Homemade Dark Chocolate
Cacao butter, cacao powder and coconut sugar are all you need to make and set your own dark chocolate at home! The beauty of this recipe is that it is open to adaptation, so be sure to add in anything and everything from sea salt to cacao nibs to adjust the overall profile as you like.
Ingredients
- 1 cup finely-chopped cacao butter *
- 1 cup unsweetened cacao powder
- ⅓ cup + 1 tbsp finely ground coconut sugar (adjust depending on taste) **
- 2-3 tbsp cacao nibs (optional; adjust depending on taste) *
- ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional; adjust depending on taste) ***
- sea salt (optional; adjust depending on taste)
Instructions
- Start by creating a double boiler. Heat about 2 inches of water in a saucepan. Once simmering, reduce the heat to medium low and add a heat-proof mixing bowl on top (placing it carefully so that the base is not touching the water). Add the chopped cacao butter and finely ground coconut sugar to the bowl and stir/ whisk regularly until it melts.
- Remove the bowl from heat as soon as the cacao butter mixture has melted (you don’t want to over-heat it). Using a sieve or a fine mesh strainer, sift in the cacao powder (so no lumps remain). Whisk thoroughly until you have a velvety-smooth and fluid mixture.
- Optional (but highly recommended) step: add in vanilla extract and sea salt; taste and adjust as needed depending on preference.
- Next, pour out the chocolate into a mould or a regular dish/ container lined with parchment paper (I used a 9 x 5″ loaf pan) and scatter in the cacao nibs. Just a bit more sea salt on top is always a good idea too!
- You can set the chocolate in a freezer or the fridge (freezer is always quicker). Once firm and hardened, slice it into squares and enjoy!
Notes
- All the cacao products (cacao butter, cacao powder & nibs) are from Mason & Co.
- I used a raw coconut sugar from Zama Organics, grinding it until it got to a very very fine consistency (you can do this by giving it a quick whizz in a mixer/ bullet mixer.)
- I used Sprig‘s Extract of Natural Bourbon Vanilla