Melted Snowman Bark [vegan, gluten free, nut free]
Dec 01, 2018 • Updated Jun 20, 2023
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It’s December!!! I can’t believe it’s December (even though I feel like I say this about almost every month ha!). I don’t love winter weather, but I do have a special place in my heart because it’s Sagittarius season, my birthday month, and the month of Christmas! I’ve been loving sharing cookie recipes in the spirit of the holidays, but today’s recipe is for a different winter treat–Melted Snowman Bark.
Now typically, these cute winter treats are made with melted white chocolate, M&Ms, candy eyes, standard peanut butter cups and pretzels. As you can see, none of the traditional ingredients are vegan, nor are they gluten-free, so I set out on a mission to completely veganize the recipe AND make it gluten-free. I’m happy to share that it was a success and these babies actually turned out to be very allergen friendly. By that, I mean vegan, gluten free, soy free and also nut free! Of course, if you don’t have any allergies of dietary restrictions, please feel free to use conventional ingredients, but I thought I’d do the work to make this recipe accessible to all 🙂
What makes most traditional candies not vegan are the use of ingredients like, gelatin, food colouring derived from crushed beetles, milk powder and sometimes conventional sugar (which can be filtered through bone char). This sort of depends on your stance on sugar, as I know many vegans that do consume conventional sugar!
For the white chocolate “body”, I used No Whey’s Vegan White Chocolate. For the snowman hat, I also used their mini Pea-Not Butter Cups, which are made with seed butter instead of nut butter. They were a little round on the bottom, so I just trimmed the bottoms off with a warmed knife before using them as the hats.
Next, I had to figure out what to use for the eyes. They sell candy eyes, but most of them include gelatin and conventional sugar as ingredients so I opted to DIY them. I’ll be honest, the process was tedious, but I used a recipe I found on Petite Allergy Treat’s blog. Essentially, it’s a mixture of powdered sugar and water, plus a chocolate chip on top. Instead of a chocolate chip, I made a second paste mixture of powdered sugar, water, and a touch of charcoal powder so that I could draw on eyes in the size that I wanted. Note: I used an organic vegan powdered sugar. I used this one from Wholesome!
For the buttons, I decided to use mini chocolate chips from Enjoy Life, which are allergen free, and the perfect miniature size!
Next for the carrot nose, I used orange sprinkles that I tediously picked out from my container of vegan and gluten free rainbow sprinkles. I use this vanilla funfetti sprinkle blend from Hardcore Sprinkles! It is free of the top 8 allergens, which is awesome because it’s hard to find soy-free sprinkles.
Finally, for the pretzel arms, I used Quinn Snacks gluten-free and vegan sea salt pretzel rods. These are one of my favourite snacks in general, and they were perfect for these snowmen! Bonus points if you find oddly shaped rods in your bag, because they make for extra fun and expressive arms (see that one on the left that looks like it’s dancing?).
Now let’s get into the how-to!
Melted Snowman Bark [vegan, gluten free, nut free, soy free]
Ingredients
- white chocolate I used about 3 bars via No Whey
- mini chocolate chips via Enjoy Life
- mini seed butter cups via No Whey
- orange sprinkles
- pretzel rods via Quinn Snacks
- homemade candy eyes via Petit Allergy Treats
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Prep all your ingredients first and make sure they're on hand, as you'll need to place the accessories onto the chocolate before it hardens and cools.
- Cut your seed butter cups in half. The side that you cut open will lay flat and become the snowman hat!
- Chop white chocolate into small pieces to make melting easier.
- Use the double boiler method, by placing chocolate in a small heat safe bowl, and placing that bowl inside of a larger pot. Fill the space between the outside of the bowl + the pot with water. bring to a boil and stir as the chocolate melts until even.
- Using a spoon, make small puddle shapes with the melted white chocolate. Make the layer about as thick as a chopstick (that was a bad analogy, but go with it!).
- Place the seed butter cup hat on top, the eyes underneath, the orange sprinkle in between the eyes, three mini chips down the center as buttons and finally, two pieces of pretzel rods for arms.
- Allow to cool until fully hardened, then enjoy!
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
