You can buy squares or chips or nibs, but have you ever considered making your own dark chocolate, from scratch? It’s easier than you think. With healthy ingredients, including cacao and lucuma powders and naturally sweet raw honey, you can concoct a confection so rich, pure and decadent, you’ll never settle for pre-packaged chocolate again. In this recipe, it’s divvied into mini cups with a mouth-tingling peppermint filling made with the surprising addition of slippery elm tea powder (also good for your belly!).
Mini Peppermint Patties with Homemade Dark Chocolate
Makes 10 patties
Ingredients
Dark chocolate
¼ lb. (1/4 of 16 oz. package) cacao butter
¼ cup cacao powder
2 Tbsp. cacao nibs
2 Tbsp. lucuma powder
1 Tbsp. raw honey
Peppermint filling
2 Tbsp. slippery elm tea
1 Tbsp. raw honey
1 tsp. peppermint extract
Directions
Peppermint filling:
- Combine slippery elm powder, raw honey and peppermint extract. Mix well, then roll on cutting board into log about ¼-inch thick.
- Cut into 10 pieces then flatten into the size of a nickel.
- Set aside. This will be your peppermint filling.
Dark chocolate:
- Using double boiler, melt cacao butter. (Note: If you don’t have a double boiler, simply boil water in a small saucepan, then place a stainless steel or glass bowl over the pan. Place cacao butter in the bowl to melt. You may want to use an oven mitt to hold the bowl in place as steam will escape from between the pan and bowl. Be very careful not to get burned by the hot steam!)
- Once cacao butter is melted, add cacao powder, cacao nibs, lucuma powder and raw honey; whisk mixture together all ingredients are well combined.
Peppermint patties:
- Grease a mini cupcake pan or insert mini cupcake liners.
- Pour 2 teaspoons chocolate into 10 mini cupcake slots.
- Place 1 peppermint filling into each mini cupcake slot, then add 1 teaspoon of chocolate over the peppermint filling; continue until all 10 wells are filled.
- Refrigerate treats for 1 hour to set.
- Remove chocolate carefully from mini cupcake tin using a toothpick.
Nutritional Information: 136 cals, 14 grams fat, 4 grams carbs, 1 gram sugar, 1 gram protein