Now, lest you think this is all about feeding my chocolate addiction, I want to add that more and more research is showing that chocolate - especially dark chocolate - offers amazing health benefits, from boosting hearth health, to protecting us from UV damage from the sun, to improved vision. For more on these benefits (and more) see this great article. It's amazing to me that you get all that from indulging in yumminess like this!
Lucky for me, Trim Healthy Mama encourages consumption of yummy chocolate. As a matter of fact, skinny chocolate was probably the first recipe that I made out of the book
. Who would have known that a simple mix of coconut oil, cocoa, and stevia could make such an awesome treat?! I feel like the superfoodiness of coconut oil kicks this chocolate treat up to a whole new level. The coconut oil is so great that you don't even have to use really good cocoa powder. As a matter of fact, these are my two most common options:
With all the coconut oil, this is a clear S (= Satisfying) treat. I generally start with a 2:1 ratio of melted extra-virgin coconut oil to cocoa powder, and then I add stevia extract a shake or two at a time until it tastes good to me. Then I pour it into some container or mold, or most commonly, into candy cups, and pop it in the fridge for an hour. or a day. or all week. And it's always a little bit different. Sometimes it's pretty Plain Jane, like this one. (I know, this is really ugly. It was an early batch, and I'm not sure what happened. The good thing is that it still tasted fantastic!)
Sometimes I change it up. I made this batch in a mini muffin tin, with (from left to right) chopped walnuts, a mix of walnuts and coconut, unsweetened shredded coconut, and nothing - that is, just plain jane unadulterated chocolate.
Only it wasn't really plain jane; the top half, with the green cups, got regular deep dark chocolate with just cocoa powder, and the bottom half, with the red cups, got peanut butter cup chocolate, with half peanut flour and half cocoa. I promise, none of it got a drop of the chocolate syrup that somehow made its way into the previous pic!
My convenient color-coding wasn't really necessary - as you can see from the finished product, the different mixes were evident in the color.
Really, this is such a nice treat! It calms me down, fills me up, and satisfies me in a way that even an endless supply of sugar-filled milk chocolate cannot. It's so magical that when I was deep in the throes of a hectic Spring semester and was pining for sandy beaches and relaxation, I used my skinny chocolate to transport me there.
I'm linking up to Trim Healthy Tuesday over at Gwen's Nest and Stacy Makes Cents - come on over and check out all the yummy treats to be found today!
