These chewy No Bake Peanut Butter Cheesecake Protein Bars are vegan and gluten free. Healthy and nutritious these bars are pleasurable for all the peanut butter fans out there.
Course Snack
Cuisine glutenfree, vegan
Keyword no bake protein bars, peanut butter bars, peanut butter cheesecake, peanut butter protein bars
Prepare a small (about 2 cups) rectangle/square pan with a parchment paper and grease it lightly. We grease the parchment paper to avoid sticking and it’s easy to lift the bars later.
In a food processor combine dates, ¼ cup hemp seeds and ¼ cup peanuts. Process it until it is well crushed and a dough can be formed. (If you pick a small portion of this mixture and squeeze between palm it should stick and not crumble).
Now, spread the dates mixture evenly in the container by pressing gently with fingers/palm.
Then, freeze it for 30 minutes.
In the meanwhile, combine peanut butter, cream cheese and maple syrup in the same food processor and process until dry. This should also become dough like.
Now, take out the dates mixture pan and spread another layer of peanut butter mixture on it. Use your palm to gently spread and press the peanut butter mixture. The entire mixture should be tightly compressed in the pan or else it won’t stick together.
Freeze it again for 20 minutes.
Lastly, take it out again and top it with leftover hemp seeds and crushed peanuts. Gently press them with fingers so they don’t fall off while cutting into pieces.
Freeze it again for 10 minutes.
Now, take it out and gently lift the parchment paper from the pan and cut into desired pieces.
Notes
After using ¼ cup peanuts for the date mixture, roughly crush rest of the peanuts for garnishing purpose.
For the above measurements I used a small 2 cups rectangle container/pan to tightly compress the bars. You may use bigger container as well. However, the bars will come out thin but you may cut it into many small pieces.
I used unsalted pure peanut butter. If you plan to use a regular peanut butter that is sweetened and has salt then please adjust maple syrup as per taste.