Quirky Cooking Organic, Rainforest-Grown Wild Vanilla Beans (5 Premium 15-17cm Beans) Subtotal: $27.50
Chocolate, Christmas, Dairy Free, Desserts, Easter, Egg Free, Featured, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Naturally Sweetened, Raw, Thermomix, Vegan
Dairy-Free Chocolate
You may have noticed I’m a bit of a chocolate addict – good chocolate, that is, not the cheap ‘chocolate-flavoured’ stuff – I love REAL chocolate, with cacao butter and 70% organic cocoa and natural sweeteners. As I mentioned in my first post about making my own chocolate, I really try and avoid refined sugar, dairy and soy, and they are in most chocolates, even a lot of the ‘healthy’ ones. So I started making my own. They were okay, but not quite the right texture.
Then I found this gluten-free, dairy-free recipe for Raw Chocolate made with cacao butter and raw cacao. I played around with the recipe, and this is what I came up with. It’s very simple, and you can add in whatever additions you like to make all sorts of delicious variations! You can use more or less sweetener and cacao to taste. I like mine really dark, so just reduce the cacao if you don’t want quite so much of a dark taste.
If you’re making chocolate in your Thermomix, make sure your bowl, blades, lid and lid seal are REALLY dry before you begin – water and chocolate don’t mix!
PrintDairy-Free Chocolate
Ingredients
- 200g raw cacao butter, cut into small pieces
- 50–60g cacao powder or 30-50g Dutch-processed cocoa (to taste)
- 70–100g raw honey or pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or natural extract, or 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
Thermomix Method
Place cacao butter into the mixing bowl and mill 20 sec/speed 8. Melt for 10 mins/37°/speed 2.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula and add remaining ingredients. Continue cooking 10 mins/37°/speed 1. Mix 10 sec/speed 3 so that it is well combined. The chocolate will be a runny texture.
Optional step to make a more ‘tempered’ chocolate: Stir without heat for another 10 mins/speed 2. The chocolate will still look runny before setting, but will be firmer when set.
Pour the chocolate into a lined dish or chocolate moulds, or onto a lined tray for a thin chocolate bark.
Place in the freezer (on a flat surface) to set. It will take a long time to set at room temp and may separate.
Conventional Method:
Place cacao butter into a heavy-based saucepan and melt over very low heat, stirring.
Add remaining ingredients, turn off heat and continue stirring, until ingredients are melted and combined. Allow chocolate to cool to 32C and continue to stir for another few minutes at least, as this helps to Temper the chocolate slightly.
Pour into a lined dish or chocolate moulds, or onto a lined tray for a thin chocolate bark.
Place in the freezer (on a flat surface) to set. It will take a long time to set at room temp and may separate.
Notes
- You can use other sweeteners, but be aware that if you use a granulated sugar you may find that it has a grainy texture. Mill the sugar very fine before adding. The mixture may also separate with other sweeteners – if this happens, stir in 30g coconut cream until the chocolate comes together again.
Additions
If you’d like nuts or fruit in your chocolate, sprinkle them over the lined tray or in the chocolate molds, then pour chocolate over the top. Place in the freezer to set.
Here’s some ideas for additions:
– activated nuts (soaked then dehydrated), or roasted nuts: hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts
– raw cacao nibs
– sprouted, dehydrated buckwheat, made into little chocolate buckwheat ‘cakes’
– dried fruit: cherries, blueberries, apricots, ginger, cranberries
– pretzels (chocolate drizzled over salty gf pretzels is delish!)
– a mixture of above fillings!
You can also stir into the chocolate:
– shredded coconut
– spices: cinnamon, chilli, cardamom, ginger…
– edible essential oils: peppermint, orange, lemon, cinnamon… just a few drops
Swirl through the chocolate:
– nut butter (or pour a little chocolate into a mold, let it set, add a dab of nut butter, then pour chocolate over to fill molds; or fill with chocolate hazelnut spread )
– sunflower seed butter
Ice Magic
Here’s one more thing you can make with your fresh batch of chocolate!
Mix 100g of the chocolate with 50g of coconut oil, add a little more honey or maple syrup if you think it needs it, and melt 2 mins/37C/speed 2, or melt in a saucepan over low heat. Pour into a jar and keep it in the pantry, and you have instant ‘Ice Magic’ for whenever you want it!
It hardens immediately when you pour it over ice cream or sorbet, and the kids love it. Ok, so do the adults.
(If it’s cold weather and it hardens in the pantry, just set the jar into a bowl of boiling water to melt it before using.)
Oh my goodness – literally! Chocolate that is made from raw and/or unrefined ingredients and all their goodness… fabulous! Thanks Jo for this Quirky Cooking recipe for Thermomix lovers and chocolate lovers. What a great combination!
You’re welcome! 😀
Oh yummy! I am really looking forward to trying this. I’m guessing I will have to sweeten ours a little more though. You are so hard-core when it comes to dark chocolate!!! 🙂
Yeah, I know, I love it dark!!! 😀
Absolutely love raw chocolate!! Here are more recipes for chocolate lovers (all the fun and none of the bad stuff)
Check ’em out
Thank you Alisa – those recipe look great!
I have just made this with scorched almonds, cointreau and cardamon! I can’t wait to taste it!! Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe, and all your others! 🙂
Hope you like it Kassondra – your version sounds great! 😀
The raw chocolate flavoured with chili that Jo made in Perth was addictive – so delicious!
Brilliant. Need to give that a go. Love going through your blog. The only thing you are missing is a ‘print’ button. That would make filing these awesome recipes so much easier. You really make my life so much easier with having special diets to cater for. Thanks!!
Thank you Bek!! Yes, I need to get onto that printing option… need some time to work on my blog!
was wondering if you know if you can make raw cacao powder yourself? Is it just a matter of milling the raw beans? Ta Sharon
Hi Sharon! To make the cacao powder, the cacao beans are fermented, and cold-pressed to remove the fat (cacao butter). This makes the powder ‘hydroscopic’, so it dissolves easily in liquids. To make chocolate you need to mix cacao powder back in with the cacao butter and sweetener.
So… I guess you could make chocolate the old-fashioned Aztec way of cold-pressing the beans and mixing in a sweetener, and you’d have a rough version of chocolate! I saw it on a documentary once – very interesting how they used to do it! But I haven’t tried it that way myself. Not sure if it would be as smooth – didn’t look like it was. But very pure! 🙂
If you just mill the raw beans you’ll get a fatty, chocolatey powder, not as dry as the cacao powder you buy. (See photo in link below.) I use the milled beans/nibs in raw cacao bliss balls – divine!! http://quirkycooking.blogspot.com/2011/04/walnut-raw-cacao-nib-bliss-balls.html
Hope that helps, Jo 🙂
Sharon, just had this comment on my facebook page:
“We made pure organice chocolate while in Peru in May with a local family just by putting the roasted beans through an old fashioned mincer with as much sugar as you wanted to add. Bellisimo!!” (Bridget)
Sounds like something that could easily be done in the Thermomix! Must try it 🙂
Yummy…got to send you my new product that I am a fan of; Crio Bru…new to OZ, and soooo healthy…chocolate and delish. This article appeared in my new online Paper, The Thermomixtress! hahaha
Hi Jo!
Just letting you know I am making this… and am going off the printed version – except I missed that you need to grind the rapadura with the vanilla bean at the beginning because the printed version doesn’t mention it (weird!). I picked this up because the next step (melt cacao butter) doesn’t have how much cacao butter so came onto your blog to see if I could find it – and discovered I had missed the previous step too.
🙂
Kim.
I was referred to your blog by a friend… and OH MY am I in heaven! I am having my Thermy Demo this week and hoping it will be enough to close the deal with hubby for us to get one. I think I need to show him this recipe and the Double Whammy Choc cake too… if anything is going to sell him on it its these!! Having to go DF and GF now I NEED a thermy, but the $$ are making hubby a little apprehensive 😉 Thank you so much for your blog… its AWESOME!
Oh, thank you Marie!! I’m so glad you’re finding recipes you like – I really hope your hubby can see the worth of the Thermomix, it would be such a help to you. Did you see the tab at the top for dairy free recipes? Come on over to my Quirky Cooking Facebook Page too, and you’ll see lots of happy people talking about how much they love their Thermomixes! It really is a money saver, and time saver! 🙂 (Btw, my dairy free hot chocolate and cappucinos made in the Thermomix might help convince your hubby too!) 😉
Hi Kim, so sorry, just saw your comment – I hope you figured out the recipe and that it worked well for you… I’ll check the print version and see what’s going on with it. If you click on sections of the recipe in the print box, it will delete those sections, so be careful not to do that. You can click on the pictures and delete them too, which is handy for printing out. 🙂
Hi Jo, I have had incredible problems getting this recipe to work! The rapadura does not dissolve, it just sits on the bottom and when I pour it into the mould it just stays a goooey sugary mess with a layer of cocoa butter on top. I have tried it with agave nectar as well with a similar result. I can’t figure out what I am doing wrong? Has anybody else had similar problems? Jessica
I didn’t have that problem, but i used raw sugar instead of rapadura (because i couldn’t find it anywhere!), and it was amazing! So you shpuld try raw sugar. Hope that helps! 🙂
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This looks delicious! I am currently off sugar however I could maybe use stevia to sweeten. I need my chocky! Love your blog!
Sure, you could use stevia! Glad you’re enjoying my blog 😀
Hi Jo,
I made this at work this morning in our new Thermomix 🙂 I used Coconut Sugar and it worked really well. I think I could have cooked it a bit longer as it was still a bit graining but BOY is it YUMMY!!!!! Thanks so much for the recipe, I’ve linked to it from our School “Healthy Eating” blog 🙂
Cheers
Haidee
That’s great, Haidee!! Isn’t it great to be able to make your own chocolate 🙂
Jo
Goji berries are really yummy in the chocolate too. And it makes it a bit sweeter so you dont use as much agave/rapadura 🙂
Just made this using half coconut sugar and half rapadura (150g as I figured I would want it a little sweeter from the comments I read!!) and poured it over organic raw almonds. Delcious delicious delicious! How will I ever go back to mass produced chocolate again??!!!
I always use local honey and organic maple syrup to sweeten mine. The flavour is much better than agave.
Just went to the site to order cacao butter and it’s 40% off for July. Yay.
Yes, I tend to use Rapadura & raw honey to sweeten mine now – so so delicious!
I bought lots of yummy chocolate ingredients from Loving Earth the other day with that 40% off sale – yippeee!! 😀
love the ‘loving earth’ sale, my order arrived this week. Thanks so much for putting it on facebook 🙂
You’re welcome! Such a good special, I’d hate anyone to miss out!! 🙂
Hi Jo,
Love your blog 🙂 I just tried making chocolate in the Thermomix, but it hasn’t turned out hard like it should – despite being in the freezer for the past hour or so. I *may* not have kept to the cooking times during the whole process (as I was keen to make it fast so I could eat it, haha!) – do you think this could be the reason why it hasn’t turned out hard like chocolate should be?
Thanks for your help Jo!
Cheers,
Kym
Thanks Kym 🙂 What sweetener/s did you use? That will make a difference to the texture. If you use much honey, it will be softer. It could also be the ‘cooking’ time 😉 I find the longer it stirs, the better it snaps!
Jo 🙂
Hi Jo,
This is the second time i have attempted making chocolate and each time the cocoa doesn’t seem to mix with the rapadura paste. Its like the fat is on the top and underneath is a thick paste. I tried whizzing it up but that made no difference. I followed your recipe to the tee. The chocolate is not crunchy but chewy more like a caramel. Determined to get this right…it tastes yum though. Love the cinnamon, orange and vanilla paste. Please help :o)
Hi Fiona, I’m not sure why it’s doing that… eeek! Well, I had it happen the other day too, so I added 40g of thick coconut cream and mixed that in, then it was perfect. Only thing is it doesn’t set really hard, but it tasted so good I didn’t mind. 🙂 I think the problem may be the rapadura – sometimes it’s very difficult to mix in. A friend of mine uses Yacon syrup to sweeten his – 120g of Yacon, added after the cacao powder. I think next time I’ll try all liquid sweeteners – either Yacon, honey, pure maple syrup, rice syrup, or a mixture – I’ll let you know how it goes.
Jo 🙂
Hello, I received my order today – yay! So am keen to try in the TMix. I have agave syrup though as I ordered a kit from Loving Earth and can’t seem to find a recipe on your site with agave. I may be blind though! Do I just replace rapadura measurements with the agave and use same times etc? Thanks for your help, am loving this site/blog.
Hi Jo
I have just made your orange almond version and had ths problem of the rapadura and cacao butter not mixing. I followed advice to add 40 grams of coconut cream and the choccy is awesome but is not setting hard as you said. just wondering if you have nutted out a solution!! would love to have it hard. HAve left it in the freezer so it stays hard to eat it.
Hi Emma-Jo, sorry I missed your comment – I think it’s a bit less of agave than rapadura, and then taste it and see if you need more. Been a while since I made it with agave!
Amanda, I’m not sure why sometimes this is separating – I think it’s the rapadura. Haven’t had a chance to try to again yet but will soon!
Jo 🙂
Thanks for another great recipe Jo! I am never buying chocolate again! Sooooo delicious 😀
So glad you liked it, Natalie 😀
My first failure in the Thermomix! Made this today but my mixture didn’t mix either.. So disappointed as I was really looking forward to trying this. Unfortunately, raw cocoa butter is too expensive for me to try and perfect this recipe with further attempts. So jealous of everyone who had success 🙂
Hi Jo, I’m converting a fudge recipe to dairy free and it calls for 500g chocolate (I may have to half this recipe). I’m wondering of you know roughly how much this recipe yields of finished product?
Thanks
Lizz (BHBEB)
Hi Jo, My hubby and son prefer milk chocolate. Would cream/coconut cream do the trick? How much? Thanks, Terri
Hi Jo am loving your recipes and my new thermie just wondering how much milk would be required to make milk chocolate?
Hi Jo,
did this today with the kids.
We prepared moulds with little items such as crushed nuts, lime zest, craisins, coconut bits, all sorts.
My problem was that I realised to wards the end of the pouring that the sugar was still at the bottom and didn’t really dissolve…previously I had only ever made chocolate with honey and agave syrup.
Does the sugar dissolve generally normally or do I constantly have to stir? once taking the TM bowl off the ‘heat’?
Thanks, Insa
Just reading through the comments I haven’t managed to keep up with – here’s a few answers!
If you’ve had trouble with the chocolate mixing together properly, it could be because
1) You haven’t ground up the rapadura really, really finely at the start (must be a super dry bowl); or,
2) You’ve whizzed it up at a really high speeds at the end – that can cause it to separate
If it has split, try adding 30g coconut cream and gently mixing until it comes together again. It will be a slightly softer chocolate, but it tastes great! Just store it in the freezer to keep it ‘crisp’.
This recipe yields nearly 400g of chocolate.
If you want to make it into a lighter ‘milk’ chocolate, you can add some powdered milk to the mixture when adding the rapadura (or sweetener of choice). Or you can add 30-50g of cream or coconut cream. (As said above, it will be softer if you add cream.)
If you’ve poured the chocolate out and realised when you got to the bottom that the rapadura hadn’t dissolved properly, just scrape it all out, let it set, then re-whiz it up and re-melt at 37C, then pour out and set again. Of course, this won’t work it you’ve poured it onto nuts/fruit… if so, just drizzle the sugary layer evenly over the chocolate, stir a bit with a knife to mix it in, and leave it to set. It will still taste good. 🙂
Jo
Hi Jo,
I’ll be making this ASAP with easter coming and a dairy-intolerant child – a few comments:
Chocolate + fridge is not great! you get all that condensation on the outside when it comes out, it can cause the sugar to bloom, which is ugly, and in a worst case scenario (ie., leave it out for a few days, it can grow mould!) If your chocolate isn’t setting up, which it should do in about 10 minutes, the cocoa butter isn’t crystallised properly (or, to use old terminology, it isn’t tempered). The easiest way to temper it would be to seed it – when the chocolate cools to about 34-35C, add 1% cocoa butter (finely chopped) and stir it in until it’s all melted, your chocolate should be in temper now and set up nicely without refrigeration.
Thanks for a great recipe to use in my TM 😀
Chris
Hi Chris, you’ll find with raw chocolate it isn’t quite the same – if you set it out of the fridge it will actually separate! A little different to regular chocolate as it isn’t tempered, it’s just barely warmed and stirred until smooth. 🙂
Hi Jo
You said you were going to try the liquid sweeteners, did you end up trying that out? I’m really curious and anxious to hear how you went as I’d rather not use rapadura or agave syrup, happy to use honey or maple syrup though. I look forward hearing how you went and if any tweaks are required. Thanks. Paula
Yes! I used coconut nectar last time and it was lovely! A bit milder than with the rapadura, but very smooth. 🙂