Homemade Almond Joy Candy Bars

You store bought Almond Joy candy bar has an incredible ingredients list:

Corn Syrup, Milk Chocolate, (Sugar; Cocoa Butter; Chocolate; Milk; Lactose; Milk Fat; Nonfat Milk; and Soy Lecithin and PGPR, Emulsifiers); Coconut; Sugar; Almonds; Contains 2% or less of: Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, (Cottonseed and Soybean Oil); Whey (Milk): Cocoa; Salt; Natural and Artificial Flavor; Chocolate; Hydrolyzed Milk Protein; Soy Lecithin; Carmel Color; Sodium Metabisulfite; and Sulfur Dioxide. 

My homemade almond joy candy bar has:

sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, powdered sugar, shredded coconut, milk chocolate, whole raw almonds


Granted, if I listed the individual ingredients in the sweetened condensed milk and milk chocolate my ingredients list would grow somewhat.  However, when you're making something yourself you have a lot more control over what's in it.  I know there are all sorts of more natural options for chocolate and I bet there are alternatives in sweetened condensed milk too.  (Okay, I looked it up and you can use evaporated milk, sugar, and a bit of margarine to replace s.c. milk.)


These are YUMMY!!!  Every bit as good or better than storebought.  I mixed them in the food processor to chop up the coconut a bit more which I liked better.  They were a little crumbly and only about half of them actually got dipped :")  If I did these again I'd press them into mini-muffin pans to create individual round "bars" that wouldn't need to be sliced before dipping.


My favorite trick I've learned about dipping in chocolate has to do with the tool I use.  Spoons move too much chocolate and waste it and even forks can gather a lot, especially if the chocolate is starting to cool.  Chopsticks are handy, but leave marks on the sides or top/bottom of the candies.  So my solution?  A plastic fork with the middle two tines broken out.  That leaves you two tines spaced far enough apart to easily lift items levelly.  After holding or tapping the dipped item over the container to let excess drip off I slide the bottom of the fork along the edge of the container to wipe off excess that's hanging down.  Then set the whole thing on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper and slide the dipped item off the fork.  Leaves hardly any mark if you get it right and it's so much easier to handle!


I read several recipes and chose one posted on Chocolate-Candy-Mall.com.  It had fewer steps than many other recipes and looked tasty.  I chose to use raw almonds instead of dry roasted and loved the result.  I also used milk instead of semi-sweet chocolate because my husband is slightly insane ;)
Please note: this recipe only uses about 1/3 of a can of sweetened condensed milk to a full bag of coconut.  I used milk chocolate dipping bits intended to be melted to have things dipped into them so I put them in a plastic container and melted them gently in the microwave according to directions.  If I were using chocolate chips I'd probably add a bit of paraffin or coconut oil to thin it a bit.

Recipe for Almond Joy or Mounds Candy Bars

Ingredients:
5 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 t vanilla
2 C powdered sugar
14 oz shredded or flaked coconut
24 oz semisweet chips
1 cup whole dry roasted almonds

Directions:

1. Blend the condensed milk and the vanilla. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until smooth.
   
2. Stir in the coconut. The mixture should be firm.
   
3. Pat the mixture firmly into a Greased 9 x 13 x 2 inch pan. Chill in the refrigerator until quite firm.
   
4. In a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water, melt the chocolate, stirring often.
   
5. Remove the coconut mixture from the refrigerator and cut into 1 x 2 inch bars.
   
6. (For Almond Joy) Put 2 whole almonds atop each bar.
   
7. Set each coconut bar onto a fork and dip it into the chocolate. Tap the fork against the side of the pan or bowl to remove any excess chocolate. Place on waxed paper lined tray to Set.