Dairy Free Raw Chocolate

Dairy free, soy free, gluten free, naturally sweetened CHOCOLATE!!

You may have noticed I'm a bit of a chocolate addict - good chocolate, that is, not the cheap 'chocolate-flavoured' stuff - I love REAL chocolate, with cacao butter and 70% organic cocoa and natural sweeteners.  As I mentioned in my first post about making my own chocolate, I really try and avoid refined sugar, dairy and soy, and they are in most chocolates, even a lot of the 'healthy' ones.  So I started making my own.  They were okay, but not quite the right texture.

Then I found this gluten-free, dairy-free recipe for Raw Chocolate made with cacao butter and raw cacao. I played around with the recipe, and this is what I came up with. It's very simple, and you can add in whatever additions you like to make all sorts of delicious variations! You can use more or less sweetener and cacao to taste. I like mine really dark, so just reduce the cacao if you don't want quite so much of a dark taste.

Make sure your bowl, blades, lid and lid seal are REALLY dry before you begin - water and chocolate don't mix!!!   

Basic Dark Chocolate

200g raw cacao butter (I use Loving Earth Cacao Butter)

50-60g raw cacao powder (or to taste)

100g raw honey or pure maple syrup or rice malt syrup

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or natural extract

1/8 tsp fine sea salt

Chop cacao butter roughly with a knife on a chopping board, to approx. 1-2cm cubes. Place cacao butter into mixing bowl. Mill 20 sec/speed 8. 

Melt cacao butter for 10 mins/37°/speed 2, scraping down sides of bowl with spatula towards end of cooking time to ensure all the cacao butter is melted.

Add remaining ingredients to mixing bowl and continue cooking 10 mins/37°/speed 1.

Mix chocolate 10 sec/speed 5 to blend honey or syrup in, then pour immediately into lined dish or chocolate molds or onto a tray for a thin chocolate bark.

You can use other sweeteners, whatever you prefer, to your own taste. Just be aware that if you use a 'sugar' like Rapadura or coconut sugar, you may find that it separates. If this happens, blend it up for 1 min/speed 9, and it will mix in. Pour into molds or onto trays immediately, as it will separate a little as it sits.

Additions:

If you'd like nuts or fruit in your chocolate, sprinkle them over the lined tray or in the chocolate molds, 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

Tips:

If you try to set the chocolate at room temp it will take a very long time and often separates, so is best set in the freezer, or at least the fridge if you don’t have room in the freezer.

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.

Raw cacao butter

Ice Magic

Here's one more thing you can make with your fresh batch of chocolate. 

Mix 100g of the chocolate with 50g of coconut oil, add a little more pure maple syrup if you think it needs it, and melt 2 mins/37C/speed 2, or until melted and mixed together. Pour into a jar and keep it in the cupboard, and you have instant 'Ice Magic' for whenever you want it! 

It hardens immediately when you pour it over ice cream or sorbet, and the kids love it. Ok, so do the adults. ;)

(If it's cold weather and it hardens in the cupboard, just set the jar into a bowl of boiling water to melt it before using.)

Homemade 'Ice Magic'