Easy healthy homemade chocolates filled with a 3-ingredient healthy fudge, high in fiber and mood-boosting magnesium, perfect for snacking or to give as an edible gift for the holidays.
Healthy Homemade Chocolates
Making homemade chocolates is such an easy, fun activity. And makes so much sense health-wise. A big box of commercial chocolates smacks of fun, right? Valentine's Day, Christmas, Hanukah, Mother's Day.
Such a welcome fun gift, BUT the ingredients are often not that healthy. And what's more, mysterious. So making your own homemade chocolates is a terrific option.
Fillings for Homemade Chocolates
Here I filled mine with a healthy simple fudge made with whole foods, but you can actually use many different fillings to create an assortment of chocolates. I can think of nut butter fudge, cookie dough fudge, date caramel and marmalades.
But today I focus on a simple fudge mixture that is incredibly healthy, full of fiber and protein.
How To Make Homemade Chocolates Healthy
It helps to use my 3-ingredient filling you see here.
It's basically coconut butter, maple syrup along with quality chocolate.
Between the fresh coconut and quality chocolate, each piece is 5 gms protein, 3 gms fiber and rich in mood-boosting and sleep-supporting magnesium. And before you ask, no, it does not taste like coconut. At least using the unsweetened shredded coconut I use which is by Bob's Red Mill. But I'm sure other quality brands would work too, just be sure your shredded coconut is unsweetened and not flakes.
In fact, this very filling is the most popular chocolate filling on my blog! I can't tell you how much fun it is to blend it up and walk up to a family member with a spoon and say "taste this!". Warm from the blender (I have a Blendtec), it tastes INCREDIBLE. I get the BEST eyebrow-raising reactions this way, haha. Try it!!
And this filling is multi-tasking. I use it as the fudgy filling in these Chocolate Easter Eggs, but also the middle layer in these Triple Chocolate Brownies.
So how do we make these delicious fudge-filled homemade chocolates?
I'll tell you but before we dive into the recipe, I will pause a moment and invite you to sign up for my free chocolate course. Five lessons are delivered to your inbox, teaching you five easy ways to make your own chocolate desserts!
Okay, now moving on...
How To Make Homemade Chocolates
It is easy to make healthy homemade chocolates. First make the shell by melting quality chocolate with a touch of coconut oil for shine and pourable texture. Then line the mold with the melted chocolate, drawing the chocolate up the sides with a spoon.
Refrigerate so the shell will set while you make the filling.
Blend up the filling ingredients, roll into balls and press into the wells.
Top with melted chocolate and set in refrigerator for about an hour or more before attempting to release them from the mold.
A PolyCarbonate Mold Is Best for Homemade Chocolates
Let's talk about this mold. The mixture in my recipes makes about ½ cup of each, the chocolate and the filling. So you'll have to decide how much you'll need to make based on the mold you use. If you have left-overs, both are easily kept refrigerated for at least a week.
I used a polycarbonate mold here because I am not great at tempering chocolate - that procedure that choclatiers use to make chocolate shiny. It involves thermometers and patience, both of which are in short supply in my kitchen, haha. I do have a tempering recipe that uses the microwave here, but if you want a shortcut, just use a polycarbonate mold!
I used a swirly dome design, but you can see there is a wide range of shapes in these molds. You don't line it with oil, and in fact it must be bone-dry before you fill with chocolate. So if you rinsed yours out, dry, dry, dry before use. Also be careful not to scratch it - I store mine in the box it came in.
Other recipes on my blog that takes advantage of this shiny chocolate shortcut using a polycarbonate mold, is my Sprinkles Chocolate Bar recipe with VIDEO. Not a great one, haha, but it will show you the process of making your own candy bar. And my easter egg recipe, called Healthy Filled Chocolates recipe. I make Easter eggs but the recipe can be applied to other holiday shapes.
Move over Hershey...
Tips To Make Homemade Chocolate
1. Use high quality chocolate. I use Enjoylife chips because they are so allergy-free, but they do have a sweetener, so if you want a less sweet dark chocolate, choose HU or Chocolove or Theo.
2. Don't let any water go near the melted chocolate or it will seize. If this happens, rescue your chocolate by heating it in a sauce pan and stirring without burning until it is smooth again.
3. Use a quality shredded coconut. You are turning your coconut into butter basically and sometimes if the bag of coconut you use is too old, the coconut won't convert to butter. If yours is more crumbly than creamy, add a tbsp of melted coconut oil and see if that rescues it. Haha, I'm giving you a lot of "rescues" today, you can tell I have experience with fails! LOL
4. Use cacao powder for a more bitter and higher nutritional content, or quality unsweetened cocoa powder for a sweeter flavor. Also useful if you simply don't have cacao powder in your pantry but you DO have unsweetened cocoa powder.
How Do You Make Homemade Chocolate Last Longer
To make them last longer, don't remove them from the mold until you are ready to eat or gift them. As soon as you do, the shiny top will begin to dull. Also store them in the refrigerator sealed for a week, then freeze indefinitely.
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Healthy Homemade Chocolates
Ingredients
Chocolate Coating
- ½ cup vegan chocolate chips
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
Chocolate Filling
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 2 tbsp cacao powder
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
Useful Equipment
Instructions
Melt the chocolate:
- Put chocolate and coconut oil in a pyrex measuring cup or other microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir mixture with a spoon until smooth. If the chocolate hasn't melted, microwave again for 15 seconds and stir again.
Coat The Chocolate Molds:
- Spoon in about 1 tsp of chocolate mixture into the bottom of each mold well.
- Use the back of the spoon to draw the mixture up the sides to coat it.
- Refrigerate the mold while you make the filling.
Make the Filling
- Blend up the shredded coconut until it turns to butter, about 1-2 minutes depending on the speed of your blender.
- Add in the cacao powder and maple syrup. Blend again. You might have to stop blender and push the mixture down in the middle to get it to mix up. Once it is combined into a crumbly chocolate mixture, taste-test and add a tablespoon more of maple syrup if it is not too sweet. You want this filling to be soft but also not too sweet, so you decide. Also if you used cocoa powder instead of cacao powder, you might not want to add more maple syrup because cocoa powder is sweeter than cacao powder.
Fill the Mold Wells
- Remove the silicon tray from refrigerator, and roll tiny balls of the mixture and press into the molds, flatting the top level with the top of the mold well.
- Spoon ½ tsp or less of melted chocolate on top of each well and set in refrigerator to solidify. At least one hour. We kept them there for 1 week in the mold.
Remove from Mold
- If you used a polycarbonate mold, remove the chocolates by turning the mold over onto a dish or parchment paper and rap the mold sharply. Sometimes you need to slightly twist the mold. It takes effort but it's worth it because the chocolates that come out of a polycarbonate mold have a stunning shean.
Store the Chocolates
- Once out of the mold, store the chocolates at room temperature for two days, then in the refrigerator for 1 week, or freeze indefinitely. However either method will slightly dull the sheen.
Give Chocolates as Presents
- To present them, put each chocolate in a mini paper cup liners, add to a box, and present your gift at room temperature within 48 hours.
Nutrition
Dee Dine is founder of Green Smoothie Gourmet, a plant based recipe blog, and author of the recent cookbook, Crazy Healthy with 4 Ingredients and another immunity-boosting smoothie shot book, 4-Ingredient Smoothies + Juices , due out in January 2021. On this blog you'll find incredibly easy recipes with hidden veggies for anyone wanting to eat healthier, regardless of diet. Dee has graduate degrees in sciences and journalism, editor at The Feedfeed and a nutritional expert at WikiHow. More about Dee Dine here.
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