Ah, chocolate. Almost all of us love it. Every single one of us knows it’s bad for us. Sometimes, the thought of chocolate when we get home from work is the only thing that gets us through a difficult day. We look forward to Easter because it’s one of the only times of the year where you can get away with eating a tremendous amount of chocolate without anybody judging you. There’s Christmas as well, but we over-indulge in almost everything at Christmas. Easter has a chocolate focus, and if you’re anything like us, you’ll take advantage of it every year when it rolls around!
Tracing the Origin of Chocolate Easter Eggs
We shouldn’t blame ourselves for our love of chocolate. It’s something we inherited from our parents, who in turn inherited it from their own parents, and the obsession goes back in time from there. In fact, eating chocolate has been a human habit for almost four thousand years. There’s evidence that pre-Olmec cultures living in the part of the world that’s now known as Mexico were making and eating chocolate from cacao plants in the year 1900 BCE. We’re not sure we’d have enjoyed their chocolate as much as we enjoy that which comes from our favorite manufacturers today, though. Instead of eating chocolate bars, they were consuming a kind of roasted chocolate paste.
While it’s relatively easy to trace the origin of chocolate itself, tracing the source of chocolate Easter eggs is a little more difficult. Eating eggs at Easter time is an idea that originated with the ancient Pagans, who believed that eggs symbolized new life, and so it made sense to eat them at the beginning of spring. Christians went on to use eggs for the same reason to mark the time of year at which it’s believed Christ was resurrected on Easter Sunday. The tradition of making chocolate eggs appears to have started in France or Germany during the 19th century and then spread to the rest of the world because of no reason other than the fact that people love chocolate. Well, why not?
Today, we usually look to cut back on chocolate because we know it’s not good for our teeth or our weight, and our dentists frown at us when they know we’ve eaten too much. Despite that, chocolate is everywhere. It’s prominently marketed in grocery stores. It’s even used to lure people into playing online slots, as we’ve seen in the ‘Chocolate Cashpots’ online slots game! We suppose that’s an obvious connection to make; chocolate and online slots are fine in moderation, but you’ll regret it if you spend too much on them or go too far with them. We have a solution to one of those problems, though. We can’t help you with online slots, but we do know how to make relatively healthy chocolate at home.
Let’s get right to it.
Ingredients for Healthy Homemade Chocolate
To make your delicious homemade chocolate, you’ll need to get hold of the following ingredients. Remember: the better the ingredients you’re able to source, the better your chocolate will taste!
- Half a cup of grated cocoa butter
- Half a cup of organic cocoa powder (raw)
- Half a cup of virgin coconut oil
- Two tablespoons of lucuma powder. This is the secret ingredient! Not only will it add a little sweetness to the mix, but it will also make your chocolate creamy.
Optionally, you might also want to add between a quarter and half a cup of agave nectar or organic honey. This is to add additional sweetness. You could just use cane sugar instead, but the whole point of this recipe is to make chocolate healthy. Alternatively, if the lucuma powder is sweet enough for you, don’t add any other sweetening ingredients at all.
How To Make Healthy Homemade Chocolate
Start by placing your grated coconut butter together with your coconut oil in a small heat-proof bowl or another suitable vessel, and then place the bowl into a shallow pan of boiling water. Keep a close eye on it, and continue mixing it until everything has melted, and the consistency is nice and smooth.
When you’re happy with the consistency of your mixture, introduce the cocoa powder, and continue stirring until this, too, has melted away into the mix. When this has been done, add in the lucuma powder and any other sweetening agents you wish to use. Keep on stirring until everything is smooth. At this point, you’ll want to taste your liquid mix to ensure that it’s what you’re looking for. What it tastes like now will be the same as what it tastes like when you’re done, only hotter!
When you’re satisfied with the taste and the texture, pour your chocolate into a suitable vessel to allow it to set. This could be an ice cube tray or a pan. Allow it to cool, and then cover it with aluminum foil. From there, place the cooled mixture into the freezer for one hour and allow it to set.
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Your Chocolate Is Ready!
That’s all there is to this recipe – it really is that easy! After an hour, your chocolate should be ready to eat, and it should taste great. If this is too simple for you, feel free to improvise. Almost anything can be added into the mix at the same time you introduce the cocoa powder. Fruits, nuts, and berries are popular choices, but if you want to add a little bit of spice to the taste, why not go for chili instead? There’s almost no such thing as a wrong choice here, but do remember that anything you throw in will add to the calorie count.
When you’ve made this recipe a few times, and you’ve experimented with different additional ingredients and toppings, you might find that you never want or need to buy chocolate from a store again. You can make almost any variety of chocolate at home, and your friends and family might even start requesting it from you! Most importantly of all, enjoy it. Chocolate is a treat, and a healthy homemade chocolate recipe is something you enjoy guilt-free without worrying about what factory ingredients might be inside it. Enjoy it, and have fun. That’s what chocolate is all about!
