cacao powder – Genuine Observations

Raw Cacao Fruit Balls

October 7, 2012 by Dave

It’s been a while, but I’ve found another recipe that’s once again worth sharing. I’ve seen versions of this one on different videos and blogs over the years, but I’ve never really gotten around to reproducing them or playing with the flavors. That is, I’ve always tried to over complicate the treat by trying to make it more like a conventional truffle. Well, it doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it should be simple.

There are three things that really stand out about this recipe. 1) Its easy. 2) It tastes great and 3) it will keep you wired for hours! I’m really shocked at how wired someone can get off just a little raw cacao. I make it a point now to not eat these any later than about three in the afternoon. If not, well, you’ll find it really easy to not fall asleep in the evening. I guess if I was going out, this would be the perfect pre-function snack.

Recipe:

1 cup dried fruit. (In this case Apricots, in previous cases cherries)
8 large medjool dates
¼ cup cacao
2-3 Tablespoons Almond butter
½ cup raw almonds
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
1 teaspoon coconut oil
Pinch sea salt

Add the dried fruit to the food processor first and chop until it’s as fine as possible. Apricots tend to break up into little square pieces. Cherries break down further, but the idea is to get it broken down while it’s still mostly dry. Next, add the vanilla powder, salt and Almond butter. Spin the food processor a bit longer. The mixture should break down even more. After it starts to stick together a little, add the dates and coconut oil. It won’t take long after that before you’ve got a big ball of paste.

It might actually feel more like fudge. This batch felt and tasted a bit like the filling in a Fig Newton. It was a bit tacky, yet kind of dry when it was pulled apart. As you can see, I piled it up on a plate and then reused the food processor to break down the raw almonds. You want to break them down into very small pieces, but not as fine as flower.

I didn’t take a picture, but at this point I rolled the ‘fudge’ into little round balls. I like them small. If they are too big, everyone wants to bite them in half and then crumbs fall all over the place. If they are small, it’s just one bite and no mess!

Note that the almond crumbs are for rolling the balls in. It makes them easy to pick up for the oil in the mixture will get on your figures, but not if there is a coating of something to block it.

This recipe makes a couple dozen (as you can see in the picture).

I love the fact that I can take a half hour and make a plate full of snacks for the week. I’ll probably take 4 or 5 a day everyday for lunch until they’re gone. I couldn’t tell you the count of calories, but I get the feeling that it’s not too bad. The cacao in it makes for a great pick-me-up after lunch. I can see myself making a lot more of these in the coming months. The only really tricky ingredient is the almond butter. Yet, I figure I’ve got ½ a jar left so I can make a couple more batches!

You are what you eat! – Thus, I must be a little nutty!

See you soon.

Raw Chocolate Mousse

January 18, 2012January 15, 2012 by Dave

Since today is another snow day, I figured I would share one of my all time favorite recipes. I found this in the book Raw Food Real World by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. If you haven’t seen this book, here’s what it looks like so you can pick it up the next time you’re raw book shopping:

If you remember, a long time ago, I posted a picture of the Raw Food Real World Lasagne. It was amazing. If you want to take a trip back on memory lane, see my old father’s day dinner post!

But today is all about the chocolate mousse. If for no other reason, you’ll want to pick up the book just for this recipe!

Maybe it was the sex appeal that Sarma brings to the facing page that makes this just a pit more savory. I guess I also have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for fuzzy pink sweaters. But the pig tails? Ah, no thanks. J

The hardest part about making this recipe is finding the Young Thai Coconuts. I’ve always got my eyes out for a sale, but that doesn’t seem to happen enough. This time, I found a few that looked good and healthy (See How to pick out a good coconut). The big surprise I had came when I opened them and found that there was lots of great coconut meat that I could make mousse with! Thus, check out the picture in the measuring cup. I opened them earlier in the day, poured a little coconut water over them and wrapped them up so that it would be no problem when it came time to put it all together.

Notice the test-tube in the crease of the book. One change that I make in their recipe is that I use the scraping of one vanilla bean rather than the liquid vanilla extract. Yes, it’s more expensive, but you don’t get any chemical taste in the final spoon full.

And I love the fact that you just throw everything in the blender and whip it up!

The only thing you really have to look out for is getting coconut shell in the blender. Thus, when you remove the meat from the shell, look it over closely. I’ve missed some shell before and it totally ruins the emotional effect that this dessert lets you experience. You really don’t want to break up the bliss.

I’ve learned that a little goes a long way with this recipe.

I now pick out reasonably small containers to let it both set up in and serve in. These little ramekins work great.

I can’t wait for the next sale on Young Thai Coconuts just so I can make this dessert again!

Enjoy!

Raw Chocolate Dipped Truffles

January 14, 2012 by Dave

Today, winter officially arrived with a morning rain and afternoon snowstorm. It was just above freezing, so what fell came down in large flakes and quickly covered everything. Fortunately the cloud only took an hour to pass by so the snowpack came in around a half inch. It’s beautiful to look at, but you don’t want to venture out.

Thus, it’s a great day to make truffles! … and eat them too!

A few days ago I went hunting for a really easy raw truffle recipe that would only take a half hour or so from start to finish. I looked around a bit, but didn’t find anything that caught my eye until I visited Lisa’s Raw on $10 a Day (or less!) blog. If you haven’t noticed, that blog has been linked in here for nearly a year! I love her commitment to the blog and how well she puts together the artwork. It’s just fun to read and beautiful to look at.

Yet, anyway, if you scroll back a bit in her blog, you’ll find that on the 2^nd, the menu included a dessert – Double Chocolate Truffles! When I saw what she posted, I immediately new that I’d found the truffles I’d been looking for.

Today, everything came together in such a fine way that I got to make this recipe my own. And yes, they are as good as they look – but I couldn’t settle for just eight, so I kind of doubled the recipe. I wanted to give away a few and cut down on the chocolate just a little (I’m virtually out now, … need to visit Raw Vegan Source again). Too much raw chocolate will keep you up all night. So I almost doubled everything that Lisa shared with the world (except the cacao). Here is my version!

Recipe – Raw Chocolate Dipped Truffles:

Truffle balls:

1 cup soaked (dried) raw almonds
½ cup raisins
½ cup (8) medjool dates (pitted)
3 tablespoons cacao powder
Scrapings of the inside of one vanilla bean
Pinch salt

Chocolate Dip:

4 Tablespoons melted raw coconut oil
4 Tablespoons raw agave
4 Tablespoons Raw cacao powder

Soak a bit more than a cup of almonds for 4-6 hours before starting. Rinse and dry completely so as to not add any water to the mixture (cacao and water don’t mix).

To make the balls, add the almonds, raisins, salt and scrapings from the inside of the vanilla bean into the food processor and grind up. After you’ve worked it a bit, add the dates. You’ll need to play with it a bit in order to really get it broken down nicely. Once it’s nice and smooth, roll into small truffles and place in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. You just want to get them cold, not frozen. Meanwhile, it gives you time to cleanup and put together the dip.

For the dip, add all three ingredients (oil, agave and cacao powder) and quickly mix. It doesn’t take much, but make sure you don’t have lumpy cacao. That makes mixing it up a little harder to do.

After the balls have cooled and your chocolate dip is ready, roll the bottom of the cold truffle through the melted chocolate and place it on parchment paper. The coconut oil should quickly firm up. It might take a couple more minutes in the freezer, but they’ll look like this:

And as you can see from the first picture (way above), I thoroughly enjoyed that treat! The ball is mildly sweet and a soft nutty chew. You have to hunt for the vanilla and the chocolate flavor is tame allowing you to actually discern the raisins. The Chocolate glaze is powerfully dark and rich. It makes you want to suck on it just a bit before chewing through the rest of it.

This is truly a winter time treat!

Oh, I never like throwing out anything – especially when it comes to raw chocolate!

I just happened to have a few soaked almonds left over that I rolled through the bowl that I used for dipping the truffles and I wound up with … turtles!

These were amazing too! These were the first things to disappear. There is something about sweet chocolate on almonds that I just can’t pass up. Now, if I’d just used cacao butter rather than coconut, these would have firmed up at room temperature. But no worries for they disappeared within about five minutes!

These truffles really did mix up fast with no fuss. I’d highly recommend them if you’ve got a craving!

Make and experience joy – these truffles just might help!

Cherry Truffles – A Chocolate Dream

July 27, 2011 by Dave

Chocolate truffles are no longer just for Christmas! Here is it, the end of July and I’ve found a few extra hours to craft some hand rolled cherry truffles. If you haven’t ever given this a try – and you love making decadent deserts – this project is for you.

The filling has the consistency of gooey fudge and the outside has just a little crunch to it. The secret is the amaretto (or almond extract) that you add to the filling. It’s also worthwhile to serve these truffles are room temperature, but be prepared to get chocolate on your fingers. These are not M&Ms!

Don’t those look great! I hope they last more than just a couple days.

Recipe: for the filling

1 cup dried cherries
½ cup Almond butter (paste)
1/8^th tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp vanilla powder
6 large Medjool dates
½ cup cacao powder
1 oz Amaretto (or 1 tsp almond extract)

This one takes a little bit of preparation – you need to reconstitute the cherries and dates. With the cherries place just a little less than 1 cup on a jar and barely cover with water. Let it stand a few hours. Once rehydrated, remove from water and reserve. With the dates, if you’re using amaretto, pit them and cover with the ounce of amaretto. If you’re using the almond extract, add a little water and let them rehydrate a bit.

We’re going to use a mixer with the S-blade to create this filling. To start with, add the cherries (without the water) and dates (with the water) and blend. You want to really break these down before going further.

Once the mixture looks like really good jam, you want to add the other ingredients. Make an effort to mix the powder in before turning on the machine or you’ll get cacao everywhere. Once done, it will look like this:

At this point, you’ll want to cool it before rolling it into balls. I placed it in the fridge overnight.

While it’s still cold, you want to shape small spoonfuls into little round balls. I rub coconut butter on my hands and keep a little around so that the filling doesn’t stick so bad. Notice that in the following picture there are some that turn out smooth and others that are a little spiky. Well, the filling tends to pick up the coconut butter (oil) so you’ll get a feel for how often to replenish the coating on your hands.

Recipe: For the cacao coating

½ lb. Cacao butter
¾ cup cacao powder
4 Tbsps Agave syrup
1 tsp vanilla powder

Place the cacao butter in the dehydrator until it melts (or shave it and float a bowl of it in a hot water bath). After it’s melted, add the cacao and vanilla and stir toughly. Lastly, add the agave (if you like it really sweet (which I don’t) you’ll want to add a little more agave.

I melt the cacao butter in a 2 cup measuring cup so it’s a little steeper on the sides (more depth) so that when I dip the filling balls I can stretch the cacao butter a little further.

Using cold filling balls, place one on a fork and dip it in the warm cacao and remove. The cacao butter (coating) should harden fairly quickly around the cold filling. This should only take a few seconds. To get the chocolate coating fairly thick, you’ll want to dip it about three times.

In the end you get something like this…

… which you get to enjoy for lunches for a week or so! This recipe makes about 50 once inch (or smaller) truffles.

I hope you love these as much as I do.

Raw Banana Cacao Sorbet

June 16, 2011 by Dave

This one’s a keeper! I can’t believe I haven’t posted this recipe before. It’s been so long since I’ve had too many bananas that I’ve had to freeze them. Thus, it’s been a long time since I’ve had this sorbet.

If you love bananas dipped in chocolate, this recipe is for you.

It’s also really easy.

Recipe:

3 frozen ripe bananas
½ cup coconut milk
½ teaspoon vanilla powder
1 heaping tablespoon cacao powder
1 heaping tablespoon raw honey

Start by pealing and freezing the bananas the day before (or a few days before). I would recommend a zip-lock baggy that you squeeze the air out of. You don’t want them to turn brown (ha! Like you’ll notice with the added cacao.).

When you’re ready to blend, break the frozen bananas into 1 inch lengths (or cut them for they are pretty hard) and then add all ingredients to Vita-mix. It doesn’t take very long to blend and you’ll want to use the tamper to press the banana into the blades.