chocolate recipe

[Patch]

Has anyone recipes for making chocolates. I want to be all prepared in advance for valentines day and would love to have a go at making so really tastie chocolates. So far the recipe I've been using is just cacao, coconut oil, 1 orange juiced and pop some nuts in. Not fantastic and the chocolate does taste quite strong.

[mama29]

:):This will be a great thread I can't wait to see others recipes. The way I make chocolate is: (please forgive, I just kind of put it together)
2 cups coconut oil (nutriva)
1-2 handfuls cashews
1/4 c cocoa powder
20 drops mint
1/4 c water
Blend in the Vita Mix until creamy through out.
Then put in pretty candy molds and freeze. Sometimes I add more water to make it more icy. It reminds me of a frozen chocolate I used to get when I was a child.
Of course you can nuts, dried fruits, cocoa nibs.....

[cbritton]

Ooh, I can't wait to see what recipes are posted. I've seen some lovely raw chocolate truffles and chocolate bites and can't wait to get some great recipes!

[katchmoleen]

I have several raw chocolate ebooks. The "real" raw chocolate candy recipes all have cocoa butter in them. I ordered some off ebay but it didn't come in time for Christmas. But I will be ready for Valentines!

[Katie P]

RUDGE/ raw fudge :)
walnuts/ agave/ cacao/ shredded coconut. I don't measure, just to taste!

coconut oil/ cacao/ shredded coconut/ agave. Roll in balls & refridgerate. YUMMY!

[RawKnitster]

If you want to get really fancy check out the recipes in "Sweet Gratitude New World of Raw Desserts". (I know I post too much about this book, I hope it isn't getting annoying.) I have it checked out from the library. It is awesome. I made the raw fudge for Christmas because it was fairly simple. There is a chapter devoted just to chocolate. It gives detailed instructions for tempering raw chocolate and making the most amazing looking truffles. It looks a little complicated and the recipes are in large quantities. Perfect for sharing on Valentine's Day. I have to try the Brazil Nut Cream Truffles.

[revdrcyn]

YUM! I know Ani Phyo has raw chocolate-making kits on her site.

I have some recipes and most of the ingredients, but am missing equipment, i.e., the molds.

Can anyone recommend a source for molds?

[T-Bird]

This was pretty easy - kids approved too.....

Took some raw chocolate off a huge block of just bitter raw chocolate i got from the raw food world dot com.

put into a pan set into a pan of hot water.

Add an equal amount of coco butter got this years ago on my last "raw" attempt lol!

wait till they get melty......stir together....add honey, I did about 1/2 as much honey as the other ingredients - but just eyeballing it....

When stirring it in, it didn't seem to work, like the honey was not combining, I kept stirring and stirring but it was not changing....

So I just poured it over my chewy cookie thing I made...popped in fridge - hardened up great, the honey did not mess with the chocolate "temper"

For those who haven't worked with chocolate before, the great "snap" and feel of chocolate is from the chocolate being tempered.....basically chocolate has a cellular structure similar to a crystal, and by massaging the chocolate chocolatiers get the cellular structure to align - giving us the satin smooth crisp crunchy chocolate we all loved as kids.

If you overheat the chocolate - it losses it's temper.

Tempering of chocolate is a low heat deal - thank goodness!

Just a fraction of a drop of water results in loss of the temper, so I was worried that the honey might affect this, but it was fine.

I'm sure agave would do fine, but I don't think dates would work - some liquid left. If you could totally dry the dates, and power them into a sugar like thing - that would likely be ideal....

Happy chocolating all!

[Patch]

thanks everyone, I've just got some awesome molds from a place called spot light we have here in New Zealand. Does anyone know if you can use peppermint aromatherapy oil. All other essences we have here aren't raw so I'm not sure what I can use.

[RawKnitster]

I have not tried this one. It looks very similiar and easier than a few that I have tried.

The link did not work so I will paste it in:

Main Ingredients:
1 cup raw cacao powder
1 cup raw cacao butter
1/2 cup clear agave
1-2 tbsp raw almond butter
pinch Celtic salt (or mix of highly mineralized salts)
---
Optional Ingredients, yet use them if you have them!
pinch of white stevia extract powder
pinch vitamin E tocotrienols
pinch blue green algae

Blend in a Vita-Mix ideally (it may warm gently which is fine - you want it to be a thinner consistency for easy pouring) or in a food processor (smaller bowl inside the bigger bowl unless you double or triple the recipe). I've found the VM to work best. Pour into ice cube trays or cute molds and chill until frozen.

Keep this recipe simple the first few times you make it and experiment with different versions after you've gotten a solid recipe that you can default to in the future.

Raw chocolate on it's own has no sugar, but of course the clear agave brings the sweetness to this recipe. I'm personally not doing much agave recently as a personal experiment, but having a liquid sweetener for this recipe is needed. From my understanding, the raw clear agave is the healthiest agave available in comparison to the others on the market.
Posted by Edible Goddess at Saturday, December 26, 2009

[dollarmt]

Are you supposed to melt the cacao butter before you put it in the Vita Mix? If you do, do you just boil water and put the cacoa butter in a bowl over the boiling water. Please let me know. I tried the recipe. It actually didnt taste too bad but it didnt look great.
Thanks, Mike

[anniez]

Yum. Looking forward to this thread as this is a skill that I haven't tried yet!
Can't wait to hear from you "masters."

Annie

[Mary Kay]

dollarmt, You do not have to put chocolate in the Vita-Mix at all.

And T-Bird, thanks for the info on tempering. Kevin Gianni had a vid of some well-known raw choc maker, and he actually poured some of a batch onto a huge heated piece of granite, and scraped it with a pastry scraper...sorry no time to look up the vid, but I'm assuming that's what he did.

Here's how I've been making mine

Two (parts) chunks of chocolate rocks from NaturalZing.com $18/lb
One (part) chunk of cocoa butter also from NaturalZing.com $22/lb

I'm guessing about 3/4 part honey
vanilla --I used Frontier's non-alcohol
dash of sea salt

Grate the rocks and cocoa butter up, add rest of ingredients, heat, either in a dehydrator, or place in hot water, or I actually put into a pyrex bowl in a toaster oven and turn it on and off. I stir with my finger to make sure it doesn't get too hot. The dish gets sort of hot, but the choc doesn't!

I pour into molds that I got at a cooking store - Sur la Table
I've used botht he plastic molds, the silicone ones (easy pop out), and even parchment paper on a dish, which works well to, to make a "bark"

I want to try a scraped vanilla bean, and I may even try maple syrup powder (not raw)....Unless you made a date powder yourself, it wouldn't be raw either.

The experiments rage on.

Anybody have any cheaper sources for cocoa butter?

MK

[dollarmt]

Thanks for your reply but do you have to melt the cacao butter?

[Mary Kay]

Yes, you do have to heat it. It's like wax. I combine everything together and then heat. Very low heat though, so it's still raw. That is why I turn my toaster oven on and off.

It may still look chunky, but once you start stirring, everything generally melts together. I tried it with just the rocks - without the cocoa butter, and it never hardened, and was a little lumpy. We still managed to use our fingers to scrape it out of the molds though....LOL.