Happy New Year! I was busy over Christmas making lots of lovely raw chocolates for friends and family as well as lots of other scrummy things (..but more about that later!).
I put together some classic combinations: chocolates infused with orange peel formed into orange segments; coffee creams - a soft coffee flavoured ganache topped with walnut; hazelnut pralines; chocolate raspberry truffles dusted with cacao powder; and some delicate peppermint thins wrapped in mint green foil. I also added some superfoods for good measure; hempseed, blueberry, goji berry, maca and almond.
I think my favourites were the peppermint creams and the violet flowers – the latter were flavoured with botanical extract and I hid a chewy sour cherry in the middle of each chocolate.
Some glass bowls found in thrift shops made pretty containers. After a few days in the kitchen, it was such a pleasure to visit friends with their gifts of raw chocolates – and I had lots of fun making them too!
My basic raw chocolate recipe is
· 75g raw cacao butter, chopped small
· 3 heaped tablespoons of raw cacao powder
· A pinch of Himalayan pink salt
· Sweetener to taste – I used a mix of raw agave and xylitol.
The most important part of the method is to ensure that the cacao butter doesn’t melt to a temperature above 42 degree C. I melt mine in the dehydrator set at 105F, but you can also melt the cacao butter by placing it in a glass bowl set into a bigger bowl of hot water until the cacao butter melts. It helps the melting process if it is either chopped into small pieces or grated. Then stir in the other ingredients until all are dissolved. I usually add some mesquite powder to the mix too – it’s high in calcium, iron and zinc and is a gorgeous sweetener with a slight malty taste.
It was great to be able to eat chocolate over the holidays without the guilt! I made bags of raw Follyty Street to dip into over the festivities.
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