Homemade Dark Chocolate Recipe

I believe a key role in my fat loss success was understanding that insulin is a fat storing hormone, and that as long as I was eating foods that caused insulin spikes, I could not (and did not) lose any fat. But just as soon as I started keeping my insulin at bay, the weight started falling off and my overall health improved. For me, these insulin-spiking foods included wheat products, added sweeteners, high-fructose fruits, and starchy foods. I also avoided all grains. Getting the right fats into my diet was another important step towards good health.

After losing most of my excess body fat, I have slowly started adding a few small indulgences back into my diet. By indulgences, I don't mean processed junk. I mean foods that still follow our dietary lifestyle of whole and clean eating, some of which I avoided in order to lose fat. I'm talking about starchy foods like potatoes and bananas, and fruits with higher amounts of fructose, like grapes and apples.

Another indulgence I discovered was good dark chocolate. As I wrote in a previous post, good dark chocolate should have a high cocoa, high fat, and low sugar content. My favorite store-bought chocolate is Green & Black's Organic Dark Chocolate, which has an 85% cocoa content. I have never in my life been a dark chocolate fan, but my tastes sure have changed, and I quickly fell in love. These bars run $3.27 when not on sale. My husband prefers 90% cocoa content, so I usually bought him Lindt or Ghirardelli for $1.99, often on sale. While it didn't seem like a lot of money, I figured we were spending over $21 a month just on chocolate. I knew we could find a cheaper way. And of course, since these are shelf-stable bars, there were still a couple of questionable ingredients.  I knew we could find a healthier way.

To save money and enjoy guilt-free dark-chocolate, I decided to try my hand at homemade chocolate. I looked online at tons of recipes, and they varied greatly in the proportions of fat, cacao, and sugar. I got frustrated and just decided to jump in and see how it went. My first batch was a lot of tweaking, adding coconut milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and it turned out decent, I guess, but I certainly wasn't happy with it. So this past weekend, after we finished homemade bar #1, I took out my scribbled notes and began again. I kept it simple and was very pleased with how well the bar #2 came out on the first try. Keith tasted and agreed it tasted good as it was, so I decided to leave it alone, for now. We both agreed it tastes pretty darn close to the G&B 85% bar! It is SO much cheaper. I bought the coconut oil and cacao powder on sale, and for $1.92, we have approximately 2 homemade dark chocolate bars. I love that this can be made with simple ingredients and we get to control the amount of sugar that goes into it.

***Please keep in mind that we like our bars DARK and with very little sugar, so this recipe isn't gonna work for everyone. But the process is pretty simple, so give it a try and adjust to your liking.

Homemade Dark Chocolate

• 1/4 cup Raw Cacao Powder
• 1/2 cup Virgin Coconut Oil
• 1 tsp Local, Raw Honey

I used my Magic Bullet for this recipe. Add cacao powder to the tall cup. Add the coconut oil (no need to melt). Then add the honey. Attach the cross-blade and mix for about 30 seconds. Open up, scrape down sides with rubber spatula, reattach cross-blade and mix for another 30 seconds. Once again, open up, scrape down sides with rubber spatula, reattach cross-blade and mix for a final 30 seconds til everything is very well mixed together. Pour into a glass dish and refrigerate. You may also use ice trays to make individual pieces of chocolate. After about 10 minutes, remove chocolate from the fridge and score. Place back into fridge for another 10 minutes, or until well set. Use a fork to cut and remove a piece of chocolate along the scores (scoring seems to make removing chocolates easier). I like my pieces plain or with a little coconut oil on top. Keep refrigerated.

Hope you enjoy!