Gut Friendly Homemade Chocolate

I get asked often what my thoughts are on chocolate from a health perspective. In fact, my man and I had a tiff a few days ago about rationing our little one’s chocolate. He later asked me, not in front of her, what are the downsides of eating chocolate which opened up a great discussion.
The bullet points about chocolate health-wise are that chocolate in its best form is healthy.
When chocolates have sugar, then the sugar is the health cost. When chocolate is factory-made it has less than optimal forms of cocoa.
So in my perspective, as long as the cocoa is high quality and there is no sugar then it is a treat to enjoy guilt-free.
Just after our discussion, I received an email from a health company I follow called ZOE about chocolate. Here is a >>link to it if you want to listen<< to a couple of doctors talk about health and chocolate. One thing I learned from the podcast is that artisan chocolate (non factory-made) is beneficial to our gut microbiome.
I have a love for chocolate, especially the dark. So the last few months I have been making homemade chocolate with my little one for our family to enjoy. We are loving this recipe, it is super simple and very yummy. It is rather dark.
**If you prefer less dark chocolate you can mix the tahini in with the chocolate and increase the amount of tahini.
Ingredients
(I always double this recipe)
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100 grams (or 3.5oz) cocoa mass <<< (Link for where to buy)
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50 grams (less than 2 oz) cocoa butter <<< (Link for where to buy)
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2 tablespoons of raw honey
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3 tablespoons of tahini (or other nut butter ie almond butter)
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teaspoon of course Himalayan salt
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2 tablespoons of cocoa nibs
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3 tablespoons of pine nuts
Method
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Mix the tahini, cocoa nibs, and honey together and set aside.
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Melt the cocoa mass and cocoa butter together in a glass bowl placed on a pot with water on med to high heat while stirring until fully melted.
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Put the pine nuts in the bottom of the mold.
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Use a spoon to distribute half of the liquid chocolate into a chocolate silicon mold.
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Place in freezer for 30 min, then remove from freezer, chocolate should be solid.
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Put the tahini-honey filling spoon by spoon into each chocolate mold.
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Then cover the tahini-honey filling with the remainder of the liquid chocolate.
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Sprinkle the salt over the top.
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Place back in the freezer for another 30 min.
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Remove from freezer and remove from silicon mold.
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The chocolate is ready to savor or ready to store in the fridge.