Tickled Pink Vegan Raw Chocolate

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Make beautiful chocolate bars that will impress your friends, look fab in the fridge, and make the perfect treat for when you need a little healthy sweetness in your life - and we all need a little bit of that!

Best of all, you don’t need any fancy equipment, just some bowls, a whisk, spoons and something to pour the chocolate in to set (which can be any container, lined with cling film).

I love raw chocolate - not just because of how good it tastes and how easy it is to make, but the health benefits that come with every tasty mouthful. Cacao contains an array of healthy compounds like theobromine, a mild stimulant similar to caffeine, which improves focus and has been found to reduce levels of blood cholesterol*. Chocolate also contains tryptophan, which boosts your brain’s levels of endorphins and can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression** - that’s why chocolate lifts your mood, and why we all need a bit of chocolate in our lives!

Prep time: 20 mins
Set time: 20 mins
Total time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• 100g Elements for Life raw cacao butter, finely chopped
• 10g coconut butter
• 40g Elements for Life coconut blossom sugar, powdered
• 20g Elements for Life lucuma powder
• 5g beetroot powder (OR you can replace this with 3g matcha powder and make green chocolates instead!)
• ½ tsp vanilla powder

To Decorate

• 5-10g freeze-dried raspberry
• A pinch of rose petals and/or dried lavender
• Toasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pistachios - go wild! You can sprinkle anything you like!

Method

1. Place the cacao butter and coconut butter in a bowl over a bain marie to melt it. Pour boiling water in a saucepan and place the bowl over it, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water (this could overheat the cacao, and ideally you want to keep it as cool as possible to protect its healing properties).
2. In another bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, lucuma, vanilla powder, and beetroot powder.
3. Pour the melted chocolate into the dry ingredients and whisk to create a smooth mixture - if you want the colour a bit darker, add a little more beetroot powder, half a teaspoon at a time.
4. To make tempered chocolate, you’ll want to keep whisking until the mixture hits 31.5 degrees C or lower: this will give you the traditional chocolate texture and feel. If you don’t have a thermometer, that’s ok - just keep whisking until you notice the mixture begin to thicken slightly. Depending on how cold or warm your kitchen it, this can take anything between 2 and 10 minutes. Bear in mind that if you don’t temper the chocolate, it will still be delicious, but will need to be kept in the fridge as it melts quicker.
5. Pour the pink chocolate mix either into a chocolate mould, cling-film lined baking tray, or into muffin cups.
6. Now it’s time to decorate - you’ll want to do this before it sets, otherwise, the toppings won’t stick. Sprinkle freeze dried raspberry, rose petals and dried lavender, or any other toppings you fancy, and voila: pretty pink chocolate you can indulge in guilt-free.

* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23595874
** http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1536.short

About The Author

From food-phobic chronic dieter to food-loving plant-based chef. Mel, aka the Dopamine Chef, is passionate about making foods that taste good AND love you back. Her mission to share a way of eating that’s kind to your body, kind to the planet, and kind to animals. Get in touch for bespoke raw chocolates, private health coaching or vegan catering.

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