Of all the candy out there, normally almond joy would not be my first choice. Not because I don’t like them, but I have just never really had them that often. I’m not sure why I haven’t discovered the amazing combination of flavors sooner. Chocolate, coconut, and almond together makes for a delicious dessert.

The real motive behind making this recipe was my mom. She said that she wanted me to make a recipe that had almond in it. I also know that she really likes coconut, so these almond joy protein cheesecake bars were perfect. It just so happens that her birthday was on Tuesday, so it was nice that I could make them specially for her!

The crust for the cheesecake was really easy to make and not high in fat like most. It was just shredded coconut, coconut flour, whole wheat flour, and applesauce. That coconut flour helps give some good fiber in each bar. Really, overall this whole recipe was much lower in fat and lower calorie than normal cheesecake. In fact, there wasn’t even any cream cheese at all but it still tasted just like a full fat cheesecake!

In the filling, I used cottage cheese and Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese. I also added some vanilla protein powder. The Greek yogurt and cottage cheese combined with the protein powder gave each bar 13 grams of protein. You can definitely not feel any guilt when you eat this cheesecake! I even ate a bunch of the batter when I was making it. It was just too good!

After letting the cheesecake sit in the refrigerator overnight, I melted milk chocolate and dark chocolate together and poured it over top. While the chocolate was still a little gooey and war, I sprinkled some chopped almonds and coconut to give it an awesome almond joy flavor.

[tasty-recipe id=”3286″]