- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Serving: Serves 06-08
Dairy Free Raw Chocolate
We asked Jo Whitton from Quirky Cooking to contribute this recipe - it’s one of Bec’s favourites! By making your own chocolate you’re able to avoid the nasties in the commercial brands. It’s very simple, and you can add in whatever additions you like to make all sorts of delicious variations! Scroll down to see some great ideas from Jo!
No: Gluten / Dairy / Egg / Nuts
Total Preparation Time 30 minutes + freezing time
Makes approx 300g of chocolate
Can be frozen
Ingredients
- cacao butter - 200g, raw
- cacao powder - 50-60g, raw (or to taste)
- honey - 100g, raw (or pure maple syrup or rice malt syrup)
- vanilla bean paste - 1 tsp (or natural extract)
- sea salt - 1/8 tsp, fine
Method
- Chop cacao butter (200g) roughly, to approx. 1-2cm cubes. Place cacao butter into bowl. Mill Speed 8 / 20 seconds.
- Melt cacao butter. Program 10 minutes / 37C / Speed 2, scraping down sides of bowl with spatula towards end of cooking time to ensure all the cacao butter is melted.
- Add cacao powder (50-60g), sweetener (100g), vanilla (1 tsp) and salt (1/8 tsp) to bowl. Program 10 minutes / 37C / Speed 1.
- Mix chocolate on Speed 5 / 10 seconds to blend honey or syrup in.
- Pour into lined dish or chocolate moulds or onto a tray for a thin chocolate bark.
- Place in the freezer immediately to set, as it will separate if you set it at room temperature.
What to do with the chocolate?
If you’d like nuts or fruit in your chocolate, sprinkle them over the lined tray or in the chocolate moulds, then pour chocolate over the top. Place in the freezer to set. Here’s some ideas for additions:
- activated nuts (soaked then dehydrated), or roasted: hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts
- raw cacao nibs
- sprouted, dehydrated buckwheat, made into little chocolate buckwheat ‘cakes’
- dried fruit: cherries, blueberries, apricots, ginger, cranberries
- pretzels (chocolate drizzled over salty GF pretzels is delish!)
- a mixture of above fillings!
You can also stir into the chocolate:
- shredded coconut
- spices: cinnamon, chilli, cardamom, ginger…
- edible essential oils: peppermint, orange, lemon, cinnamon… just a few drops
Swirl through the chocolate:
- nut butter (or pour a little chocolate into a mold, let it set, add a dab of nut butter, then pour chocolate over to fill molds; or fill with chocolate hazelnut spread )
- sunflower seed butter
- dulce de leche
Notes:
- You can use more or less sweetener and cacao to taste. Jo likes hers really dark, so just reduce the cacao if you don’t want quite so much of a dark taste. You can use other sweeteners, whatever you prefer, to your own taste. Just be aware that if you use a granulated sweetener like rapadura, coconut sugar or xylitol, you may find that it separates. If this happens, stir in 30g coconut cream until mixture comes together.
- You can replace half the cacao butter with cold pressed coconut oil if you want to make a cheaper chocolate - but just be aware that it will melt really easily and needs to be kept in the freezer.
