Raw Chocolate Extravaganza!
One of the things on my to-do list for 2012 was to attend a raw chocolate workshop and learn how to make this sweet, guilty pleasure of mine. Well…I wished for it and guess where I was last night? Yap, yap, yap…I attended a raw chocolate workshop with raw food expert Chloe at Chloe’s Kitchen, held at “Wellbeing in the City”. If the name sounds familiar is because this is the second time I am writing about Chloe on the blog. She is a person of many talents – one of which is EFT healing. Last night was a great opportunity to find out (if I needed more confirmation) that chocolate is way more than a pleasure (notice I have already dropped the “guilty” bit). When made properly (at least 70% chocolate solids), chocolate is actually a superfood. According Chloe and loads of research on the topic, raw chocolate has many health benefits, aside from shooting you up on cloud 9 and giving you the energy and euphoria to do and love everything about your life. I’ve tried to make raw chocolate before, but I think my mind worked in a too complicated manner. Chloe, on the other hand, kept her recipe simple and got a wonderful end result. The main three ingredients she used were: raw cacao butter, raw cacao powder and lucuma powder to sweeten. All three are superfoods. (By the way, did you know that there are over 25,200 antioxidants in a single spoonful of raw cacao powder?) Chloe used a bowl with hot water to melt the butter, but retain the vitamins which would have been lost if the process happened on the burning stove, and added the other ingredients together with some sweet raw agave syrup. We all participated in pouring the raw chocolate in moulds and decorating it with superfoods such as goji berries and nuts.
While waiting for the chocolate to turn solid in the freezer, Chloe walked us through some of the main health benefits of chocolate and why it is such a wonderful nourishment and booster for our body.
Watch Chloe make raw chocolate and listen to Chloe talk about some of its health benefits.
And to wrap it up, here’s a simple recipe that you can try. It takes minutes to make and about 20 minutes to set in the freezer or 2 hours in the fridge.
- 100g Raw Cacao Butter
- 6 Tablespoons Raw Cacao Powder
- 2-3 Tablespoons Lucuma or Agave Syrup
- 1 Small pinch of rock salt (this is optional, but will enhance the flavour)
How to make:Place the raw cacao butter in a bowl over a pan of boiled water and melt gently (Bain Marie). Once melted add 6 tbsp raw cacao powder and mix well. Add the lucuma and agave and mix well. Taste the mix once melted and add more sweetener if you prefer a sweeter taste. Once completely melted and blended, your mixture should be runny and easy to pour and can be poured into ice cube trays, silicone moulds or even plastic tubs to make fabulous raw chocolate bars. Place in the freezer and leave to set for 20mins to half an hour on in the fridge for around 2 hours. If you want to be morecreative with your raw chocolate, so feel free to add some chilli powder, peppermint essence or vanilla extract, orange peel, coffee, goji berries or all sorts of other things that can be added. I don’t have a picture of the chocolate delights from Chloe’s workshop. They were finished by the time I turned my camera on. I give you my word, they looked yummy! I look forward to hearing about your chocolate delights!
Have a lovely week-end and Happy Easter for those of you who celebrate it!
Hey Maria – great write-up of this yummy event!
Layla’s put her photos of the event up here on our Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150721368604362.425015.367247629361&type=1 – again, photos of the finished product seem to be hard to come by – they were all snapped up so fast!!
Hi Dan,
thank you for the link. Indeed, by the time I came back in the room, they were all gone. I will update the blog post with one of Layla’s photos, if you don’t mind.