Quick, Easy, HEALTHY Dark Chocolate Recipe

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Chocolate.jpg

My honey and a friend of his are heading to Harleyfest in Milwaukee today (yes indeed, we like to ride motorcycles!  Well...right now he drives...I ride;).  The drive is 14 hours from here in SC/NC, so I made m'Honey and his friend some meals and snacks to take on their drive up and back.  I always so appreciate having nutritious food on the road instead of eating stuff that makes me feel crappy.  So I go super easy for the meals.  Boiled eggs, crispy bacon, pimento cheese (I'll share this recipe at some point) on coconut flour bread (will also share that recipe) with some romaine lettuce, bagged spinach and pre-cooked snausages (wow, I had to *un* autocorrect that one five times!).  

One of the snacks...I've been promising several of you this specific delicious and nutritious snack recipe for awhile now...I'm sorry it's taken awhile!  

Guess what it is???  

CHOCOLATE!!

Awww, nuts.  You probably already guessed that from the caption.  It's worth it!  As far as sweetener, I leave that up to you.  We all have different tastes.  I like my chocolate super bitter without a whole lot of sweetener, m'Honey likes it with...you guessed it...a l'il bit of Honey;)  Test it out for you.  I've tried using sugar alcohols (xylitol, erythritol, etc), stevia, monk fruit, and my body just doesn't like any of them.  So we stick with very small amounts of natural sweeteners.  You do what works for you!  You can also play around with the coconut oil-to-cacao (or cocoa) ratio to find what works for you.  

Easy Dark Chocolate Recipe

Serves: 12

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Organic Cocoa Powder
  • 1/4 cup Organic Coconut Oil, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1/8 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract (I like more...again...up to you)
  • Maple Syrup or Honey or stevia or erythritol or xylitol or whatever...your choice.  And your choice how much.  We use very little.  
  • 1 pinch Salt

Process

  1. Mix the melted coconut oil into the cocoa powder in a small bowl 1 Tablespoon at a time. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl periodically to make sure it all gets incorporated.
  2. Stir in the vanilla, sweetener and salt.
  3. The way we like to do it...pour into a reused, cleaned gallon sized ziplock baggie and flatten out.  You can, of course, also get fancy and put the mixture into chocolate forms.  I've tried a many times and I still like the simplicity and aesthetics of the ziplock!
  4. Put into the fridge to set completely.  If it's in a baggie, make sure it's on its side so it can flatten out.  Leave in fridge for at least 3 hours.  
  5. You can also put in the freezer if it's in the baggie and you're in a hurry;)  In that case, wait for an hour and then either go to step 6 or put it in the fridge.  
  6. Take it out, have the visceral satisfaction of breaking it up while it's in the baggie, pour the shards onto a plate...and enjoy!  
  7. Store in the fridge.  Coconut oil is super healthy but the melting point is very low, so it will be a runny mess otherwise.  

Notes

I love to add a dash of cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  You can also experiment with lavender, banana, coconut extract, nuts...lots of options!  

How did it go for you?  What are your preferences? Let us know!