Thursday, October 29, 2015

Homemade Paleo Mint Chocolate Bites Recipe- GAPS Legal, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free

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I have a thing for chocolate. I am able to eat a totally healthy diet all the time, but then the thing that tempts me, the thing that makes me break my diet is chocolate. Especially because its everywhere, in all the stores, especially at this time of year. And because white sugar in smaller amounts doesn't make me feel ill after eating it (in smaller amounts, like in dark chocolate) its where I cheat and eat not paleo, and sometimes, instead of eating just a square or two I'll scarf down a half bar or even a whole bar in one day.
Not exactly friendly to my waist.

But I would like to be able to enjoy my chocolate without having all the unhealthy ingredients in them. Especially mint chocolate.
In the past, I made chocolate with coconut oil, coconut sugar, and cocoa powder, and while it tasted good, it melted far too quickly because coconut oil has a lower melting point than chocolate, and too much coconut oil at once gave me a stomach ache, so I couldn't have too many of them at once. (Which I suppose is good...)
But either way, I wanted to make myself some homemade chocolates today, and decided to make it cashew based, since cashews would provide thickness that wouldn't melt as quickly as coconut oil would, and they have a pretty neutral flavor which I thought would work wonderfully in chocolate.
These came out terrifically and my kids and I really enjoyed them. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did.

These are paleo, GAPS legal, refined sugar free, dairy free, etc.... so hopefully friendly for most diets. While they're not vegan since I used honey, if you want to use a different sweetener, feel free to do that to make it vegan. If using a granulated sweetener, I suggest powdering it first with a coffee grinder.

Paleo Mint Chocolate Bites Recipe- GAPS Legal, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free

Ingredients:
2 cups cashews
1/3 cup honey (or alternative sweetener)
1/3 cup coconut oil
6 tablespoons cocoa powder (or more, to taste)
Mint extract to taste

Instructions:
1. Blend your cashews in a food processor for a long time. First it'll be powdery almost, then it'll start being in larger crumbs, then it'll start sticking together and looking almost like a loose dough, as shown below. Total it should take about 5 minutes or more in the food processor. This is like when you're making homemade nut butter, but you don't want to process it until it becomes nut butter- stop beforehand.

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2. Add in the rest of the ingredients, first the cocoa and the honey and then the coconut oil. Try not to overmix the coconut oil- better do it by hand. Depending on the temperature where you are, the coconut oil may or may not separate from the mixture and look funny, but don't worry about that. Just taste it, and add as much mint extract as you enjoy- I put in a few drops.

3. Put the chocolate mixture into chocolate molds, pressing down. Alternatively, if you dont have a mold, press it down into a lined pan or container.

4. Freeze until solidified (and the texture will improve, it won't be separated anymore).

5. Store in the freezer or fridge until eating.

Enjoy!

Have you made homemade chocolates before? What did you put in them? Does this look like a recipe you'd enjoy?

2 comments:

  1. what you're making is a compound chocolate, chocolate with the cocoa butter swapped out for other fat, known as "tzimcao", though that is generally made with cheap margarine. it's a good solution (coming from the person who ate an entire bar of 60% chocolate for lunch yesterday), but does it really satisfy your craving properly? especially because i'm assuming you're using the cheap 10% fat cocoa powder. i feel like i'd be able to eat an entire pan of what you made and not be able to stop because the "chocolate-craving" switch hasn't been flipped. it's like what used to happen when i cut too much sugar in cakes- i'd eat too much because i was still craving dessert.

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