And today, on the 8th of March which is actually International Women’s Day, I have a very special treat for you, the one which all women love, love, love! ( well, in my case men too )
It’s a chocolate! A beautiful raw chocolate made with love and filled with goodness!
I must admit that chocolate is one of my biggest weaknesses, and I get quite grumpy if for some reason I cannot have it.
I don’t particularly like store-bought chocolate. And the good real raw one is often quite hard to find unless you live near Planet Organic or Wholefoods.
Also, there’s a big taste difference between higher and lower quality and the higher quality brands are usually pretty expensive and the ordinary one which you buy everywhere is either too sweet, or too bitter, or has many ingredients which I am not a big fan of. Most store bought chocolate brands contain sugar or high fructose corn syrup and use soy lecithin as an emulsifier.
So, I make it myself. And i make a lot of it, because it’s going very well in our family
I have a lot of these small silicone forms for chocolate, but this time to be honest I didn’t bother with them, and just made a whole tray of it
The home-made chocolate is very versatile. You can add anything you like to it. It can be nuts, seeds, various dried berries, raisins, cocoa nibs…you name it!
This time I happened to have a trail mix made of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, goji berries, dried blackcurrant and also almonds. All of it went into the chocolate!
Usually I use coconut oil, but this time I had a beautiful raw cacao butter and I thought I will use that. Also it doesn’t melt outside of the fridge, while coconut oil does.
To melt a cacao butter, you have to place it into a heatproof bowl, sit over a pan of barely simmering water (a bain marie) and allow it to melt, stirring occasionally.
Once melted, pour in a cup to have an idea of quantity. For 1 cup of a melted cacao butter ( or coconut oil) I usually use 1 cup of raw cacao powder and between 1/3 to a half cup of some sort of sweetener – maple, date or agave syrup… You can use a bit more sweetener or less of it, depends on your taste buds.
You will need silicone forms/moulds or a silicone tray to pour a chocolate in. I haven’t tried using a metal or glass tray for it, but I assume you would need to use it with a parchment paper in order to get the chocolate out of it after it becomes solid. I always use either a silicone tray or small moulds ( my son loves the small moulds in the shape of dinosaurs, and I love the hearts, but it wasn’t the case this time)
So, here is the recipe and instructions, and I can reassure you that it is very very easy to do and it tastes much better than the one from the shop! You can buy all ingredients on Amazon if you don’t have a good organic health shop nearby. I like Raw Living products, so I use their both Raw Cacao butter and Raw Cacao Powder.
Raw Chocolate
Ingredients
- 1 cup of melted Raw Cacao Butter ( or Coconut Oil, or even both 50/50) - you get 1 cup of melted butter from about about 1.5 cup of solid cacao butter.
- 1 cup Raw Cacao Powder
- 1/2 cup Maple Syrup ( you can use Agave or Date syrup)
- Handful of Raw or Roasted Nuts (chopped into pieces), Seeds and Dried Berries
- Pinch of fine Himalayan or Sea Salt
- A few drops of Vanilla Extract or/and a pinch of Cinnamon Powder.
Instructions
- Place cacao butter in a small bowl.
- You may want to grate cacao butter as it would melt easier.
- Then place the bowl with cacao butter in a shallow pan containing a small amount of hot, nearly boiling water.
- Stir the butter occasionally until it’s totally melted.
- Once melted add raw cacao powder, Maple ( Agave, Date ) syrup and mix well.
- Taste the mix once melted and add more sweetener if you prefer a sweeter taste.
- Add nuts, seeds and berries.
- Your mixture should be runny and easy to pour.
- If it is not easy to pour, this may be because too much raw cacao powder has been added, so try adding a little more raw cacao butter or coconut oil and keep mixing and tasting until you have the right consistency.
- Pour the melted chocolate into the tray/moulds
- Place in the fridge and leave to set for half an hour.
- If you use coconut oil in place of the cacao butter or as half of the mix, I recommend hardening it in the freezer and then storing in the fridge.
- Enjoy!