Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Dairy-free Dark Chocolate Honey Truffles

These truffles are as easy to make as the Vegan Agave Honey Truffles. The only difference is, they use honey instead of agave. These are celiac friendly.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and when it reaches about 110 degrees mix in a little bit of honey and add more as needed. Stir for about two minutes and you get frosting, mix for about 7 minutes and you get truffles. You'll know you're ready to roll them when the chocolate is not smooth and has a dull sheen (it will look a little like charcoal). Then, roll a blob of chocolate into a ball. Roll the ball in the cocoa powder/sea salt mixture. We used a combo of clover honey and wildflower honey. We rolled some of them in crushed pistachios, then cocoa powder and sea salt. For the majority of the truffles, we rolled them in a combo of cocoa powder, sea salt, and bee pollen. You can add other things like black sesame powder, other crushed nuts, turbinado sugar, etc. If you leave them covered over night, they will firm up a little. If you eat them right away- which really who can resist eating a few fresh ones- they will have a tendency to stick to your mouth. Do not put in the refridgerator, they will get too hard.

Ingredients:
  • 1/4 lb Coverture
  • 2 T to 1/4 c Honey
  • 1/4 c cocoa powder
  • salt to taste

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Cacao and Chocolate Making

This is a picture of a cacao tree with cacao pods. Cacao pods contain cacao beans, that magical food from whence comes chocolate. I took this picture in Costa Rica at a small cacao plantation.

After the cacao beans have been dried, roasted, and de-hulled, they are crushed into cacao nibs. After that, the beans are ground into a liquid that is called coverture or chocolate liquor. This is pure chocolate. It is unsweetened and bitter. Coverture can be used for confection making, baking, or anything else you wish to use it for. You can also add things to it, like sugar or flavorings. This is a very short explanation of the chocolate making process and skips many different steps that are used in chocolate farming and factories. Since most chocolate is grown in countries that are not industrialized, many big companies don't have rigorous standards for chocolate production, especially in regards to the human labor (including child labor) responsible for harvesting and handling this magical bean. That is why it is important to be conscious of the types of companies you buy your chocolate from. For more information on fair trade chocolate, visit http://www.equalexchange.coop/. For more information on fair trade in general, visit http://www.fairtradefederation.org/.

Vegan Chocolate Agave Truffles

For the innaugural recipe we present Vegan Chocolate Agave Truffles. For this recipe we don't have exact measurements. These morsels are vegan and celiac friendly.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and when it reaches about 110 degrees add about 1 T agave nectar and add more as needed. Stir vigorously until the chocolate looks kind of grainy and doesn't stick together. Then, take about a gumball sized amount of chocolate and roll or mush it together. Roll the ball in the cocoa powder and salt mixture. These truffles were rolled in Sudan Dutch cocoa powder and sea salt. Instead of salt you can add other things like black sesame seed powder, turbinado sugar, crushed nuts, etc. Leave them covered overnight and they will firm up a little. Do not put into the refridgerator, they will get too hard.

Ingredients
  • 1/2 lb coverture
  • 1 T to 1/4 c agave nectar
  • 1/4 c cocoa powder
  • salt to taste