Recipe REVIEW: Homemade Chocolate

There comes a time in every girl's life when she has to put aside all distractions, phone calls, family members, facebook, and well, everything else just to grab a 30 second vacation. There's just something about slipping a piece of smooth, creamy chocolate into your mouth that can't take you away better than Calgon ever did. There's just something about chocolate that makes a girl's heart happy. Even my 4 year old daughter has a special place in her heart for chocolate.

So when I came across a recipe for homemade chocolate, and it came during a time when I needed some chocolate, I was excited to see the ingredients were in my pantry and the steps to making the chocolate were easy. Two very important things for this busy mama.

I have been attempting healthier, carb friendly, Paleo-tastic recipes for chocolate lately, and I haven't been too impressed. I tried making chocolate pudding the other day that didn't involve an avocado, and it just wasn't doing it for me. But this recipe, the one I found for homemade chocolate was great. I changed the ingredients just a tad, mostly because I didn't have specifically what the recipe called for, but it came out great. I then decided to expand the recipe a little bit. And I'm super excited, now, to share with you how you, too, can make chocolate that is going to hit the spot and not leave you sad when you jump on the scale a little later.

Please, please, please check out the original recipe and so many other wonderful tasty treats at "In the Kitchen with Amy Jo." She is a girl after my low-carb, Paleo heart.

Here's my adapted recipe:

Homemade Chocolate

 Ingredients: 
* 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder {Her recipe called for raw cacao powder. Here's a link to a discussion about the difference between cocoa and cacao powders} 
* 3/4 cup coconut oil, melted at room temperature {coconut oil will do this on its own in hot weather}
* 1/3 cup raw, local dark honey. If you use light honey, you can go up more. Dark honey, to me, is super strong, and I didn't want the sweet to overpower the chocolate.
* salt, just a pinch will do

That's it? Uh huh. That is it. For reals. 

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix the cocoa powder and the salt. Use a fork to make sure there are no clumps. 
2. Stir in the melted coconut oil. Stir until smooth. 
3. Stir in the honey. Stir until smooth. 
4. Pour into a parchment lined bowl or container. The thicker you want the chocolate, the deeper the container. 
5. Place container with the chocolate in it in the freezer. Freezer for at least one hour. 
6. Once solid, break into chunks and store in the freezer. Grab a piece when you just really need one. 

OPTIONS: 

1. To lower the sugar intake even more, melt 1/3 cup of coconut sugar in the melted coconut oil. Add mixture to dry ingredients, pour, and freeze. 
2. Add other ingredients. The second time I made this I did a few things differently. 
1. I poured the mixture into two clean ice trays. 
2. In one ice tray, I added some other ingredients before freezing. 
1. I chopped up a Tbsp of coffee beans and put into four compartments in the ice tray. 
2. I put a few craisins in four compartments in the ice tray. 
3. I added a tsp of peanut butter into six of the compartments in the ice tray. 
4. I ran out of dried strawberries, but that will go in the next time I make the chocolate. 

My "Official" Review

Now this is the part where I tell you if it was easy to make, if I liked the taste, and if it made me full. This isn't a meal, so I obviously can't answer the last question, but since this is a review, I'm going to answer these anyway. 

Was it easy to make? Yes, Very easy. It takes only a few minutes to mix together the ingredients. The hardest part was waiting. Oh the torture. 

How did it taste? So. Very. Good. I was surprised. All the other "healthy, homemade chocolate" recipes really had me going, "Eh, I mean, it's okay." This? No, this was instantly a winner. 

Did it make me full? In a sense, it did. When I need chocolate, it's not like I need a TON. Most times if I can just get a little piece, it can hold me over for a good while {unless, of course, I'm having a really bad day, and in that case, two or three pieces will do}. I like that I decided to use the ice trays. That keeps me honest. If I keep running back to the freezer to grab another piece of chocolate, I feel convicted an awful lot sooner than if I were to just keep hacking away at chunks. 

Check out below the pics of my chocolate experiments, and give it shot yourself. You won't regret it. 

Serving sizes 

I don't think this one mixed very well. That shiny stuff is honey. Still edible, though. Yum. 

From left to right: Peanut butter, craisins, and coffee beans 

Store those girls in a freezer ziplock bag and put them away...well, after you grab one or two first.