Nut-free Turtle Bars

I’m on an American baking tip at the moment so Turtle Bars had to feature, and as with all my recipes these turtle bars are nut-free, dairy-free and egg-free. A good old American favourite, the turtle bar is a delicious combination of buttery shortbread base, gooey caramel, crunchy, nutty pecans, all topped with a layer of chocolate.

To make my Turtle bars nut-free i’ve used pretzels instead of pecans which in my mind make a genius replacement for nuts – you still get the crunch and the saltiness that you’d expect from a nut, and i feel that a pretzel is about as pecan like as you can get without being a pecan! If you can eat nuts and just want a vegan turtle bar recipe then replace the pretzels with pecans or other nut of choice.

I’ve used the caramel sauce from the recipe i posted the other week as the caramel layer and the best bit about that is you get extra caramel sauce to use on other desserts or bakes.

This recipe makes 6 generous sized bars, but you can easily double the recipe and use a 20cm square tun instead. Or cut the six bars in half to make more bite sized mini turtle bars.

lucylox

Nut-free Turtle Bars

nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sesame-free, vegan and vegetarian

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 17 minutes mins

Servings: 6

Course: bar, Dessert

Cuisine: American

Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients

  

• 60 g dairy-free butter
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 30 g granulated sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 120 g plain flour
• 22 g pretzels one small bag
• 100 g caramel sauce
• 50 g dairy-free chocolate chips or chopped

Equipment

• 1 2lb loaf tin

Method

 

1. Preheat the oven to 170℃
2. Line the loaf tin with baking paper and set aside

To make the shortbread layer

1. melt the butter in a sauce pan, once melted stir in the vanilla, sugar and salt
2. stir in the flour and then press into the lined loaf tin.
3. scatter most of the pretzels on top (keeping 3 or 4 aside) and then bake for 15-17 minutes until golden around the edges

for the topping

1. warm the caramel sauce and pour over the shortbread base
2. scatter the chocolate over the top and dot with the remaining pretzels, crushed up
3. return to the oven for two minutes to melt the chocolate
4. Leave the bars to fully set (this will take a couple of hours in the fridge) before cutting into 6 even slices