Soon, it will be that other chocolate-filled holiday and the kids are off school getting revved up in anticipation of the upcoming egg hunts, so here is my alternative to the usually over-sweet, over-processed and over-priced commercial eggs. The kids will love to ‘help’ – or you could do it all in secret under the pretext of surprising them, but really so you get to clean out the bowl and lick the spoon! 😉

These home-made raw chocolate eggs are dairy- and gluten-free, as well as free from refined sugar. Some of them contain nuts but you can replace nut butter with tahini and ground-up nuts with seeds or you could choose the second nut-free version. All ingredients are organic where possible.

The Nutty Ones

1/2 Cup Raw Coconut Oil, melted

1/2 Cup Raw Chocolate Company Cacao Powder*

1/4 Cup Maple Syrup

1/4 Cup Unsweetened Nut Butter (no palm oil)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 Cup either Raw Chocolate Company Goldenberries or Goji Berries (chopped) or other preferred berries

                           2 Tbsp chopped Almonds or Cashews (or seeds)

METHOD
Whisk together raw cacao powder, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, vanilla extract and nut butter. Stir in the berries and nuts.

Pour chocolate mixture into freezer-safe egg moulds or other shapes placed on greaseproof paper.

Place in the freezer for 30 minutes or until set.
Remove from freezer and arrange in a pretty basket.

(You could also pour onto greaseproof paper on a tray, let it spread, freeze and break into bite-size pieces).

These are the moulds we used, they’re available from Ocado and Amazon. They’re silicone and are freezerproof, ovenproof to 260C and dishwasher safe.

Nut-Free Eggs

For this version, we used the basic Raw Chocolate Company recipe on the back of their Cacao Powder and Raw Coconut Palm Sugar packs, with the addition of vanilla and goji berries.* It is a more intensely dark flavour and not as sweet as the first recipe. In fact, for a few of the eggs, we added a teaspoon of maple syrup as well to cater for those who have a slightly sweeter tooth.

The coconut palm sugar needs refining in a small chopper to make it dissolve and blend more easily.

You can of course leave out the berries if you just want plain chocolate or add whatever you prefer.

Ingredients

90g Cacao Butter, melted

60g Cacao Powder

60g Coconut Palm Sugar (+ 1 Tsp Maple Syrup if required) 

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 Cup Goji Berries or lightly chopped Dried Mulberries

Method

Mix the melted cacao butter and coconut palm sugar in a bowl over hot but not boiling water to dissolve the sugar. Whisk in the cacao powder and vanilla extract, then stir in the goji berries.

Pour into moulds and set in the freezer as before.

‘Mylk’ Chocolate Nests

If you want to make chocolate nests, you can mix this basic chocolate recipe (minus the Goji Berries) with Weetabix- or shredded wheat-type cereal or gluten-free equivalents, or puffed rice cereal, and place in moulds or bun cases. Refirgerate as before.

With these ones, we added a little vanilla, a tablespoon of lucuma powder, and a couple of tablespoons of homemade tiger nut milk.

You could also make ‘eggs’ from marzipan with the option of dipping in raw chocolate! You can also use natural food colourings. Here, though, we used ground almonds mixed with a little maple syrup.

See also my page of Raw Treats – Recipes for more Raw Chocolate Recipes (at the bottom of the page) and here is a new recipe for Raw Vegan Fruit & Nut (or seed) Chocolate – not just for Easter!.

Have a fun Easter weekend with the people you love!

The Raw Chocolate Company

* (They sell a special chocolate-making kit containing all the ingredients for home-made raw chocolate on their website).

Copyright: Chris McGowan”