Coated in dark chocolate and with the most amazing vegan crunchie inside – bubbles and all – these vegan crunchie bars are absolutely delicious and so easy to make. Anyone looking for a dairy-free crunchie alternative will absolutely love this recipe.

I have always been a fan of a crunchie bar. Sweet, crunchy honeycomb covered in milk chocolate – heaven.

You just can’t beat that sugary, light, flaky honeycomb taste and texture – so imagine my absolute delight to discover that making honeycomb is not only extremely easy, but also accidentally vegan!

That’s right – no substitutions or alternatives, just good old-fashioned sugar. And golden treacle. And chocolate.

Now, fair warning.

These vegan honeycomb crunchie bars are not a healthy vegan treat. Oooohh no. These are packed with sugar (the refined kind) and coated in chocolate making them a super indulgent treat.

I’m totally fine with that – but if you are looking for some vegan baking ideas a little more health-conscious, you might like to check out this chocolate and cherry banana loaf or these vegan protein flapjacks.

To make vegan crunchie bars

Ingredients you’ll need

One of the best things about this vegan crunchie recipe is how few ingredients you actually need – just four ingredients!

• Granulated sugar
• Golden treacle
• Baking powder
• Dark chocolate (I use 70% Lindt chocolate for the outer coating, but you could try vegan milk chocolate to get closer to a traditional crunchie bar!)

To make your vegan honeycomb

To make your vegan honeycomb, you’ll need to first make a caramel by combining the sugar and treacle in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved into liquid and the caramel has turned a deep amber colour.

Some recipes recommend using a candy thermometer to accurately check if your sugar is ready. Honestly, I just eyeballed it. I would strongly recommend stirring the mix constantly to ensure all the sugar dissolves and then keep a very careful eye on the liquid as it can burn easily. The risk of not using a candy thermometer, of course, is that you either don’t cook your caramel for long enough, or you cook it for too long and it burns.

When your caramel is ready, you’ll immediately remove it from the heat and stir in your baking powder. This part is really cool – the caramel starts foaming and frothing and grows in size, becoming a lighter (honeycomb-esque) colour.

When this happens, pour it onto your pre-lined baking tray and leave to set for at least an hour. DO NOT touch it – I tried to spread the mix on the tray the first time and knocked out a lot of air bubbles accidentally.

Once the honeycomb has set and hardened, cut it into smaller chunks. I tried to do bar shapes for proper crunchie bars with…limited success. The random chunks still taste delicious.

Melt your chocolate (I used dark chocolate which works really well to offset the sweet honeycomb), and then dip the honeycomb pieces in it. Place the chocolate-covered honeycomb back on your baking tray and put it in the fridge for an hour or two to allow it to set.

I recommend keeping the crunchie bars in the fridge to avoid the chocolate getting too melty.

Other recipes you might like: naughty brownies, vegan chocolate chip banana muffins, ultimate chocolate chip cookies.