Easy Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans (Vegan & Gluten Free)

Combining melt in your mouth chocolate with beloved caffeine, these chocolate covered espresso beans makes for a great pick me up snack or as a holiday gift!

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Diet Gluten Free, Vegan

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings servings

Calories 177kcal

Author Abbey Sharp

Ingredients

¾-1 cup Coffee Beans Espresso Beans or Dark Roasted Beans
90 g dark chocolate bar or chips
90 g milk or semi-sweet chocolate bar or chips

Topping ideas:

Cacao powder
Crushed freeze-dried raspberries or strawberries
Hemp seeds
Peanut butter powder
Flavored collagen powder
Flaky sea salt

Instructions

Temper the chocolate by either melting it in the microwave or on the stovetop. The easiest way to melt it is in the microwave: place the chocolate in a heat-safe bowl. Place the chocolate in the microwave for 20-25 seconds. Remove the bowl from the microwave and gently give it a stir. Microwave the bowl for another 20 seconds and repeat. Microwave one more time for about 15 seconds and stir. The chocolate should be just nearly melted with a few small pieces of chocolate chips/chunks remaining. These will continue to melt as you stir.
Once your chocolate is melted, drop ½-1 tablespoon of espresso beans into the bowl of chocolate.
Using one or two forks, carefully coat each of the espresso beans in chocolate and lift them one or two at a time out of the chocolate.
Tap the fork on the side of the bowl to get rid of any extra chocolate, and then place the chocolate covered bean on a parchment covered sheet pan. Repeat until you’ve covered all of the espresso beans currently in the bowl.
Optional: If you wish to coat the beans with any toppings, make sure to do so while the chocolate is still liquidy and soft. If you wait until the chocolate firms up, some of the toppings may not stick. Sprinkle on the cacao powder, freeze dried fruit, hemp seeds, PB powder, collagen powder or sea salt.
Once you complete a sheet of chocolate covered beans, place the sheet pan in the fridge for a few minutes to help the chocolate firm up. If you’ve properly tempered your chocolate, the chocolate will look shiny and hard, and stay solid even at room temperature.

Notes

When melting the chocolate, if you’re using a bar, cut it or break it into small pieces first so it melts evenly and quickly.
When dipping the beans into the chocolate, you’ll have to work quickly as the chocolate will stiffen up over time. To fix that, microwave the chocolate for 8-10 seconds or so between every few batches as the chocolate stiffens. I also recommend only adding a little of beans to the melted chocolate at a time so you don’t end up having your beans in your mixture as it stiffens.
If you don’t have a microwave, you can melt your chocolate on the stove by placing a heat safe bowl over a pot of water, making sure the bowl isn’t touching the water. Place the chocolate in the bowl and bring the water up to a boil, stirring the chocolate until it has melted.
For a super chocolatey espresso bean, you can also coat the espresso beans in chocolate two times. Simply repeat the steps in the instructions, then re-dip the beans in small batches back into the chocolate. Keep in mind that you will need more chocolate in order to coat them a second time.

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