These are mainly nuts and seeds, as a result they are high in protein, healthy fats and are super filling. Be great to bring if you were going on a big hike, mine was mainly from the kitchen to the couch while going back and forth for more! People think making your own raw chocolate is some complex mystery. It is actually really easy and it means you can control the flavour, sugar content and get all those lovely antioxidants and minerals in the cacao too! Hmmm chocolate.

You will need a strong food processor or blender to follow the recipe exactly, I will give alternatives in the footnotes if you are with out these contraptions. I used a 15cm x 15cm (almost 6inc x 6inc ) perspex dish, so it made nine good sized Cacao Nut Bites. They are very fast to make and the joy of raw vegan baking is you can taste everything along the way. 🙂

Cacao Nut Bites

The Base*

• 125g/ three quarters of a cup of whole almonds
• Twelve whole brazil nuts
• One flat dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
• One teaspoon of vanilla powder
• An eighth of a teaspoon of fine Himalayan pink salt or good sea salt
• One dessertspoon of good quality maple syrup

The Sprinkle layer

• Three dessertspoons of sunflower seeds
• Approx. twenty organic dried mulberries

The Topping

• One dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
• Roughly one and a half dessertspoons of organic cacao butter
• Roughly three dessertspoons of organic cacao paste
• One teaspoon of organic cacao powder
• Less than an eighth of a teaspoon of good fine sea salt
• Two dessertspoons of good quality maple syrup

The very simple Method

Starting with the base, through everything into your food processor and blend until it starts to get a bit sticky. I find you still need to work it a bit with your hands, in order to help it all stick together. Just press it into your container- as evenly as possible.

Sprinkle your sunflower seeds and mulberries on top and put it all in the fridge while you make your raw chocolate!

Put a saucepan half filled with water on to your hob. Bring it to a simmer and pop a perspex bowl (that will fit ) on top. The water should not touch the base, or it will be too hot and burn the precious chocolate. Melt the cacao paste and butter and coconut oil, take off the heat for maybe thirty seconds (something about cacao crystals realigning) . Put back on the heat and add in the cacao powder, salt and maple syrup. Mix and melt together.

Take your base out of the fridge. Using a oven glove or tea-towel grab your bowl of melted goodness and pour it over everything. You may have to move your mulberries a bit after to make sure they are evenly spread. Put back in the fridge to set. It would probably be a good idea to take it out after five minutes and score the top in the way you plan to cut it. The chocolate sets quite hard!

Hope you try them, I found the brazil nuts bring something more interesting to the flavour. Who knew sunflower seeds and chocolate would be such a good combination?

Xs Aissa

*Footnotes

No machine? No fear! You can use ground almonds instead of the whole ones. You can use a big dessertspoon of brazil nut butter or cashew nut butter instead of the other nuts. Finally add barely an eighth of a teaspoon of natural almond extract to your coconut oil. Mash the oil, nut butters, maple syrup, almond and vanilla extract together first. Add in the ground almonds and salt, mix and press it altogether.