Homemade Bounty Bars
Chewy coconut bars dipped in dark chocolate, like the classic Bounty. No baking, five ingredients in the filling, vegan as written. The trick is a frozen slab and fork-dipped fingers.
vegan
Soft, sweet coconut in a snappy dark chocolate shell. No oven, no thermometer, and the whole batch is dairy-free.
Recipe inspiration
A tin of something sweet to bring to a friend's, a dairy-free guest at the table, sixteen small gifts from one tin. Or the Celebrations box, where a 2022 Mars trial found 40% of people disliked the Bounty. This one uses dark chocolate, less sugar and a pinch of salt.
About this dish
Mars launched Bounty in Britain in 1951. Forrest Mars Sr. designed it in Slough as an answer to America's Mounds, made by hand from 1920 at the Peter Paul company: a "mound" of sweetened coconut rolled, flattened and dipped in dark chocolate. Bounty comes in milk chocolate (blue wrapper) and dark (red), sold as two bars to a pack. Australia had a cherry Bounty from 2006 to 2013.
This one is closer to the dark original. The filling is chewy and moist, tastes of toasty coconut and a little caramel from the syrup, and the salt keeps it from tasting only sweet. The shell is thin and snaps, bittersweet against the coconut.
Additions & substitutions
- Milk chocolate: sweeter and closer to the blue-wrapper Bounty. Use 300 g; it sets softer, so keep the bars in the fridge.
- Condensed milk filling: the classic non-vegan version. Swap the coconut cream, syrup and coconut oil for sweetened condensed milk, added a few spoons at a time until it clumps (about half a 395 g tin). Sweeter and stickier; press with wet hands.
- Sweetener: honey or golden syrup for the maple or rice malt syrup. Honey makes it not vegan.
- Almond Joy style: press a roasted almond on top of each finger before dipping, and dip in milk chocolate. That's Mounds' sister bar.
- Toasted coconut: toast half the coconut in a dry pan, stirring, until pale gold, about 3 minutes. Cool it before blitzing. Deeper and nuttier.
- Cacao coating, no chocolate: the Women's Weekly way. Melt 100 g coconut oil, 120 g cacao butter and 80 ml maple syrup, then whisk in 100 g cacao powder.
- Lime or cherry: zest of 1 lime in the filling, or 50 g chopped glacé cherries for a nod to the old Australian cherry Bounty.
Expert tips
Shopping
- Desiccated or shredded coconut, unsweetened. Desiccated is finer and drier and packs tighter; shredded gives a chewier bar. Both work at this weight.
- Coconut cream, not coconut milk. Milk is too thin and the filling stays wet. Shake the tin first.
- Dark chocolate around 50 to 70% cocoa. Check the label says dairy-free if that matters; many dark blocks contain milk.
- Skip chocolate "melts". They set waxy and don't snap. See chocolate.
Preparing
- Blitz to clumps, not paste. 20 to 30 seconds. Squeeze a handful: it should hold. Overblitzed coconut turns oily.
- Press hard. Use the base of a glass and lean on it. Loose filling crumbles when you cut it.
- Freeze, then cut frozen. A long sharp knife, wiped between cuts, gives square ends.
- Cool the chocolate 5 minutes. Hot chocolate melts the coconut oil in the filling and the bar goes soft as you dip.
- Four at a time. Keep the rest in the freezer. Two forks: drop, turn, lift, tap the fork on the bowl's edge three times.
Make ahead, or for a crowd
- They keep 2 weeks in an airtight container in the fridge, or 2 months in the freezer. Eat them cold; on a hot day the filling softens.
- For gifts, wrap each bar in baking paper and twist the ends, or stack in a lined tin.
- Double the batch in a 20 cm square tin and cut 32 fingers. Dip in two lots of chocolate so the bowl doesn't fill with coconut.
Serving suggestions
- Straight from the fridge with a coffee. See coffee.
- Chopped over ice cream, or beside our chocolate liqueur.
- In a box with homemade Snickers for a gift.
- More sweet things without an oven in Healthy snacks.
Homemade Bounty Bars
Published 2 Oct 2026 · Updated 3 Oct 2026
Ingredients
Makes 16 fingers, about 9 x 2.5 cm.
Coconut filling
- 200 g desiccated or shredded coconut, unsweetened (about 2½ cups)
- 125 ml coconut cream (½ cup)
- 60 ml maple syrup or rice malt syrup (¼ cup)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- ¼ tsp fine salt
Chocolate coating
- 300 g dark chocolate (dairy-free if needed), chopped
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
Method
- Line a loaf tin, about 21 x 11 cm, with baking paper or plastic wrap, leaving plenty hanging over the sides. Line a flat tray with baking paper and clear space for it in the freezer.
- Blitz the filling. Put the coconut, coconut cream, syrup, melted coconut oil and salt in a food processor and pulse for 20 to 30 seconds. Stop when it clumps when you squeeze a handful, and before it turns to paste.
- Press it in. Tip it into the tin and pack it firmly and flat with the base of a glass, into the corners. Freeze 45 minutes to 1 hour, until hard all the way through when you press the middle.
- Melt the chocolate. Put the chocolate and coconut oil in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, or microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring each time. Stop when a few small lumps remain and stir until smooth and glossy. Cool 5 minutes, until it feels just warm on your lip.
- Cut the slab. Lift it out with the overhang. Cut it across into 8 bars, then each bar in half lengthways, for 16 fingers. Put 12 back in the freezer on a plate.
- Dip them. Drop one finger in the chocolate, turn it with two forks, lift it out and tap the fork on the bowl's edge until the drips stop. Slide it onto the lined tray. The chocolate should turn matte within a minute. Do four, then swap for four more from the freezer.
- Set. Refrigerate 30 minutes, until the shell snaps. Trim any pooled chocolate from the bases with a small knife for a neat edge.
Notes
- Filling won't hold together? Too dry. Add 1 tbsp coconut cream and pulse again.
- Filling oily or pasty? Overblitzed, or the coconut oil was hot. Freeze it longer; it still sets.
- Bars crumble when cut? Not pressed hard enough, or not frozen through. Press the crumbs back together, freeze 20 minutes more.
- Chocolate sliding off, coconut in the bowl? The fingers warmed up. Back in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- Chocolate too thick to coat? It cooled. Warm 10 to 15 seconds and stir.
- Shell cracked in the fridge? Fridge-cold bars meeting hot chocolate. Cool the chocolate a little longer next time. A cracked bar tastes the same.
- White streaks on the chocolate? Fat bloom, from temperature swings. Harmless; keep them in one place, in the fridge.
Sources
- "Bounty (chocolate bar)", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounty_(chocolate_bar)
- "Mounds (candy bar)", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mounds_(candy_bar)
- "Coconut oil", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil
- "Bountiful choc-coconut bars", The Australian Women's Weekly Food, https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/recipe/dessert/choc-coconut-bars-30714/
- "Homemade Bounty Bars", Amanda's Cookin', https://amandascookin.com/homemade-bounty-bars/
