Food Blog Friday: Coconut Bars from Elana’s Pantry

Food Blog Friday is back and this week I’m featuring some delicious Coconut Bars from Elana’s Pantry.  These moist dessert bars are packed with coconut flavor and made with all natural ingredients.  They are grain and gluten-free and lightly sweetened with honey rather than processed sugar.

Since it’s been a while, let me tell you again what Food Blog Fridays are all about.  As you all know, there are tons of great food blogs out there and more are popping up every day.  While I can’t keep track of them all, I try to keep up as much as I can and am constantly running across recipes I want to try.  I do my best to share links to great finds on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but occasionally I like to feature great food blogger recipes right here and in the process introduce you to the bloggers who create them.

First of all, I know it’s Saturday, but this post would have been up yesterday if my site hadn’t been down for most of the day.  In fact, yesterday was kind of an all-around awful day.  So, if it’s all right with you, I’m just going to pretend that yesterday never happened and pretend that today is Friday.  Thanks!

When I saw these Coconut Bars at Elana’s Pantry recently, I knew I’d be making them soon.  I have a newly cleaned and organized pantry so I knew without looking that I was stocked with coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut flour, shredded coconut, almond meal, and honey.  Yes, obviously I love coconut.  And with that combination of ingredients, I figured that there was a pretty good chance I’d love the coconut bars.

I was right.  These are delicious!  They are sweet, but not too sweet – perfect for either a quick snack or dessert.  We’ve been cutting them up into bite-size squares and eating one after each meal, which has been fun.  Who doesn’t like breakfast dessert, lunch dessert, AND dinner dessert?  But I also found out yesterday that these dress up really well with a fruit sauce and whipped cream.  I had some frozen sour cherries in the freezer, so we ate the last of our bars with a cherry sauce and whipped cream, but I think raspberry sauce or a tropical fruit puree would be nice, too.

The coconut bars can also be dressed up with chocolate chips, which is what my friend Jennifer from Always in Wonder did when she baked some yesterday.  You can read about her chocolate chip coconut bars on her blog.  Jennifer and I had good success with the recipe, but we both ended up leaving them in the oven for 5 – 10 minutes longer than Elana suggested.

One thing that is a little unusual about this recipe compared to other cookie bars is that they need to be refrigerated before cutting and eating.  While it’s always hard when you have to wait before tasting your creation, in this case it’s definitely worth it.  The flavor and texture improve in the refrigerator and I thought the flavor continued to improve over a couple of days.

While Elana’s Pantry is known as a great resource for those needing gluten-free recipes, I’ve found that it’s a great resource for anyone interested in limiting processed foods.  Have you tried any recipes from Elana’s Pantry?  Do you have any favorites?

Coconut Bars recipe at Elana’s Pantry
Follow Elana on Twitter
Elana’s Pantry on Facebook
Elana’s Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook on Amazon

Other Recipes to Try from Elana’s Pantry:

• Perfect Roast Chicken
• Mounds Candy Bars
• Silver Dollar Pancakes
• Thai Chicken Soup
• Carrot French Fries

Previous Food Blog Fridays:

• Caramel Apple Pear Cake from  Zoë Bakes
• Spicy Tomato Jam from Over a Tuscan Stove
• Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake from Baking Bites
• Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting from Simply Recipes
• Lemon Poppyseed Zucchini Bread from 101 Cookbooks
• Fattoush from Kalyn’s Kitchen
• Spice-Rubbed Flank Steak from Blue Kitchen
• Lemon Buttermilk Popsicles from Whipped
• Apricot Almond Tart from Tartelette
• Blueberry Orange Cornmeal Pancakes from Satisfied
• Luscious Lemon Bars from Alpineberry