The easiest healthy filled chocolates recipe uses only four ingredients to create a delicious chocolate candy with a healthy fudgy filling. Perfect for Easter, Mother's Day, Christmas, Valentine's Day and even as a delicious candy birthday gift.
Healthy Filled Chocolates Recipe
Make your own filled chocolates at home with this easy four ingredient recipe. And make them healthy! Full of heart healthy fats, and fiber and metabolism-boosting energy. If you are going to stuff your face with chocolate, it might as well be healthy.
The filling in this particular chocolate filled recipe is my favorite and I actually also use it as a layer in this vegan gluten-free brownies. The chocolate filling has an unusual texture, light but fudgy, and a melt-in-your-mouth consistency. Once you eat one, you'll find the experience haunting and want another one right away, haha. The good thing is, that's okay, because they are high in fiber and MCTs, both of which benefit the heart, weight loss and digestion.
So how do we make these magical filled chocolates? I use a mold but you don't have to - you can also just use ice cube trays or mini cupcake liners if that is what you have on hand.
I love making filled chocolates in mini cupcake liners. In fact, if you have my book "Crazy Healthy With 4 Ingredients", you'll find several chocolate treats that are made in cupcake liners, including "Lentil Chocolate Fudge Cups" on page 19 and "Chocolate Orange Turmeric Cups" on page 33.
Only 4 Ingredients in These Filled Chocolates
This chocolate filled candy recipe is just as easy as those in my book. I guess I love 4-ingredient recipes, haha. And this one is no different.
Here the filling is made of coconut, cocoa powder and maple syrup. You can use cacao powder if you have it, it’s less processed thus healthier. I go into detail about the differences later in this post.
How Healthy Are These Filled Chocolates?
The four ingredients include dark chocolate for the shell. I just buy quality chips or a bar and melt it. My favorite brands are Enjoylife, Chocolove, Love, Ghiradelli, Hu and more. I melt the chocolate in a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave in 60-second intervals. If you want to make the shell thin, add a touch of oil, either olive oil, coconut oil or avocado, about 1 tbsp per cup of chocolate.
I just use a mini spoon to paint the sides of the mold well or cupcake paper.
The filling is made of three ingredients, shredded coconut, cocoa powder and maple syrup. And here is a breakdown of the nutritional contribution of these three ingredients:
1. The shredded coconut provides a ton of fiber and MCT's that benefit the heart, and digestion, and help you feel full so you don't eat unhealthy snacks. Does it make the fudge filling taste like coconut? No, it is blended into butter and sheds it's coconut flavor.
2. The maple syrup is sugar, but still holds some essential minerals and is not refined sugar. Even so, I do try to add the minimal possible to offset the bitterness of the sweetened cocoa powder.
3. Which brings us to that third ingredient in the filling, cocoa powder. You can, of course, use cacao powder if you want. And here is the difference in case you are interested.
Difference Between Cacao Powder and Cocoa Powder
Both powders come from a chocolate bean, but cacao powder is less processed and thus keeps more nutrition.
For instance, cacao powder retains more protein, calcium, magnesium and potassium. In fact, 1 tbsp has 1.6 gm protein, 1mg iron, 14mg calcium, 42 mg magnesium, 120 mg potassium. By comparison, cocoa powder has no protein or magnesium, half the calcium and potassium.
However, cocoa powder has twice the iron that cacao powder does, perhaps via supplementation. And it tastes slightly less bitter than does cacao powder so you might need less sweetener in any recipe which is a nutritional plus.
Cacao powder really wins though, with more nutrition and a stronger immune-booster than cocoa powder, with nearly double the anti-oxidants or ORAC score. And the higher magnesium is awesome at boosting mood and is often in short supply in people who are stressed.
But buying cacao powder isn't as easy as grabbing a can of unsweetened cocoa. You'd have to go to a healthy food store such as Whole Foods, or buy it online.
My favorite cacao powder is here, by Navitas Organics. And a quality but less expensive brand is Anthony's here.
If you want to buy cocoa powder, here is Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder online. You want quality cacao or cocoa brands to avoid the possibility of heavy metal contamination.
How to Make Filled Chocolates in 5 Steps
1. First coat the mold or cupcake liners with chocolate. To do this, melt your chocolate in a microwave for 1 minute. Stir until smoothie, then spoon a tiny bit into each mold well or cupcake liner, and use the back of a spoon to draw up the chocolate on the sides and around the well. Set it in the refrigerator while you make the filling.
2. Turn the shredded coconut into coconut butter. Just blend the shredded coconut for 1-2 minutes in a high speed blender, stirring occasionally. I use a Blendtec Twister jar and it is awesomely helpful to make coconut butter. Here is a video of me making coconut butter with that jar on Instagram Stories.
3. Add the cocoa and maple syrup to the coconut butter, and blend again until combined. The result is crumbly and fudgy at the same time.
4. Spoon into molds, flatten with spoon and top with remaining melted chocolate. Refrigerate until ready to pop out, at least 30 minutes.
Store these delightful candies in a sealed container at room temperature for 24 hours, in refrigerator for a week, and frozen indefinitely.
Other Homemade Chocolate Fillings
I made this Valentine's Day Chocolate box and used this chocolate filling and more! Among the fillings I used included my 2-ingredient Chocolate Frosting made with a hidden veggie, the middle filling in this Chocolate Coconut Caramel Bars and many more.
Another idea for your filled chocolates filling is your favorite frosting. Here I used my new sunflower seed chocolate frosting, but you might also want to try my fudge frosting to fill your chocolate molds.
Consider These Other Chocolate Recipes
- Sugar Cookie Truffles
- Chocolate Spice Truffles
- Easy Truffles Recipe
- Protein Ball Recipes
- Crunch Bars
- Vegan Fudge
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Healthy Filled Chocolates Recipe
Ingredients
- ¾ cup shredded coconut
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Equipment
- 1 Ice cube tray or mini paper cups or candy mold (Polycarbonate molds make chocolate look incredibly shiny but silicon is fine too)
Instructions
Make Chocolate Shell
- Melt the chocolate chips and oil in the microwave for about 1 minute. Stir until melted. Microwave again at 15 second intervals if you need to.
- Pour a bit of chocolate into each mold well, and use a spoon to draw it up. Set the mold in the refrigerator while you make the filling.
Make Filling
- Add the shredded coconut to a high speed blender and process for 2-3 minutes, stirring once or twice until your shredded coconut has turned to a liquidy paste.Pro tip – make sure the shredded coconut is finely shredded (not flakes) and fresh.
- Add the maple syrup and cocoa powder, and process until you have a creamy crumbly mixture.
- In a 2-cup measuring cup, stir together the melted coconut butter, maple syrup and cocoa powder until evenly distributed. If you double the recipe, put all ingredients into a food processor.
Build the chocolates
- Spoon the filling into each mold or ice cube tray well until it is level. Spoon a bit of liquid chocolate on top and refrigerate until hard, about 30 minutes.
- Tip mold over to release. Store the chocolates in the refrigerator, sealed for about a week, or in the freezer long term. Yum!
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