I like love chocolate. It is one of the world’s greatest pleasures. A few years ago I lived in Paris and I distinctly remember eating some of the most incredible chocolate from chocolatiers and deciding that I would never again eat processed, commercial chocolate, I would only treat myself to the ‘real’ stuff, that love and time had gone into. Well that resolution lasted all of a few months I think but over the past year I have made a conscious effort to buy less highly processed chocolate, and make more of my own. I know, make your own!! That’s what I thought, and no it’s not by melting chocolate buttons and remoulding them. I’m no saint, every now and then I fall into a packet of m&ms or a bar of Whittakers (yum) – who doesn’t?!– but on the whole, I try to make my own raw chocolate. It’s delicious, ‘real’ and lacks the processed, sugarfied nature of a lot of store bought stuff.
The recipe below is an adaptation from one off the Whole Pantry app – which actually no longer exists. You can make raw chocolate out of cacao butter as well, but I use coconut oil as I think it’s just as good and is a wee bit cheaper.
Melt 120ml of coconut oil, then add 60g of cacao powder (or 45-50g would probably be sufficient). Finally add 2 ½ tablespoons of pure maple syrup – bit spendy but worth it. I usually only use 1 tablespoon but I’m a fan of super dark chocolate so I don’t need the sweetness so much. Each to their own though, just experiment until you find what you fancy.
Pour into mini muffin moulds and wack into the freezer until set.
A couple of variations that I like to make are adding extras into the moulds such as shredded coconut, cranberries or goji berries, pumpkin seeks or any other seeds you like! Also a yum thing to do is to fill the moulds – or some of them – half full and then pop them in the freezer to set, get them out and add a wee dollop of peanut butter, or any nut butter for that matter or homemade caramel, and then cover with the remaining raw chocolate and pop back into the freezer. Homemade Reese’s Pieces, Et voila!
Bon Appétit
Sounds divine!
Wow Banana, this looks delish! Great job!!