For one of the many Halloween inspired treats that I’m making this year, I thought I’d give the classic peanut butter cups a little spooky twist and fill them with an oozing layer or berry chia jam! These are the perfect balance between rich, decadent chocolate and sweet fruity flavours. I LOVE the combination of chocolate and berries and find that the sweetness of the jam helps to avoid that sickly chocolate feeling. Although I do love chocolate, I’ve always preferred fruity desserts and have never been very good when it comes to eating chocolate.. and by that I mean, it makes me feel sick quite quickly! Whereas, my boyfriend on the other hand, can consume an entire family sized sharing box of choccies to himself within about 10 minutes and resume his day completely unaffected! The home-made raw chocolate here is definitely on the darker side, so these little festive treats will probably be one for the grown-ups; but you could always try making them with a vegan milk chocolate if you like. My two favourite are probably from Ombar chocolate or Loving Earth, which I believe use coconut milk or cashews instead of dairy.
For the ‘spooky’ jam filling, I’ve made a delicious berry chia seed jam, which is super quick and easy to throw together and is also free from added refined sugars! I love making my own jam, as it’s really fresh and you can adjust the balance of sweet and sour flavours to create that perfect taste for you! Sometimes I find the shop bought ones far too sweet for my tastebuds, as I like there to be a nice tangy kick of fruity flavour. Actually, this is where adding in my Arctic Berries Powders come in handy too! I’ve added in some of the Artic Berries Cranberry powder; which provides an amazing vibrant colour, flavour and is also a good source of vitamins. The sound of making your own chocolate may be slightly daunting, but I promise you its actually fairly simple! For this one you’ll only need THREE ingredients: coconut oil, agave and raw cacao powder.. that’s all! I typically use either coconut oil or cacao butter when making chocolate, they both work just as well but coconut oil is probably slightly easier to get hold of in most supermarkets. These little chocolatey delights are completely dairy free and vegan, so can also be enjoyed on a plant based diet too.
Another game changing hack that I just have to share with you here is.. silicone cupcake cases! These are an absolute staple in my baking supplies cupboard and they’re super cheap and fairly easy to get hold of as well. They’re reusable and.. the main reason that I like these things, is because they just make it SO easy to remove your cupcakes or in this case chocolate! As you can see, they’ve helped to achieve a really nice, smooth finish on the chocolate and just make them look really pretty. Definitely something that I would recommend checking out if you get chance and are a keen baker!
Going off on a little bit of a tangent now, but all this editing and blog post writing involving chocolate has left me with a serious hankering for some dark chocolate! As I write this, I’m literally about to make my way over to the cupboard to grab some right now. I usually have a small amount of dark chocolate in my diet most days, because, like I said, I do really enjoy it In small amounts and I find that treating myself to these things little and often helps to avoid me feeling deprived of anything. After writing all of this and then heading to said cupboard.. I’ve discovered that I’m actually out of chocolate.. fantastic.
