Healthy Raw Chocolate

Here's a great video tutorial from the wonderful Cyndi O'Meara showing how to make healthy homemade chocolate in the Thermomix.

This chocolate is very dark, very rich and very delicious! You do only need a small amount to satisfy that chocolate craving.

I made raw chocolate recently, following Cyndi's recipe as I happened to have purchased her cacao wafers a while ago. My mould was a large Milky Way soap mould which worked really well, making lovely thin slices of chocolate. Testers at our Paramount College Wholefood Cooking Class recently gave it the thumbs up.

If you don't have Cyndi's wafers, you can use 80g cacao powder and 250g raw cocoa butter. I buy edible cocoa butter from Aussie Soap Supplies in button form, so very easy to use. If you don't have a Thermomix, I feel very sorry for you........no, not really. You can make it in a double boiler with a lot of stirring.

Once you've cut your chocolate into portions, place in a container in the fridge.

Raw Cacao has four times the antioxidant flavenoids of regular cocoa, as well as magnesium, an important electrolyte and energy mineral. Cacao is also a good source of sulfur which is associated with strong nails, shiny hair and a healthy liver and pancreas.  Other minerals include calcium, zinc, iron, copper and mangenese. Cocoa beans also contain a number of B vitamins plus vitamins C and E.

Regular chocolate contains processed white sugar which depletes the body of these vital minerals and vitamins. Using rapadura sugar means that the vitamins and minerals are bioavailable to the body. Making your own chocolate means you can control the amount of sweetening. You may like to try honey or maple syrup instead of rapadura. These may be a little harder to incorporate as they are both water based, and chocolate is oil based.

The essential fatty acids (oleic, stearic and palmitic) found in the cocoa butter component of chocolate may help raise High Density Lipoprotein cholesterol and lower Low Density Lipoprotein cholesterol.

Three forms of protein are found in the cocoa bean - arginine, glutamine and leucine. Leucine is an essential amino acid that cannot be made by the body and must be obtained from foods.

Raw cacao contains theobromine which helps to stimulate the central nervous system, relaxing smooth muscles, dilating blood vessels and giving the body a boost of energy.
Need more convincing? "Bliss" chemicals found in cacao help to increase circulation and availability of serotonin, improving mood and combating depression.

Just don't overdo it!