The other night we had our cleanse-friendly community dinner at Zeal and we met a young woman who had severe eczema. Allergy tests confirmed several food intolerances, chocolate being one of them.
As diehard chocolate lovers, of course, we gasped. Allergic to chocolate? What could be worse?
True to form, we started to dig deeper. This young woman, all of 13 years of age, wasn’t allergic to chocolate, she was allergic to dairy!
So we asked her if she had ever tried cacao. Not to be confused with cocoa (or cocoa powder), cacao is the purest form of chocolate you can eat. Bitter in taste, cacao beans look a lot like coffee beans. All chocolate and cocoa is made by heating cacao beans, so the raw, less processed version, cacao is always our first go-to choice when living our 80:20 lifestyle.
We’re just wrapping up another live cleanse and know that many people (ourselves included!) will be looking for healthy alternatives to their old standbys. Well friends, today’s recipe is a superfood homerun.
Try it out for yourself and be sure to leave us a comment below. Are you a chocolate lover? Have you been able to replace your chemical-laden Hershey kisses with a superfood alternative?
With love and chocolate bites,
Raw Cacao Bites
Yield: 16 bites
Ingredients:
- ½ cup of raw cacao butter
- 2 TB. olive oil
- ¼ cup + 1 TB. raw cacao powder
- 2 TB. raw honey
- 2 TB. – ¼ cup each of toppings of choice (goji berries, dried blueberries, bee pollen, or cashews pieces)
Instructions:
In a double boiler over low heat place a medium sized bowl, careful not to get any water inside the bowl. Add the cacao butter, olive oil, and raw honey to the bowl and whisk to melt, being careful not to over-heat it and destroy some of the nutrients. Ideally you want to keep this mixture at below 110 degrees F. Once these ingredients are melted, whisk in the raw cacao powder. Whisk until no lumps remain and mixture is smooth.
Set the bowl with the cacao mixture over a separate bowl of cold water, being careful to not get any water inside the bowl, and continue to whisk this constantly until the mixture starts to thicken. The raw honey and the oil tend to separate so keep mixing them until the mixture has cooled off a little bit.
When the mixture is thick enough to hold a little shape, spoon it onto a piece of parchment paper in small circles. Place topping of your choice on top of the cacao rounds while they are still slightly soft.
If the cacao mixture starts to harden too much put the bowl over hot water again and melt to the correct consistency.
When finished place the raw cacao bites in the freezer for a couple of minutes and enjoy! The bites can be stored in the freezer or refrigerator for 1 week
