If there’s one guilty pleasure all moms enjoy, it’s wine chocolate! Thankfully there’s a way to justify indulging a little because chocolate (like wine) has some fantastic health benefits. The key is to choose quality chocolate from the right sources … or make your own homemade chocolate. It’s easy and you have total control over the ingredients (and maybe even get to lick the spoon!).
This recipe takes just a few ingredients. Melt over the stove, pour into molds, and … there you have it! Pure, healthy chocolate.
Why Homemade Chocolate is the Best
It turns out there are even biological reasons that we as women crave chocolate. It may be for the magnesium boost (yes, chocolate contains magnesium) or for the feel-good serotonin and dopamine release that helps mood and sleep.
Certainly, not all chocolate is created equal and most store-bought chocolate brands contain a lot more than cocoa powder. High fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, soy lecithin, artificial flavoring, and carrageenan make the list of objectionable ingredients in many commercial brands. Not to mention the sugar content, which is a problem … just 1/3 of a Cadbury chocolate bar contains 22 grams of sugar.
True, opting for a quality brand of organic chocolate with less dairy and sugar means we can get some of the benefits of chocolate without impacting our waistlines and our health, but these options are often pricey. Stock up on the few ingredients needed to make chocolate instead (as well as a few silicone candy molds to make fun shapes) and you can whip up a batch of healthy chocolate without overpaying and without shopping around.
How to Make Chocolate at Home
In search of a GAPS friendly (and paleo, primal, etc.) healthy chocolate, I realized I’d have to make my own. This homemade version is smooth and delicious, and you can completely avoid the artificial ingredients.
Making chocolate at home basically involves melting cocoa butter, cocoa powder, honey, and vanilla in a double boiler (or heat-safe bowl set over a pan containing a few inches of water), pouring into molds, and waiting for it to set. Cocoa butter is the only “unusual” ingredient that you may need to purchase to make this recipe (but Amazon sure makes it easy on us!).
I used these silicone heart molds to make fun bite-size chocolates (great gift idea!) and a mini loaf pan for the bar sizes. You can even find a mold specifically in a chocolate bar shape if you want to be really authentic!
I’m gifting little jars of homemade heart chocolates for Easter this year, as I have done for Christmas, St. Nicholas Day, and other holidays in the past. It’s easy to add variety by using a little orange extract to taste, or a teaspoon of brewed espresso, or even some chopped almonds to create a specialty taste.
Healthy Homemade Chocolate Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup cocoa butter
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup honey or to taste using half this amount or less will make a bittersweet chocolate
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or other flavors to taste
- almonds chopped and toasted (optional)
- orange or mint extract optional
Instructions
- In a double boiler or a glass bowl on top of a small pan with an inch of water in the bottom, melt cocoa butter over medium heat. Make sure that the water isn't touching the bowl.
- When the cocoa butter is completely melted, remove from heat and add cocoa powder, vanilla, and other flavor extracts.
- Allow it to cool slightly. When it has cooled enough to thicken to the same thickness of the honey you are using, stir in the honey. If using a solid raw honey, melt with the cocoa butter.
- Make sure all ingredients are well incorporated and smooth. At this point, make sure that no water or liquid gets in to the chocolate as it can cause the texture to get mealy! Be careful even with wet hands or a drop of water in the mold!
- Pour the chocolate into molds or glass pan to harden, or pour onto a baking sheet lined with natural parchment paper.
- Let harden for several hours at room temperature until hardened and remove from molds. You can also stick in the refrigerator to harden more quickly. These chocolates will store for over a week at room temperature or can be kept refrigerated for longer. They can also be frozen.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Like this recipe? Check out my new cookbook, or get all my recipes (over 500!) in a personalized weekly meal planner here!
Looking for More Homemade Chocolate Recipes? Try:
- Simple Homemade Chocolate Truffles Recipe
- How to Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Fat Bombs (Keto Friendly)
- Nutella Recipe: How to Make Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
- Chocolate Coconut Energy Bars
- Healthy Hot Chocolate Recipe
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Have you ever made chocolate at home? Would you try? How would you flavor it? Share below!
This is honestly the best tasting chocolate I’ve ever had. Most chocolate I’ve had has a salty aftertaste or just a general taste of not quite right (my mom says I’m picky). But this? No complaints at all! I think that’s the difference between using sugar/high fructose corn syrup and using honey, the honey just seems to round out the flavor perfectly.
I completely agree on the weird aftertaste in most commercial sweetened products like that! So glad you liked this recipe! 🙂
These are AMAZING! I made them for my coworkers who are always picking on me for my healthy eating habits and they all LOVED them. I no longer need to buy chocolate from the store. I can make it at home. Great recipe. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hy am a student and I have to make this for me project thank u for your amazing help in making the chocolate my teachers loved it thank u
Absolutely! It’s so delicious and a healthy treat! ?
Does anyone know if I can mix equal parts of the coconut oil and the cocoa butter to make this chocolate?
Also is this considered a dark chocolate recipe?
Thank you so much for your help
Christine
I’ve been wondering the same thing… You could test a small amount of each mixed together and put it in the freezer to see..
Have you tried doing the mix? If so, how did it come out?
I’m sorry, I haven’t tried it.
Does the chocolate look/ taste ok without tempering?
Do you think this chocolate would work as a fondue?
It should… you could probably thin with heavy cream if needed to keep it smooth enough. I haven’t kept it warm, but when it first melts, the texture is definitely great for fondue.
NO never add liquid to your chocolate it will cease up!
I tried it, and it did not seize up.
I think it doesn’t sieze up because heavy cream is a fat. Adding water would ruin it, I think, haven’t tried it, but I make chocolate candy all the time and start with heavy cream, warmed, then add chopped chocolate to it, along with with powdered vanilla and stevia. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir and place into candy molds and call them, “Fudgies.” ?
Also, the link for the cocoa doesn’t work, Katie.
I made the recipe and was puzzled by the flavor. It smelled like good chocolate and had an ‘aftertaste’ of chocolate. It had a good texture. But there was an overall lack of flavor! Major bummer! Both because I was looking forward to yummy chocolate and also because I spent $26 on a brick of cacao butter at Whole Foods! So that is $13++ down the drain. (Unless I can remelt it and add more chocolate?)
FYI: I used half of a 16 oz brick of cacao butter (since 8 oz is a cup), but it seemed like more than a measuring cup’s worth. Do you think I used too much cacao butter? The cocoa I used was Penzey’s Natural High Fat Cocoa Powder and I used 1/2 cup of raw honey.
Any suggestions are appreciated!
I would guess it was too much cocoa butter… you could definitely re-melt and add more chocolate. The 1 cup I measured was of small wafers/grated size not by weight, so I’m guessing that was the difference. If I can, I’ll try to measure the weight for future reference, but I would really guess that was what the difference was. Warmly
katie
Thanks, Katie! I will try less cocoa butter next time and try remelting this batch and adding more chocolate. Where do you get your cocoa butter, from the link in your article?
Yep… it is the only one I’ve tried, so I can’t really vouch for any others..
If you could weigh a cup of your wafers, that would be very helpful. The kind I have is more lumpy chunky as well and although the displacement method of measuring would work, if there are any air bubbles in the chunks it would still be off.
8 oz by weight is not 8 oz in a measuring cup.
I use 4 ounce cocoa butter to 3 ounces cocoa paste, then 1/2 cup Hershey’s baking powder, and about 1 and a half TBS of dutch cocoa. So yes WAY to much cocoa butter!
Edith, I’m pretty sure you don’t mean a half cup of baking powder…I believe you mean cocoa powder…?
As you might guess, I’m browsing the recipe section of your blog. I just finished tasting my chocolate (with chopped almonds) and it is AMAZING! I didn’t have coco butter so I used coconut oil instead. It turned out terrific. Storing it in the frig. Thank you so much!
You celebrate St. Nick’s Day! I have in the past purchased chocolate letters for my kids for St. Nick’s Day and I’m glad to have a good chocolate alternative. I even bought some letter molds from Amazon a couple years ago and now I can try this chocolate recipe. Thank you!
I understand that “Dutched” cocoa has about 60% of its antioxidants worked out of it in the process. I’ve been regularly using the following recipe with great success:
1 tsp coconut oil
2 tsp cocoa powder
xylitol to taste
a little vanilla (a little less than 1/2 tsp)
some shredded coconut for consistency, structure, and taste
I use a tiny glass bowel that came as a four-pack of yogurt, microwave the oil for about 20 seconds. While the remainder is melting, I get out a small plastic plate, then stir in the other ingredients. Once thoroughly mixed, I’ll spread it out on the plate, covering it with wax paper in order to get it really thin. With wax paper still on top, I’ll pop it in the freezer for about 20 minutes or so and voila!, a delectable treat.
So, Im extremely new to making chocolate (i haven’t tried yet) and im looking to do it with xylitol or erythitol and im wondering how much you used and how sweet it actually was, compared to regular sugar.
i really like the taste of xyitol and erythitol doesn’t bother me any difference. im just not sure if it would trun out any different using a different sweetner?
Xylitol is 1 to 1 with sugar.
Make sure you use xylitol that is not from China (made from corn). Xylitol USA is made from the birch tree!
How in God’s name do you get the Xylitol to melt! HELP???? For some reason I can not get these other sweeteners to melt in my cocoa butter. Most of the chocolate I make is with cocoa butter and cocoa paste, but I can not get the sweeteners to melt. They crystalize, I’ve tried melting them them in just a sauce pan of coconut oil before and that did not even work. I usually end up pouring the cocoa butter and sweeteners into a cup and blending it in my Magic Bullet, but they still never melt! My chocolate always tastes different, the part I pour into molds first is more bitter than the last part where the sweetener settles, even though i mix it like crazy and pour it as fast as I can, that or I get little crunchy specks in my chocolate! I have tried and tried, I still eat the chocolate because its good. I would just like to have it melt the right way consistently! Every batch is different, its driving me crazy!
The melting Point of these sweeteners is much higher than sugar, over 100°c so you’ll never get it to melt. Try liquid stevia concentrate instead.
Edith, if you run your xylitol through a mini blender, such as a Magic Bullet, or even a coffee grinder, you will end up with such a fine powder that the fact that it does not melt will make no difference. Be aware that this fine powder blows around very easily, that is my only caution. Other than that, this simple step does the trick!
My honey separated from the rest of the mix. How do I prevent this from happening?
Did you add the honey in while heating or after? Depending on the honey, it may need to be heated in to the mix when the cocoa butter is mixed. You should be able to re-melt it to fix..
This recipe looks fabulous! And, I just tried it, and my raw honey would not play nice. I used organic ev coconut oil plus raw honey and the dutch cocoa you recommended. Once the honey and coconut oil melted I added the cocoa. It was smooth for about 10 seconds then turned into a honey & chocolate gooey mess with brown liquid coconut oil – totally separated. It would not melt again. Very strange! I’ll try it again with different honey. 🙂
So I made this first time with liquid honey. Second time I used a more solid honey so I added it to the cocoa butter when melting… The cocoa butter melted and the honey stayed at the bottom (I stirred constantly) they stayed seperate like oil and water. Added the cocoa and vanilla and a pinch of sea salt, started stirring and the consistency as cooled while stirring turned into a pudding gel… any ideas what went wrong? It’s still cooling
Joy and Kat, I have had the same troubles.
What worked for me was to let the coconut oil start to harden (thicken up), and then add the honey! Like putting honey in a batter, it mixes in evenly with some thorough stirring. Or you could melt the honey and coconut oil together and stir until the oil starts to solidify, even though the mixture will look completely hopeless before then.
Your perseverance is totally worth it!
Use an emulsifier like sunflower lecithin next time. Also, maybe try tempering your chocolate with this recipe. Watch a YouTube vid about tempering. The lack of flavor some people describe from these recipes are due to not having chocolate liquor, which isn’t like from the liquor store, it’s cocoa beans with their shells removed that have been fermented, roasted and ground until they liquefy. …
This looks really good but I wonder if the heat kills the good nutrients and enzymes. I know it kills the enzymes in the honey.
The ones in the chocolate are preserved… with raw honey I make sure to keep it a below 150 and heat very slowly to preserve them…
You do not need to warm it more than putting some hot water in the sink and melt the coconut butter and the rest in a bowl thst you put into the sink.
I’m curious why you use Dutch Process Cocoa? The process of Dutching chocolate removes almost all polyphenols (antioxidants) from the chocolate. It’s essentially, useless for health benefits or could be thought of as processed chocolate.
I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t organic cacao be more healthy?
I’m guessing she’s concerned about phytic acid, so she sacrifices the antioxidants.
Make my own all the time . .. . love to add peppermint to it. or orange. almost always add coconut cocao nibs as well. always add stevia though as the sweetener.
Would you mind explaining how you use stevia instead of honey? Candida person here! Thanks in advance.
Dr Mercola has a receipe with stevia I use all the time you just add it in instead of the honey.
But how much stevia do you use? I am Type 1 diabetic and have had problems with candida but I did not find the recipe using honey aggravated the candida anyway but I am changing my diet to lower carb and eating sauerkraut and this could be what has helped the candida!
This is off topic Ali but you might want to look into a quality magnesium like transdermal (spray on body) or ionic as well as fulvic acid to help with your diabetes.
Ali, about 1/8 tsp stevia concentrate should do it for this recipe. Taste before cooling and add more if you want it sweeter…
Raw honey does not feed candida. Just add it after the coconut oil has melted, as heat destroys the therapeutic properties of honey.
I’ve made this twice using raw honey as my sweetener. Both times, all of the raw honey “sank” to the bottom of my glass dish as the chocolate cooled and hardened. It left me with an unsweetened chocolate bar with sticky honey at the bottom. Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?
That happened to me too. My first bar has no honey in it at all…bitter.
Sheryl and Cheryl, I know exactly how you feel!
My coconut oil and honey always separated, leaving brown coconut oil and chocolate caramel (still delicious, but not quite what I was looking for).
It was until today that I realized, upon reading other chocolate recipes and methods, that you have to let the coconut oil start to solidify (or thicken to consistency of honey) before adding the honey (or you could melt the honey and coconut oil together and stir until the oil starts to solidify, which would allow the honey to properly mix with it)! Then you stir the honey and coconut oil (add the cocoa powder whenever) until the honey is thoroughly combined, and freeze or let sit.
It will surely taste different than what you’ve been eating, but it’s still great!
I’ve heard using half honey and half maple syrup as an option, I’ve even done 1/3 of each honey maple syrup and powdered sugar and it tastes dang good. My biggest problem is learning “tempering” where u use a digital thermometer to lower the chocolate temp to 80 then reheat to 86 and then pour or something like that makes a shiny chocolate that won’t melt and can keep out of fridge even ! !
Just made this with coconut oil and added a little bit of salt. OMGSH. I think Ghiradelli just got a booted to the door!
Made it before seeing adding the sea salt…also with coconut oil (on hand). Yum, can’t wait until it firms up to try. Thank u so much for the recipe. I used organic raw cocoa.
Do you mean yiu used coconut oil instead of cocoa butter?
This was a mistake. Please don’t post it
I use both coconut oil and raw cacao butter but also do another recipe using just coconut oil – both are lovely.
I stumbled across your web-site some time ago, and have made and shared this chocolate to rave reviews. I make it with coconut oil and honey, dressed up with pecan pieces and cayenne pepper. I need to try a sprinkle of sea salt too!
One question: no matter how much I try to stir as I pour, I end up with my first chocolates tasting totally bittersweet and the last ones are overly sweet, because the honey settles — any advice anyone?
Store-bought chocolate holds no charm for me, now that I’ve had these! 🙂
Try adding some Lucuma powder to the mix, it seems to bind it all together beautifully.. & never fails for me 🙂
How much powder do u add?
Worry not, Sherri!
I’ve made these chocolates with many failed attempts. The heated coconut oil and honey never mixed properly and always separated — I ended up with chocolate taffy. It was still really good, but mine wasn’t working out like everybody else’s seemed to be.
However, after looking at different recipes I finally found a method that produced coconut-y, solid chocolate.
Instead of mixing the honey in with the liquid coconut oil, I waited until the coconut oil (with or without cocoa powder — it can be added at any time) started to solidify or was about the same consistency of the honey, and then I added it! Then you stir to disperse the honey evenly throughout the mixture. This produces an entirely different texture and taste from the chocolate you’ve probably been making, but it’s still delicious!
And it freezes well. =]
I’ve made this recipe several times. I melt my coconut oil in the microwave. I don’t melt it completely because the honey separates from the oil. Usually I melt 1 cup for about 30 seconds.
Please never use the microwave to melt or soften as it destroys all nutritional value of whatever your heating. Best to heat your water in the microwave then place the coconut oil in another dish and set it into the dish of hot water to melt.
Two things. Be sure to not use too much heat. The benefits of coconut oil are negated when overheated. When the mixture hardens to the consistency of honey, go back and stir again. The honey won’t sink to the bottom.
How many 1 tbs servings would this make roughly?
Also just made them using raw cacao butter and raw cacao powder raw honey cranberries chia and some with maca powder.