Here's a raw cacao chocolate recipe that we love making for Valentine's Day... or any day for that matter! Enjoy!
Healthy chocolate. Is there such a thing? Let’s just say YES. If you love chocolate as much as we do, but you don’t love all those additives, preservatives, lab-made flavors and extra junk they add into the chocolate bars you see in grocery stories, then this recipe is for you! If you make it with raw, organic cacao powder, then you’ll be using cacao beans that are un-roasted (hence, raw) that are cold-pressed. (Compared to traditional baking cocoa has been roasted at high temps, thus destroying many of the health benefits.) Raw, organic cacao is high antioxidants, minerals, and magnesium! It aids in cardiovascular health, aids in pms symptoms (hello, monthly chocolate cravings!), acts as an anti-depressant, balances the mood, and much more! The raw, organic cacao powder I like the best is: Navita's Organic. You can get it lickey-split in two days from Amazon Prime: here. (Did you catch that little pun?) haha :)
I love making this recipe with Lorelei. It’s quick, easy and fun recipe we like to make together (and enjoy together once they’re done.). Albeit, it can be a bit messy if you’re distracted by your little one, but - hey - that’s what tongues are for… licking off tiny, chocolate-laden fingers!
Does it bug you as much as it does me when you’re looking for a recipe, think you’ve found the perfect one, but the blogger rambles ON AND ON about who knows what until they FINALLY get to the thing you visited there blog for in the first place?!? Well, I’m not going to do that to you. Therefore, here is the recipe and below that are detailed instructions with photos (taken of my mini-me assistant, Lorelei).
OK! Let’s make this chocolate goodness!
Step One: After gathering your ingredients, you’ll also need a butter knife, spatula, pan, whisk, bowl and lastly, most importantly: SILICONE MOLDS. We love to use all shapes and sizes of silicone molds for this recipe. The chocolates easily come out all cute and perfectly shaped. Plus, we use these silicone molds for frozen smoothie bites in the summer time! These are the silicone molds we like to use. Alternately, you can use a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper on top rather than the silicone molds. This method turns it into “chocolate bark”.
Step Two: melt the coconut oil on medium heat in a saucepan.
Step Three: Once melted, add in the raw cacao (or cocoa) powder, and then the sea salt. Whisk until immersed.
Step Four: Add maple syrup. Note: if adding honey instead of syrup, take the pan off the heat to let cool for 1 minute, THEN add honey. If you avoid heating the honey a bit, the natural health properties will remain intact, ready to be devoured by you soon.
Step Five: (Optional)… To add anything to the chocolate such as: one teaspoon of vanilla extract, a few drops of pure peppermint or orange essential oil, 2 tablespoons of coconut shavings or 2 tablespoons of chia seeds (which adds a crunchiness much like a Nestle Crunch Bar)-especially if you add the peppermint oil), then here’s when you’ll add any of those ingredients. It would be helpful to pour the chocolate into a bowl to cool and whisk the ingredients into the chocolate. If any extracts are added when the chocolate is too hot, the chocolate may “curdle”. This is why it’s important to get it out of the hot pan into a cool bowl to whisk with the chocolate.
{A note about chia seeds: they will give the chocolates a lovely crunchy effect IF they’re added at the last minute. If they sit too long in the chocolate, they’ll start to soak up the chocolate mixture and get soft.}
Step 6: Pour chocolate into silicone molds and use butter knife to scrape chocolate into each mold. Then, scrape off remainder into the next mold you’ll be using, thus not creating waste.
Step 7: Once the molds are scraped off pretty well with each mold filled to the top, place them in the fridge until hardened. Since these chocolates are made with coconut oil, they’ll need to stay refrigerated, otherwise they’ll melt at room temperature. Another option is to freeze them.
Step 8: (Optional, but recommended) Unless you eat them as fast as we do, I would recommend popping each chocolate out of the molds and putting them in an air-tight container to store (so they don’t end up tasting like refrigerator (ewwwww).
That's it! I hope you enjoy this chocolate recipe as much as we do. We love making them for Valentine's Day, birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, Easter... ok let's just say that we like to make them for any holiday or special occasion. :)
As you can see from the pics above, Lorelei likes to play with, hog and savor the chocolate to herself. :) Good thing this Mam saves a separate stash in the freezer just for her. ;)
Let me know how yours turned out! Bon'Appetit!
Love,
Cryssy
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