For the love of chocolate
Home » Blog » Sarah Jefferies » For the love of chocolateMany people consider chocolate a ‘guilty pleasure’. But its reputation as a junk food should be attributed to the harmful effects of processing and refining, and its other ingredients—most notably white sugar. All chocolate is made from cacao beans, which are rich in nutrients and beneficial to our health when left in their natural, unadulterated state.
For as long as I can remember, chocolate has been my best friend. It has helped me celebrate many a good time, with a piece of moist cake on birthdays or a Santa-shaped treat at Christmas. It has been alongside me as I cried at a good movies and has comforted me through many a break-up or hard time. Chocolate has been as loyal and dependable as they come.
So just what is it about chocolate that brings every girl crawling to it at that time of the month—and how can it be bad for you given how good you feel when you eat it? I for one could not comprehend giving up this good friend entirely, but I'm off it for now because of the nature of its content (jam-packed with my diet’s no-nos, dairy and sugar). I couldn’t even tell myself the ban was permanent—it was too much like a death of a dear, dear old aunt.
It was in my grief that I found a special type of chocolate mousse. Made of completely raw organic ingredients with no sugar or dairy, it has the creamy rich goodness of a very naughty forbidden dessert but—guess what kids—its main ingredient is AVOCADO! Wow, oh wow! I jumped for excitement and ran around the room upon tasting it. It has since been dubbed Chocamole (said like guacamole) in my house (thanks Derek!) and kids and friends alike have tasted this heavenly treat with rave reviews!
It was at a raw food desserts class one sunny Sunday afternoon with Renata that I learnt to make this divine treat. It was a class where we learned to make a multitude of healthy, raw food, organic, vegan desserts—all completely sugar- and dairy-free. At the end we sampled each and every one with hyped anticipation! By the last dish, a carrot cake with cream cheese icing, I could only get a few bites down. However, although I was full to the brim of dessert, I didn’t feel sick as I would’ve had these been dairy- and sugar-laden desserts.
Fully converted, I started preaching immediately to friends and family alike!
The versatility of the recipe means you can make it into chocolate sauce, chocolate dip for fruit kebabs, make a pie crust and have chocolate tart … the options are limited only by your imagination. I loved the reaction of friends who sampled it, then to be told that it includes such ingredients as avocado. “This is wrong! It should be green not brown!” spluttered one friend.
The dish has been a winner for sure at every function I’ve taken it along to. And its easy to prepare with no cooking involved, as simple as chucking ingredients into a food processor, whipping them up and placing it into a dish.
Do I have you captivated yet? Drooling for the healthiest chocolate recipe around? Okay, okay, I will not be one of those housewives who have a recipe and then smugly inform her friends that she simply cannot share her old family secret. Here goes …
Fabulous Chocamole / Chocolate Mousse
- 2 avocadoes (ripe but not brown)
- 5 tbsp organic raw cacao powder (much better for you than processed cocoa powder, as it is packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants which are lost in the processing. Use the whole beans by simply crunching them between your fingers to loosen and remove the peel. Then grind them in a spice mill/coffee grinder or food processor. Or you can get the raw unprocessed powder from a whole foods organic stores such as Huckleberry)
- ½ cup Agave nectar (this magic sweetener is not only low GI, therefore making it diabetic-friendly and great for those intolerant to sugar, it is a completely natural sweeter made from a cactus plant in South America, and can also be found at Huckleberry stores)
- 1 tsp natural vanilla extract
- Pinch of Himalayan crystal salt (also found at Huckleberry, you can substitute this salt for normal table salt. It has a great flavour and is also relatively unrefined or processed)
- Pinch of fair-trade cinnamon
- To set more firmly, you can also add a small chunk of organic cacao butter which can be found at Huckleberry stores
Directions
Place all of the above ingredients into a food processor and process until completely smooth. For a dip for fruit kebabs serve straight, as is. For a choc sauce add a tiny amount of water to make it the consistency you like. For a mousse simply set it in the fridge.
And finally, the good news is that even after a whole day of stuffing my face with delicious desserts, the next day at weigh in I’d lost more than one kilogram! How does that work? I am loving this life! Happy living everyone!
Wed May 27, 2009 @ 05:17 PM
www.bradstent.com