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Show yourself some love on Valentine’s Day by indulging in these heart-shaped dark chocolate candies. These treats are truly irresistible, with intense bittersweet flavor and a smooth, creamy texture that slowly melts in your mouth. There’s nothing questionable added, just health-giving ingredients like cacao butter, raw cacao powder, avocado oil, maple syrup, sea salt, and hazelnuts.

If you think making chocolate at home is too complicated, you’ll be surprised by how easy this recipe is. Simply melt cacao butter, then whisk in cacao powder, and PRIMAL KITCHEN Avocado Oil with a little sweetener, and you’ll be in chocolate heaven. What’s really fun about making chocolate at home is experimenting with all sorts of flavors. Nuts, nut butters, coconut flakes and coconut butter, spices, dried fruit…the flavor variations are endless.

This recipe is for purists, though, who like dark chocolate with just a hint of added flavor. In this case, it’s hazelnuts, which pair perfectly with chocolate and are also good sources of vitamin E, manganese, and magnesium.

You’ll end up with more dark chocolate hearts than you can (or should) eat alone, so share the love. Your Valentines will be thrilled to get homemade chocolate, instead of a box of sugary store-bought candies.

Servings: 18 to 20 1.5-inch hearts

Time in the Kitchen: 25 minutes, plus 1 hour to set

Ingredients:

• 1 cup finely chopped cacao butter (120 g)
• 1 cup cacao powder (100 g)
• 2 tablespoons PRIMAL KITCHEN® Avocado Oil (30 ml)
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup, or more to taste (30 ml)
• ¼ teaspoon salt (1.2 ml)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or other flavoring extract) (5 ml)
• ½ cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped (75 g)
• Kitchen Equipment: 18 to 24 -cavity silicone mold (can be heart-shaped, square, round or whatever shape you want the chocolates to be)

Instructions

First, create a double broiler (which keeps direct heat away from ingredients to prevent scorching). To do so, add several inches of water to a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Set a smaller saucepan on top, making sure it’s not touching the water.

Add cacao butter to the smaller saucepan, stirring as it melts. When cacao butter is completely melted, turn off the heat. Slowly whisk in cacao powder, avocado oil, maple syrup, salt, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.

At this point, stir in the hazelnuts or any other flavoring ingredients you want.

Taste the chocolate–if it’s too bitter, add more maple syrup.

Pour the chocolate into silicone molds (using a bowl with a pour spout works best). Refrigerate 1 hour until solid. Note: there chocolates keep best in the refrigerator.

The post Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut Hearts appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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