It was a couple of years ago when I first started trying out healthier alternatives to my favourite foods. One of the items on the top of the list to recreate was chocolate! Chocolate really only needs to be less than a handful of ingredients, but when you look at the nutrition label on many conventional “chocolates” there are often additives included. I wanted to be in control of what ingredients I put in my body and how much of each ingredient.
The first recipe I tried consisted of Coconut Oil, Butter, Cacao, and Honey. It was definitely delicious and contained simple ingredients, but I wanted to make it dairy-free. I felt like just excluding the butter and not replacing it with something would taste a little too coconutty for what I was going for. I wanted more of a creamy smooth milk chocolate experience. After some thought I decided to try Avocado and it was even better than the butter version!
Avochocolate
Ingredients:
- 2 ripe avocados
- 1 cup of coconut oil (melted/liquid)
- 1 cup of cacao or cocoa powder
- 3/4 cup of honey (1/2 cup for more bitter chocolate, 1 cup for more sweet chocolate)
To make it as smooth as possible I mix it all in my Vitamix and because it is thick when it looks like there isn’t much movement happening I take my spatula and give it a good stir and repeat until smooth. For a quick serve I will spread it out on a parchment covered cookie sheet and put in the freezer until solid enough to serve. If you don’t have chocolate molds and want to get a little fancier, I just put the mixture in a piping bag with a large tip and pipe it into mini muffin trays with liners.
Instructions:
1. Cut up 2 avocados and put in mixer along with the other wet ingredients and blend until smooth
2. Add 1 cup of cacao or cocoa powder and blend until smooth (will be thick so may need to stir in between blending)
3. Scoop mixture into preferred serving method (E.g. cookie sheet, mini muffin tray, chocolate mold) and put in freezer until solid enough to serve.
For more of a softer truffle texture you can keep it in the fridge and best consumed within a few days. I usually keep mine in the freezer and take out what I want to serve and leave it out in room temperature for about 15 minutes.
This is your basic chocolate, but you can add cacao nibs, nuts, dried fruit, or whatever you like! I’ve always been a fan of peppermint or orange flavoured chocolate so I will add in a couple drops of Peppermint or Wild Orange Essential Oil.
Enjoy and indulge!