Wednesday, March 3, 2010

First raw candy experiment

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To make the chocolate:

INGREDIENTS
3/4 c cold-pressed olive oil
1/4 c sweetener: raw sugar, agave or maple syrup (if you use raw sugar, you may have to add a little more olive oil to your mixture)
up to 1 c raw cacao powder
1 T mesquite powder (optional)

Mix the above ingredients to make the chocolate. You can play with the oil/sugar ratio to make it as sweet or as dark as you like.

Step 1: I sprayed a little OO into each candy mold and froze.
Step 2: After about an hour I filled them each halfway with chocolate:

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Step 3: I ended up leaving them in the freezer overnight. But then I put a little sweetened raspberry in each candy mold:

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Step 4: Finally, I topped each mold with chocolate:

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Step 5: I let them freeze solid before popping each candy out of its mold. This is why you use silicone molds!

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This is my first time to make these candies and I learned a few things:

1) This chocolate mixture begins to melt quickly at room temperature, so next time I'll be using raw coconut butter instead of oil. These should remain solid at room temp. Ani Phyo uses coconut oil instead of OO so maybe hers stays solid at room temp?

2) When using OO, it's probably best to mix the fruit with the chocolate before pouring into the mold instead of layering. When I poured too much fruit into the middle of the chocolates, sometimes they didn't stay together and the top piece separated when I took them out of the mold.

3) These are SO good! Either way you'll enjoy them. I'll post my coconut butter experiments next.

3 comments:

  1. Nice job! they look yum. the coconut oil gives a different flavor than olive. and yes, coconut oil stays solid at higher temps than olive oil. for chocolate that keeps at room temp, you actually need to use cacao butter, which will stay solid. thank for the post! :)

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  2. Thanks, Ani! Cacao butter isn't available here (in ridiculous northwest Arkansas) but we're visiting Dallas this weekend and I'll be sure to get some at Whole Foods. These candies are so good and so easy to make!

    We'll try the chocolate dipping sauce with coconut butter next time since I already have it already. I've never been fond of coconut... but I'm trying to experiment and hopefully I'll like it soon enough. :)

    Thanks for the tips!

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  3. It turns out raw cacao butter is VERY hard to find! Nobody in Dallas knew what I was even talking about - and kept trying to offer me cheese or lotion.

    The moral of the story is.. if you find it, buy it!

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