Make Your Own Raw Vegan Chocolate for the Cost of a Candy Bar

I have always loved chocolate. Since adopting a mostly raw diet, though, it’s been rare that I get to enjoy it, largely because I think it’s silly to pay $10 for a bar of raw chocolate from the health food store.

So, I started to look into making my own. I bought a few basics online, got to work in the kitchen, and used trial and error to get something that tasted like I expected it to. Ounce per ounce, it ended up costing me about what it costs to buy a standard (non-raw) chocolate bar…not bad! The only caution here is that if you’re going to make chocolate at home, you had better LOVE chocolate…because in order to make it cost effective, you have to buy enough ingredients to make a ton.

You also either need a double boiler, OR two pans, with one fitting into the other. You can achieve the same effect of a double boiler by filling the larger pan with water and floating the smaller pan on top….this provides a gentle, controllable heat. Either way, you will want to measure it with a candy thermometer to keep the temperature in check.

So enough chatter, here’s what I ended up doing:

Ingredients

• 1/2 c melted cacao butter (measure if after you melt it in a double boiler)
• 1/2 c cashews
• 1/2 c agave
• 1/4 c cacao

How to

• Melt the cacao butter in a double boiler, or a small pan floating in a bigger pan of water on the stove. Measure the right amount, and if you have extra, just let it harden back up for use later on.
  
• Mix in the other ingredients.
• Grease the molds of your choice with coconut oil. If you haven’t got any, use ice cube trays. Or, use a greased dinner plate to make one large slab, and break your chocolate into chunks later.
• Pour into molds of your choice! If you are using ice cube trays, try filling each cube only half full.
• Let cool in the fridge. Once they harden, you can enjoy them at room temp.