Chocolate — Low Carb

In another posting we told readers how sweeteners (water soluble) do not dissolve in chocolate (an oil base). But by accident, we’ve discovered a method of “holding” the sweetener in the chocolate. Yes, some will drop out to the bottom of the pan, but enough remains in the chocolate to sweeten it. The only difference is the texture, because you can feel the “crunch” of the sweetener.

Our first method (to hold in the sweetener) was to fill up our melted chocolate with omega-3s (flax, chia, and hemp seed). They turned out tasty.

But the moment we decided to try “keto” things, we found something odd.

Adding Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT Oil) to the chocolate helped to hold in the sweetener. Again, some drops to the bottom, but even letting our mocha mixture sit out overnight (at room temp) we found in the morning that some of the oils had separated, but the sweetener was still in the stiff, but moist clay-like solution with a bit more on the bottom.

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Please Note: There is an order to making sure the sweetener stays in your concoction. We learned this the hard way. We will tell you here, and below in the recipe we will tell you again.

1. First melt the Cacao Butter with the MCT oil at the same time.
2. Add the Vanilla Extract
3. Add the Cacao Powder
4. Add the sweetener (mixture of Swerve and Stevia) last

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Once we learned we could make a chocolate sauce that held in the sweetener, we immediately set about making chocolate candies for the farmers market. They look great, but sadly, yours truly can’t wrap them properly to save his life. We ordered foil candy wrappers online, and really, they look like they were wrapped by a monkey with fingers missing.

But they are delicious.

Note: Because I have pets, I don’t have the luxury of allowing my candies to cool and harden at room temperature. And we quickly learned that when you put them in the fridge to harden, the chocolate develops a thin white film. If you have to use a fridge or a freezer, you can’t avoid this.

Double Boiler

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Two Recipes

(The only difference is the size of the batch. And the sweetness is determined by your tastes. We always recommend experimenting.)

Here are the two recipes we’ve used to make the chocolate base. After that you can add Celtic Sea Salt crystals, some kind of nut (cashew, pistachio, peanut, almond, macadamia), or even stuff with peanut butter. And, for something really healthy, you can add to your concoction Omegasentials, ground flax, powdered chia, and/or hemp seed. In the end, even with a good peanut butter with one net carb per ounce, you’ll wind up with something that has between 1 and 2 net grams of carbs.

Special Note on Peanut Butter Cups

You don’t need much peanut butter. Keep in mind that the peanut butter cups you purchase at the store are not filled with 100% real peanut butter. If you use 100% real peanut butter, a little bit goes a long way.

Put your peanut butter in the fridge overnight, and it will be easier to roll it into balls. We put them on wax paper and then into the freezer to harden. It’s a lot easier working with frozen peanut butter balls than with moist, dripping peanut butter.

We’ve also discovered silicon muffin pans that are BPA free. We sterilize them with a spray of 50% BACO solution and then wipe with a paper towel.

Fill your muffin pan half to three quarters full. Drop your frozen peanut butter balls into the center and press down. Then add some more chocolate to fill to just below the top. They are delicious. I’ve had people come back to me days later telling me they were “the best!”

Version One

(This only difference is the size of the batch, but how sweet you make it is optional.)

We use only fair trade, organic chocolate in our recipes.

• 7 oz (by weight) Cacao Butter
• ½ Cup MCT Oil
• 6 oz (by volume) Cacao Powder
• 1½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Swerve Confectionery Sweetener
• ½ teaspoon Better Stevia

Note: You can make these less or more sweet. Just experiment.

Directions

In a double boiler, melt the Cacao Butter with the MCT oil. Then add the vanilla, always bringing the concoction back up to the temperature of the melted Cacao Butter. Then add the Cacao Powder and stir it in well. Finally add the sweeteners (you have the option of making it more or less sweet, feel free to experiment) and stir thoroughly. Test to make sure the sweetener stays in the solution. You can easily tell if it worked by touching a spoon to the top and tasting it. If it’s not sweet, the sweetener has fallen out and you’ll have to add something to thicken the concoction and hold it in (flax, chia, hemp seed, etc).

Version Two

• 10.5 oz (by weight) Cacao Butter
• ½ Cup MCT Oil
• 9 oz (by volume) Cacao Powder (3.8 oz by weight)
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1¼ – 1 ½ Cups Powdered Erythritol
• ½ – 1 teaspoon Better Stevia

We used 1 ¼ cups powdered erythritol and ½ teaspoons Stevia (5.7 oz by weight) and we’ve used just 1 cup of powdered erythritol. They were both delicious. How much you use is up to you.

Directions

In a double boiler, melt the Cacao Butter with the MCT oil. Then add the vanilla, always bringing the concoction back up to the temperature of the melted Cacao Butter. Then add the Cacao Powder and stir it in well. Finally add the sweeteners (you have the option of making it more or less sweet, feel free to experiment) and stir thoroughly. Test to make sure the sweetener stays in the solution.

If making peanut butter cups, this recipe will fill two of those silicone muffin pans (above). However, we have filled just on silicone muffin pan, and to the rest of the concoction added thick whipping cream for mochas in the morning.

Note: if you put your muffin pans in the fridge to harden, a white film forms over the chocolate. Not to worry. It just happens in the fridge or freezer. I can’t leave mine out to harden at room temp because I have animals.

Notes

Why have we measured the weight? To figure out the percentage of dark chocolate in this concoction.

Oh, and 65% dark chocolate is considered “bitter-sweet,” but because we use stevia (and erythritol), and stevia is 400 times sweeter than sugar, well, ours is not bitter sweet. Some have told me it’s too sweet. But again, it just depends on tastes.

There are 14.3 ounces of dark chocolate. The rest add up to 9.3 ounces. Add them together and we get 23.6 ounces of your concoction. 14.3 is 60.6% of 23.6, thus you have a 60% dark chocolate concoction. Without the MCT oil, you have 71.5% dark chocolate. Remove some of the sweetener and you get an even greater percentage of dark chocolate. At least this was how it was explained to me.

Note the differences in the sweetener. We always make the larger of the two and use just 1¼ Cups Swerve Confectionery Sweetener with ½ teaspoon Better Stevia. Some prefer sweeter and some like bitter chocolate. But we use the combination of the Swerve (erythritol) and stevia because together they taste closer to actual sugar than anything we’ve found and they counter each others’ “after taste.”

We also found that we did not have to use more MCT Oil than the first recipe. Just half a cup was enough to hold the sweetener in the chocolate.

You know from above what you can do if the sweetener falls out of solution.

So now go make some candies, or add heavy cream and make a mocha, or just have fun with it. It’s low carb and guilt free.

Where to Get Chocolate Supplies

We have had so much trouble with our affiliate program that had chocolate making supplies that I have helped Simply the Best (a Minnesota Non Profit Store) get everything you need to make this recipe (except the peanut butter and vanilla extract).

People have written to us about how hard it is to find good organic, fair trade chocolate supplies, and yes, it is. So I found them and I got the CEO of Simply the Best to let me stock up on them so our readers can make these delightful, guilt-free, low carb treats.

I’ve found the best possible ingredients and the package will make you 6 pounds of Keto Chocolates. Were you to buy chocolate bars (of the same quality on Amazon, that could cost you over $300.00 and they would not be keto. So go here and take a look: Simply the Best Organic Chocolate Kits.