your chilled slice. 
3. Add your coconut oil, cocoa powder, maple syrup and salt (if using) to a medium saucepan and melt over a medium heat until your coconut oil is melted and your mixture is smooth. 
4. Combine your wet and dry ingredients (either pour your cereal mix into the pan if it's big enough or pour your coconut oil mix into your cereal bowl - it doesn't matter either way) and mix until combined. 
5. Pour your mix into your prepared baking dish and place into the fridge to set (ours took about 2 hours). 
6. Once completely set, cut your slice into squares/bars/whatever you fancy!
7. To store: the slice is best kept in the fridge so it doesn't get too crumbly or begin to melt. They keep for quite some time in the fridge, however, they also freeze well and will last for months if kept in the freezer (and you can eat them straight from the freezer).

*This seems like an odd measurement, but trust me! We found using 3 cups worked, but the bars tended to be a little crumblier).

But tell me, what food stands out from your childhood? What was the food that was always at birthday parties or celebrations?

For me, as an Aussie kid, it has to be Chocolate Crackles, Honey Joys (which we made a Healthy Honey Joy Recipe here) and Fairy Bread.