As much as I try to keep my house free of processed foods, the one food I haven't managed to let go of has been chocolate chips. They're my one big unhealthy indulgence.And its not for lack of trying though.
I've tried so many different homemade chocolate chip recipes made with healthy sweeteners and healthy fats, and to be honest, most are nasty tasting, bitter and gross and not chocolate chip like at all.
My most recent attempt to make chocolate chips started out with a recipe severely lacking sweetener, so I added more honey to it, and uch, they did not work out as chocolate chips. Instead of breaking evenly into chocolate chip type chunks...
They ended up being chewy chocolate candies!
So, I lost one but won another- so I didn't end up with a recipe for homemade chocolate chips, but now ended up with a yummy, delicious, healthy and easy to make chewy chocolate candy that satisfies that chocolate craving. And they're gluten free, grain free, GAPS legal, refined sugar free to boot. Biggest downside? They need to be kept in the freezer, otherwise they'll be a big gooey mess.
Homemade Chewy Chocolate Candies Recipe- Refined Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Healthy, Gluten Free
Ingredients:1 cup coconut oil or palm oil or other oil that's solid when cold (I assume butter would work too, but no promises)
1 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup raw honey
Instructions:
1. In a pot on a low heat, melt and mix until it all becomes a uniform mass.
2. Pour onto a greased lined cookie tray/baking pan.
3. Freeze until solid. It will be solid but bendable at this point.
4. Use scissors to chop up into small pieces.
5. Store in freezer.
6. Enjoy your guilt free chocolate!
Are you a chocolate fan? Have you a recipe for homemade chocolate chips that actually works and tastes good?
Do you eat chocolate candies? Do you like chewy candies? Do you think you'd try this recipe?
Tags
candies
dairy free
desserts
egg free
frugal recipes
frugal strategies
GAPS
gluten free
grain free
healthy fats
made from scratch
paleo/primal
recipes
refined sugar free
snacks
treats
vegetarian
Coconut oil is good for dementia. I have been giving it to my husband for three years. I make it with half dark chocolate and half coconut oil melted together, frozen in ice cube trays, and then popped out of the trays and kept in the refrigerator. Got this recipe from Dr. Mary Newport's book "What If There Were a Cure for Alzheimer's and Nobody Knew?"
ReplyDeleteAny sweetener?
DeleteCarol,
Deletethankyou so much for posting that book title!!! My grandmother and the wife of a friend both have alzheimers and I found this very excitng!! Have you noticed a difference in your husband?
You must be in a hot climate. Around here, our coconut oil left out at room temperature is rock solid!
ReplyDeleteHaha, guess so. In the dead of winter, coconut oil left out is rock solid. During spring and fall its the texture of mashed potatoes, and during the summer it is liquid.
DeleteThat is a wonderful book! We live in the South and also need to keep in fridge!
DeleteI just made this - it's fast, not frozen but still solidish and chewy. My first response was kinda, eurgh, too much cocoa. Had another bite. Eh, it grows on you. After the next half dozen bites I gave up and just brought the chunk I'd pulled off back to the computer with me.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try this with coconut cream and less cocoa, see if I can dilute the cocoa flavour more - it's a little bitter for me. I did smoosh dried coconut in to the end I'm eating, to get a bounty kind of flavour and it's worked ok.
How about replace some of the cocoa powder with desicated coconut- I didnt cut the amount of cocoa powder because it needed some solid to hold it together with all that honey- but maybe coconut would add.
DeleteIf you thought too much cocoa- imagine how terrible it was before I added all that honey? I cant imagine how people try to pass that off as "homemade chocolate chip" recipes!
Yes, this certainly grows on you and is addicting.
I actually dipped my finger into the saucepan accidentally as the honey was going in, when it was just coconut oil and cocoa, and licked the mix off - bleaghk. How can something that smells so good taste so bad? Honey seems pretty essential!
DeleteMy husband liked the end result, kiddo, not so much. Something I'm inclined to play around with though.
I found a great chocolate recipe (and really the main difference is using cocao butter) but it stays solid at room temp! And it's delicious. http://www.learningherbs.com/news_issue_88.html
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'll check it out.
DeletePourable coconut oil is one perk of summer. My husband hates coconut oil! I want to use it every day, but if he sees or smells it, he freaks. I'm always shooing him out of the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I would exactly call these guilt free. While all the ingredients have some intrinsic benefits, these things must be quite caloric.
I make it using the same ingredients but with different ratios. It isn't gooey or chewy but does need to be kept in the fridge to stay hard.
ReplyDeleteAlso add the raw honey last after I take the pot off the fire so that I don't cook the honey and lose all the enzymes.
My recipe is (I found it somewhere online) 1/4 cup coconut oil, 1/2 cup cocoa and 2 Tblsp raw honey (when I make it with regular honey I add more)
The best guilt free chocolate I have found that actually tastes like proper chocolate and is absolutely divine is here. http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/almost-raw-chocolate.html It's made using rapadura/panela/jaggery as the sweetener which is made from cane sugar but is totally unrefined. Cacao butter for the healthy solid fat an cacao powder for healthy chocolate. It's made in a Thermomix but could be adapted to a food processor and stovetop I'm sure. And it is dairy free, vegan, gluten free, refined sugar free and all the rest. And it tastes AMAZING!
ReplyDeleteAny tips on sources for honey? It's super-expensive here (though one of our cruncy-granola friends is taking up bee keeping, hmmmm, perhaps I can trade house cleaning).
ReplyDelete