Homemade Chocolate

During our homemade S'more night on Saturday night we needed chocolate bars for our treat.  I had discovered before that chocolate can be made with sweetener, solid oil, and cocoa... it is that simple... really.  And so much better for you.  Cocoa is actually healthy and full of anti-oxidants.  Oils are not all bad either, in moderation (even though there are some bad ones out there).

Journey and I decided to create our own chocolate bars while the marshmallows were setting up.

In a double boiler on the stovetop combine:

1 cup melted fat (we used butter, cocoa butter, and some palm shortening to equal a cup)
1 cup cocoa
1/2 cup honey (or other sweetener)
1 tsp vanilla (or other flavor - imagine it with peppermint!)

Make sure all the fats are liquid before adding the rest of the ingredients!  Then make sure and thoroughly mix your concoction!  The cocoa butter added a different sort of cocoa taste to this so next time I may use a combination of coconut oil and butter without the cocoa butter... it will then have a milder flavor.

Be careful about letting water get into or drip into your pan because it will make the chocolate all grainy and not too smooth.

Then pour your cooling mixture onto waxed paper, into molds, or into a lightly creased shallow pan.  Or just dip some homemade marshmallows or strawberries into your "fondue".  Yummy... simple!

Our pan of chocolate bars was put in the refrigerator to set up fast and it did.  I did have a challenge getting it back out of the pan BUT was able to run some hot water on the outside and bottom of the pan the next day to cause it to loosen it's grip on the pan (even though I greased the pan).

My bars did not cut as straight as I wanted but homemade food doesn't have to look like it came from a machine (in fact it should not look that way).  I had misshapen chunks of thin chocolate bars.

Next time I may add coconut and almonds (Journey's idea to replicate almond joys) or coat cookies or crackers with it ... or add almonds or other nuts to make sweet candy treats.

Now on to make graham crackers!!