I am not a very big chocolate lover. But once in a while I do indulge. Especially in winter, when it is cold and dark outside, or stormy like yesterday afternoon. During my raw food experiments in summer I came across the idea of making your own chocolate (based on coconut oil), that didn't seem very complicated. When I recently discovered cocoa butter at an organic supermarket, I bought it for "later" (keeps in the fridge). Also for "later", I bought these silicon moulds for making chocolate:
(you can obviously also use baking paper on a tray as a substitute)
"Later"(after the cupcake party basically) had arrived yesterday. A quick search online for a basic vegan recipe (I liked this German site here) later, I got started. You only need 4 -5 ingredients:
- 60-70g cocoa butter
- 3 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder (or carob)
- 2 tablespoons sweetener of your choice (agave, maple syrup, confectioner's sugar)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla pulp
- 1 pinch of salt
- optional: nuts of your choice
Take the cocoa butter ...
... and melt it at a low temperature in a pan. My first shock: chocolate consists mainly of fat! Where that soft melting sensation would come from otherwise, I had never thought about. Once over the shock, I made a cocoa-carob-mixture:
and mixed it with some maple syrup and vanilla drops:
Here comes the fat again!
Pour melted cocoa butter into chocolate-carob-mixture.
Mix again and pour into chocolate moulds.
After following all these steps - surprise, surprise, my chocolate mixture didn't look smooth and creamy, but crumbly and curdled:
The cocoa butter disintegrated and I was about to throw this first attempt in the bin, but decided to put in the fridge anyway. I don't know, what had caused the curdling, the carob, maple sirup, the vanilla drops or the combination of them. I made another mixture only with cocoa, agave instead of maple, and vanilla pulp instead of the drops.
All smooth now.
After 2-3 hours in the fridge the chocolate has hardened.
Let's taste it!
To our utter surprise we (Clara and me) liked the disintegrated chocolate more!
True artisan chocolate.
chocolate-cocoa-buttery and melting-tasty, with some carob caramel-ness
Carolina asked for "meh' 'lade" (mo' 'late) and Hubby found it "addictive".
PS: Addictive? I am glad nobody saw me at 4.30 am on my way to the fridge ...
No comments:
Post a Comment