Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters

The perfect snack on the go or after dinner dessert, Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters is a great way to use up extra nuts and seeds stocked up in your pantry. 

Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters from The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen

A couple of weeks ago I started work on a new project for my freelance client that involved recipe testing for a nut and seed oil press machine.  This machine was totally foreign to me because a) I had never heard of such thing before and b) research on the interwebs wasn’t turning up much at all.

What I managed to figure out from chatting with them and the small amount of research I could find was that the machine was designed to make your own nut and seed oils from home.  That was great, I had a starting point.  What I didn’t have was the type or seeds would work with the machine or how many of each I needed to use to press oil.  This is always one of the challenges that comes with the job of recipe testing on new machines but I accept it and move on like I do.  So I ran off to one of my daily pit stops to the grocery store and picked out every nut and seed I could possibly think of.  Then got to work.  The project completed with success but I was left with more nuts and seeds than I normally keep in the house at one time.

Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters | girlinthelittleredkitchen.com

Don’t get me wrong, this was a good leftover food to have.  I love nuts but I usually only pick them up when I have a specific need for it.  Otherwise when I have too much of something in the house, they will sometimes get forgotten or pushed to the back of the pantry and end of forgotten.  Of course I know nuts can be frozen but we are not going to discuss the state of my freezer at the moment!

The obvious choice was to make some nut and seed bars.  I’ve never had much luck making homemade granola bars in the past but I figured what’s the worse that will happen? If they fall apart, they will still taste delicious.  I spend 3-4 days a week out of the house baking or selling cookies at markets and it would be the perfect snack to take with me.

Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters

As luck would have it they did break apart on me when I tried to cut them into bars but it’s all good because it gave us these clusters that wanted to be dipped in chocolate instead.

The nuts are just lightly sweetened with some honey and agave to help bind them together but still keep everything on the healthy snack side of things.  We aren’t going for a candy bar here but a protein packed energy boosting snack (with a chocolate bonus, shhh).  Still though, it’s just a dab of chocolate, let’s keep that in mind not a dunk!

The best part of these clusters? Use whatever you have on hand, there’s no wrong way to mix it up! Raid the back of your pantry or your freezer and use up those half filled bags of nuts to make these crunchy, sweet and chocolatey bites.

Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters
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Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted cashews
  • 1 cup unsalted pecans
  • 3/4 cup shelled pistachios
  • 1/2 cup unsalted pepitas
  • 1/2 cup unsalted hulled sunflower seeds
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup agave
  • 4 ounces dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao)
  • flaky sea salt to finish

Instructions

  1. Heat your oven to 350 degrees and line a 9x9 baking dish with parchment paper.
  2. Place the nuts, seeds, honey and agave in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine evenly.
  3. Pour the nut mixture into the prepared baking dish and press flat.
  4. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the nuts are toasty.
  5. Let cool on the counter for about 10-15 minutes before transferring to the refrigerator to cool completely for at least 1 hour.
  6. Remove from the refrigerator, lift up the parchment paper from the pan and break into clusters.
  7. Melt the dark chocolate and dip a small corner of each cluster into the chocolate. Place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper to set. Sprinkle the chocolate dip with flaky sea salt if desire.
  8. Place the clusters back in the refrigerator to chill again.
  9. Serve once the chocolate is set and store leftovers in a flat layer in an airtight container.
  10. Clusters are best kept in the refrigerator. If stored at room temperature they will become sticky and the chocolate will dull.
Recipe Type: Snack, Chocolate, Nuts
https://girlinthelittleredkitchen.com/2016/10/chocolate-dipped-nut-seed-clusters/

 

Chocolate Dipped Nut and Seed Clusters | girlinthelittleredkitchen.com

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