Sorry to have been gone for a bit! Life has been abundantly busy here in the Vivapura aWarehouse. Lots of orders to ship, lots of product to bag and lots of beautiful customers to converse with on the phone. That has left very little time for recipe development or blogging. I decided to start up again with a beautiful recipe just in time for Valentine's Day. Also, if you would like to get some cacao ingredients to make chocolate at home we have a coupon available for web orders. Order any cacao product (nibs, powder, paste or butter) from our site and use coupon code "cacao20" for 20% off your cacao purchases! I made these little heart chocolates a few weeks ago, inspired by my new silicon heart ice cube tray and curious about some sweetener a friend had dropped off for me to try, Palm Sugar. I've heard lots about Palm Sugar but have yet had a chance to use it. It worked ok in this recipe but I never could get it to really dissolve in the chocolate so it left a crispy sort of texture. I was a bit distracted by it but all of my taste testers were raving about these so I decided to share them anyway. You could play around with other sweeteners as well.
Chocolate Hearts with Super Berry Filling 1 cup strawberries, chopped 6 drops Valencia Orange Stevia Place both ingredients into a high-speed blend and blend until smooth. Leaving the puree in the blender add the following: 1/4 cup Barberries 1/4 cup Goji Berries Stir these into the puree in your blender and allow to soak for 15 minutes. Blend again until puree is mostly smooth but some texture remaining. 2 cups Cacao Paste 1/2 cup palm sugar 1 tsp. Cacao Paste 1 tsp. Super Maca 1/4 cup Coconut Oil pinch mineral rich salt Fill a bowl or pan with boiling water, find another bowl or pan that sits on top of the bowl filled with boiling water. Place cacao paste in the top bowl and stir until it melts. If your water cools too much you may desire to add more hot water to the bottom bowl. Once the cacao paste is melted add each of the other ingredients one by one until everything is well-combined. You can use chocolate molds, silicon baking or ice cube trays or a baking dish. You want to use half of your chocolate in whatever sort of mold you are using. Swirling it around the edges ever so slightly so there is a bit of a coating around the edges. Place your mold in the freezer and allow it to set until firm. Next your are going to spread the Super Berry Filling on the first layer of chocolate.
Make sure to not spread the filling right to the very edge of the chocolate layer, this will ensure that the filling becomes totally enclosed. Also, be sure to keep the filling as low profile as possible so that the top layer of chocolate can fit. You may have leftover filling (it tastes great added to smoothies, used in cakes or spread on any sort of bread). Finally, cover the filling with your additional chocolate. Trying carefully to cover the filling so that none peaks out. If you choose to garnish your chocolates be sure to do that now. I used Barberries on mine. Now allow the chocolates to set once more. Once they have hardened you need not store them in the freezer, they will keep fine in the refrigerator. Since the filling uses some fresh fruit be sure to not let them sit more than a week or so before gobbling them up. Who am I kidding? These couldn't last a week in anyone's refrigerator before being gobbled up!