I absolutely love Chocolate. Even more I love the process of making it myself. Knowing what goes into the final product is important for me too. Chocolate can be highly nourishing with lots of naturally occurring minerals.

Making chocolate is super easy if you have a thermomix. You can easily weigh all the ingredients, control the temperature, mix and stir and get an amazing final product that is glossy and just delicious. No thermomix? Don’t worry you simply need a saucepan with a glass bowl and you can make it this way too.

One of my favourite combinations is Turkish delight. As a child I remember eating soft gelatinous pieces of very sweet Turkish delight as a treat from specialty delicatessens. These days I use one of my not so secret ingredients to get the Turkish delight flavour, Geranium essential oil from Young Living that is FSANZ approved. This is exactly what some Chocolate companies use to flavour their chocolate and you can do this in your very own kitchen.

Ingredients

180g Cacao Butter ( buttons)
50-60g Raw cacao powder
80g maple Syrup
Pinch salt
1-2 drops Geranium Essential Oil from Young Living
1/2 – 1 cup chopped dried figs

Stovetop method

Put glass bowl over saucepan of simmering water
add 140g cacao butter buttons and melt.
remove from heat and stir through remaining cacao until melted
add cacao powder and maple syrup
mix until all combined
add essential oil and figs and mix.
Pour onto lined baking sheet or moulds and set in the fridge

Thermomix method

Add cacao butter to Thermomix, speed 8, 10sec
Scrape bowl and melt 15mins 37 degrees speed 2 (scrape bowl down half way)
Add maple syrup, cacao powder and pinch salt
Mix 5 min 37 degrees speed 2
Mix 5sec speed 5 .
Add Geranium essential oil and mix 3 sec speed 3
Finally stir through chopped figs

Pour onto a lined baking sheet or silicon mould and set in fridge

I like to pour onto a sheet and then chop into bite sized pieces

Adding pistachios, rose petals and/or freeze dried raspberries takes this recipe to the next level.

I like to buy my whole ingredients from The Source Bulk Foods. You can buy exactly what you need by weight.

Sometimes we simply want all the flavour without the hassle. You can also use 200g of good quality dark chocolate and get a great result. Simply melt the chocolate before adding the figs and essential oil. My chocolate of choice for this would be Green and Blacks 70% Organic dark chocolate

To get the Geranium Essential Oil, go straight to Young Living To simply get started I recommend  the basic culinary kit (AUD$69- you will find it under specialty kits) that includes food standard oils of lemon and orange in addition to my favourite relaxation perfume blend Stress away. Then you can simply add Geranium to your order! Once you are done send me a quick email or message through the blog and I will email you a copy of my complete chocolate workshop! Then you can start more delicous combinations, think Orange and almond and Rocky road like the picture below. You will be whipping up these amazing treats in no time.

A note on the essential Oils. They are potent and I always recommend using 1 drop initially, 2 might be too strong for you.

Hope you love this recipe!!

Belinda xx