Nakd Bar Challenge!- vegan, raw,sugar free

The bought version- thoroughly blended and satisfyingly chewy!

Our kids love Nakd bars- they are full of healthy ingredients, raw, vegan and taste great. They come in several flavours: Cocoa Delight, Cocoa Orange, Pecan Pie, Cocoa Mint, Ginger Bread, Cashew Cookie, Berry Delight, Caffe Mocha and Rhubarb and Custard. But Nakd bars are so simple we thought we'd replicate one kind at home then do a blindfold taste test  to see if our bar was good enough to pass as the real thing. We chose Cocoa Delight, as we had all the ingredients to hand. It was quick and easy to make, but as you will see, the test results were pretty interesting...

Thanks to this handy ingredients list with %s included, recreating the recipe for this bar was not difficult.

Once the recipe had been worked out, it only took a few minutes to make enough for about 2 bars:

50g dates

30g cashews

20g raisins

about 1 heaped tab cacao (raw cocoa)

(I didn't bother with the natural chocolate flavouring)

• Chop the dates and raisins as finely as possible.
• Grind the cashews to a powder.
• Mix with the cacao.
• Use a little bit of water to press the mixture together and shape into 2 bars/ roll into balls.

The bars didn't look that nice (see below), as I had not used a food processor and the fruit wasn't chopped as finely as it could have been. If I had dehydrated the bars I could havemaybe replicated the lovely chewy texture of the original.

The home made bar is less homogenous and not as chewy.

And the test results? Everyone could tell from the texture which was the Nakd bar and which was home made, but most people preferred the flavour of the home made bar, as it was fresher. (The Nakd bar had an almost sour aftertaste.) I quite liked the way that the home made bar gave you little tastes of raisin or date, but I also really like the homogenous, chewy texture of the Nakd bar. The verdict: we'll be making them again...