For me there are three food groups: cheese, chili and chocolate.
Everything else is just filler or carrier.
Forget food pyramids, paleo diets, Atkins, 5:2, alkaline, Cambridge, Weightwatchers ….
There is only one rule you need to be concerned with – does the main ingredient start with “ch”?
If it does, you know you’re OK.
So, I was thrilled when Danita decided to do a raw food class recently in which the central ingredient was raw, organic cacao.
(Important note – we are talking about cacao as opposed to cocoa. While related, they aren’t the same.)
Since doing the course Danita has done lots of practising, which I’ve actively encouraged.
She has even enrolled me as her assistant, a role I took on with some resistance (NOT!).
We’ve made basic chocolate, salted chocolate, chocolate and nut butter muffins and more.
Everything is gluten free and made from raw organic ingredients, of which there are usually very few.
This, as far as I can tell, constitutes an extremely healthy diet.
We even have fruit as part of it – strawberries, blueberries, fresh figs (from the local farms in Dural) and bananas so far.
As you can see my earlier comments about not needing anything else for a complete diet wasn’t just empty promises.
Here’s our basic chocolate recipe.
250 grams cacao butter
1 cup cacao powder
1/2 cup dextrose
Some of the important things we’ve learned so far:
Use good quality cacao butter. We did try a cheaper brand than had been recommended and found that the chocolates were softer and oilier.
Salt doesn’t melt in oil. Of course, I knew this from my high school chemistry (it does dissolve very well in water but not oil or fat, which is what cacao butter really is).
The impact of this is that when making salted chocolate there are some trade secrets (which I won’t reveal) to make sure the salt is evenly mixed through.
Failing to do this results in the salt collecting at the bottom of the mix giving a seriously salty (almost inedible) product.
This does however, go very well with raw figs.
We’re now branching out into chili chocolate, chocolate coated coffee beans and more.
In her previous life as a bookkeeper Danita had a client who had a coffee business as well as a chocolate business.
He attempted to appeal to the Asian market by producing varieties such as green-tea chocolate.
As has been said, “A fool learns from their mistakes. A wise person learns from other people’s mistakes.”
In this instance we’ve decided to learn from his mistakes, as well as his successes, and have opted to forget about a green-tea variety.
However, his chocolate coated pretzels were pretty amazing – something we can add to our option list.
One of the downsides of this has been that we now find commercial chocolate quite unappetising, even the Aldi dark, organic chocolate (which previously had been highly sought after by us).
Whenever we’d go shopping I was always of the view that we were low on this Aldi chocolate and would always have to add a few bars to our cart.
This was especially the case as this variety was often hard to find – we clearly weren’t the only ones on the lookout for the shelves being restocked.
The consequence is that we now have quite a supply of commercial chocolate.
Occasionally, I’ll lower my standards and eat some of this, just in order to clear the cupboards (sometimes life calls on us to make great sacrifices, and this is one which I feel is my duty and obligation to make).
After all, as we are now in the early stages of preparing to move to Tasmania we have to eliminate as much clutter as we can.
Even as housesitters, it’s surprising how much stuff you can manage to accumulate, and helping to clear the cupboards is an important responsibility, and I take my responsibilities very seriously.
Some people have a personal assistant, personal butler, personal trainer…
I have something much more important – my personal chocolatier.
(PS The photos are examples of our efforts to date.)