No-Bake Chocolate Coconut Macaroons {Recipe… Free of Dairy, Grains, and Refined Sugar, but not Awesomeness}
These little lumps of chocolatey goodness may not look like much, but dang, are they ever decadent. They have lots of cocoa and honey, and really, how can you go wrong with that combo? I’ve heard some people call them chocolate frogs, but I grew up with my mom making a different version of these and she called them macaroons. Thus, they are macaroons to me as well (not to be confused with the French kind with whipped egg whites, etc).
The beautiful thing is, these are totally grain-free, dairy-free, and refined-sugar-free. They even contain coconut oil, which is an amazingly superfood that some people take as a health supplement. Seriously. Oh, and you don’t even have to bake them, which just makes them even more endearing (if that were even possible).
I’ve been making these since we were on the GAPS Diet last year… because drumroll please… they are GAPS-legal (as long as you’ve successfully introduced cocoa and are no longer on the intro diet).
Since hubby and I are currently avoiding refined sugar altogether, I made up a batch of these babies this afternoon to satisfy my sweet craving. I only had to eat one and my craving was finished. I’ve taken them to potlucks several times and no one has any clue they’re actually healthy. They’re that yummy.
{The Ingredients}
3/4 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
3.5 cups medium or large unsweetened flaked coconut
2/3 cups cocoa
1/2 cup almond meal (you could just use finely shredded unsweetened coconut flakes if you don’t have almond meal)
{The Method}
Melt honey on low heat on the stovetop. Mine is lovely local raw honey, so I try to keep the heat as low as possible so as to keep all the beneficial enzymes and such. Add coconut oil, melt all together.
Add flaked coconut and stir. Ignore the fact that the measuring cup is sitting on a burner in this photo. And for heaven’s sake, DON’T put things on the burner absentmindedly when it may be hot (not that I ever do that, ahem. Seriously, I didn’t – *this* time…)
Add salt and vanilla extract. Stir.
Ask your cute little (but dang, he’s getting so big!) helper to pour in the almond meal. By the way, I asked a friend to bring me some almond meal back from a Trader Joe’s in the US. It’s like eleven billion times cheaper there. If you nearly die of shock when you see that it’s like $16 for a wee little bag of it here in Canada, you can probably just use unsweetened finely ground coconut instead. I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
Add in the cocoa, then stir it all together with a wooden spoon. No other kind of spoon will do, obviously.
When all of the ingredients are nice and familiar-like with one another, then drop it by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet (love my stoneware!). I lined mine with parchment paper because I didn’t want to have to get out my chisel again in order to get them off the pan. Try not to be jealous of my perfectly shaped blobs. I’ve had a lot of practice…
Place them in your freezer for at least 20 minutes, or until they are firm. Here is a picture of my freezer, in case you had trouble with this step. Yours will probably be similar, minus the toddler/preschooler valentine’s artwork.
Store in an air-tight container in the fridge. I have no idea if they go bad because we haven’t given them enough time to find out. You likely won’t either. Enjoy!
(Shared at Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays)
I should have posted before now. I’ve made these three times and taken them to two functions where they were gobbled up by young and old. I make them as written but use a mixture of Tropical Traditions shredded coconut and coconut flakes so some is finer and that suits my taste buds. People have asked about honey and I’m using a raw honey that’s liquid, not creamed, so just like any honey you might buy in the store. I think people asking questions might not have realized that they have to keep stirring when they add the coconut – it looks like there isn’t enough liquid but if you keep stirring it suddenly changes and comes together.
Thank you!
These are the best I have ever tried, LOVE THEM
LOVE these! And I especially love that you call them frogs!! Are you from the east coast? I am and recently moved to the west coast…where NO ONE knows them as “frogs”. This was SO easy, I kept everything on the burner until I was ready to spoon them out! (oh, and I used oats instead of almond meal….just starting my conversion to gf/df/sf and still learning about all of the other possibilities).
I just made this recipe tonight, but I had a hard time with it being to dry to stick together. I used all the quantities the recipe called for, but in the end ended up adding at least another 1/3 cup coconut oil. Have you ever had this problem? DO you transfer the honey/coconut oil mixture to a mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients, or do you add them all to the pan on the stove while the heat is still on low? Maybe that would be part of it…
Hi Laura,
So sorry you had troubles with the recipe! That is always so frustrating when you try recipes from the internet, eh? I do in fact add the dry stuff to the still warm stuff after it’s melted, so maybe the heat helps bind it together. Also, I find that the kind of honey can make a difference. When I posted this I lived very near a honey farm and had awesome organic raw creamed honey. Now I just have the regular grocery store honey, and it does act differently in recipes, though I haven’t yet tried it in this one (we moved just a few months ago).
Next time you could try adding more honey as well so that the coconut oil isn’t too overwhelming. It’s also stickier than oil, so maybe it would stay together better.
I do have to squeeze them together in order to form balls. It’s not until they’re in the freezer that they really firm up and don’t fall apart.
You could also skip the almond flour – that would make them stickier.
I hope they taste good anyway tonight!
I’ve had this recipe pinned for a while now, and I’m kicking myself for not trying it sooner. My 2 year old helped, we had a great time, and they are amazingly delicious. Thanks!
My kids love helping me with this one too. Glad you loved them!
These are DELICIOUS! I bought coconut oil for the first time and it smells so much like macaroons that I had to look up a recipe. This was so simple, and made with ingredients I already had on hand (yippee!). The only thing I did differently was use a different gluten free flour because I recently finished off my almond meal. I’ve been snacking on these for the last few days and my husband likes them too =)
Hurray! I’m so glad you loved them! So easy and decadent, but actually good for you – it’s great, eh?
i’ve made these twice since finding your recipe. love them!
oh hurray – glad you like them! and thanks for letting me know – i love hearing from people who actually try my recipes
I made these as directed and they are so easy and delicious. However, mine are really chewy and they were somewhat difficult to drop because the flakes were large and dried. Did you actually use large or medium dehydrated coconut flakes? I don’t see that that are moist unsweetened coconut flakes,
I use medium unsweetened coconut. Hope that helps!
I just made these… delish!!!!! and so easy! I will definitely be making these again!
Hurray! Glad you enjoyed them… they are so decadent yet actually good for you… win-win
Almond meal is expensive here in Canada; however, I just buy bulk almonds and throw in food processor and make my own, much cheaper! Thanks for these great recipes!
That is a great idea. I don’t have a food processor that’s powerful enough without burning out the motor, but I’d like to own a VitaMix someday!
I just made these and while i haven’t tasted them cooled, the mixture is AH-mazing. I didn’t have medium/large flaked coconut – all i had was shredded. We are also avoiding nuts for our little ones right now, so total I used 3 3/4 cups of shredded coconut and it turned out wonderfully! can’t wait to share these with my boys and hubby!
Glad you like the recipe… it’s a winner among all of my friends as well
Enjoy!
I just made a batch and they are in the freezer as we speak. I cannot wait to eat them! The best part is that since there isn’t any egg, you can lick the bowl clean in the mean time!
Thanks for the recipe, sending this to my friend, a vegan, she will love these too!
Made these as a treat after lunch. My family LOVED them. Not a big surprise since we love all things chocolate… I appreciate recipes that offer healthy alternatives to what the SAD diet offers. Thanks for the recipe and I will continue to browse your site!
These look so tasty! I love that they’re not cooked (I prefer raw honey too). I featured these on my Menu Inspirations Easter Special (as you already know by now!) I was planning to comment here to let you know, but was a bit slow off the mark. Hope you have a wonderful Easter holiday!
I’m not sure what the shipping/tariffs would be, but nuts.com sells almond flour (6.99 a lb) as well as many other unusual flours
Making these for the second time today! The first batch was enjoyed by the Joseph cast, my parents and us of course! I managed to spread them quite far considering! Today I am going to use 1 cup oats and 2 c coconut as I am low on coconut…. We’ll see how it goes!
Oooh, these look good. I’ve made macaroons with egg white before and they take forever…
Just another lovely use of coconut oil.
Thanks for linking your great post to FAT TUESDAY. This was very interesting! Hope to see you next week!
Be sure to visit RealFoodForager.com on Sunday for Sunday Snippets – your post from Fat Tuesday may be featured there!
http://realfoodforager.com/fat-tuesday-march-6-2012/
chocolate and I don’t do well but sometimes, if it’s really really good… it’s worth it
These look like they may approach “worth it”.
I think they are definitely on the “worth it” list
Favorite! They were haystacks growing up for us too
thanks for the recipe.
Haystacks… I hadn’t heard that one. Makes sense though!
I’m making these tonight!
Let me know how they turn out!
These look yummy! Thanks for sharing. I will be whipping up a batch this weekend.
Yay! Hope you love them as much as we do
I think you have inspired me to make these today! We called them haystacks growing up. I like how your sassy self comes out in your recipe btw:).
On a random note, did you know that Bob’s Red Mill ships all of their flours and you can get them in much larger packages….shipping is expensive to NS but everything always is. I think that it is much cheaper else where in Canada, you might want to look into it.
Thanks for the sassiness affirmation. Love it.
I did NOT know that about BRM… I’m totally looking that up! Thanks!
You can make your own almond meal by putting shaved/slivered raw almonds in a blender or food processor. I did it just last week and it worked wonderfully.
BTW, Ariana loves “yellow soup” too.
Oh yeah, I always forget about that because I can’t get it fine enough to use as “flour” in most recipes. But it would work great in this recipe!
Hi to Ari!
What kind of honey do you use? Looks like a creamy one. Would love to try the recipe.
I use a local raw creamed organic honey. I imagine any kind of honey would work, but the flavour may be slightly altered.