Who loves peanut butter? Who also feels like peanuts have gotten a bad rep as of late? “Oh it’s not Paleo”, “Oh it’s not a real nut”! Pish posh! Poor peanuts have feelings too and I believe we can all be friends with them (well…. Except those who are violently allergic to them…).
Eating well is all about compromise and so are these chocolates. You say almond butter, I say peanut butter… why can’t it be both? Well it can! You can’t really make Peanut Butter Pieces with only almond butter… just no. It may not be Paleo, but it’s logical. Sweet delicious crunchy logic.
Peanuts aren’t really a nut, they’re a legume, but don’t let labels turn you into a hater. Peanuts are actually REALLY good for you. According to WHF “Peanuts are good sources of vitamin E, niacin, folate, protein and manganese. In addition, peanuts provide resveratrol, the phenolic antioxidant also found in red grapes and red wine that is thought to be responsible for the French paradox: the fact that in France, people consume a diet that is not low in fat, but have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared to the U.S.” – yeah!!!
I made these for my friend Liz who is the biggest utter butter peanut butter nutter you will ever come across and how they got made is kind of a funny story.
A few Fridays ago I was in a bit of a funk on walking home from work. Some plans had fell through and I was feeling itchy for doing something and it was a bit meh. To get out of said funk, I thought I would walk home a different way to see what was down such and such street and try and gain new perspective. I love looking at houses and seeing architecture always lifts my mood.
Along the way, I ran into my yoga teacher who turns out lives around the corner from me. So he walked me home and we were chatting outside my house and my two eight-year old girls neighbour’s rode by on their bikes.
“Excuse me! Is that your cat?” they asked, “Yes, that is Pickles and the other one is Buttons” I replied. Much to my amusement, they proceeded to tell me all about the antics my cats got up to while I was at work. After a while, I said goodbye to them all and went inside and got on with my night, funk gone.
That following Sunday, I was pottering around the house doing “blog stuff” and I hear “Cat, Cat!” from out on the street. I went outside and the same two little girls were waiting for me. It may help to tell you that my front door is made from glass and you can see all the way down the hallway to the living room, and often on warm days I keep it open when home.
When I got outside and they asked, “What is that white statue?” pointing down the hall. “Well, that’s Angelo, my paper mache horse, duh” I replied. “Can we come look at him?!” they asked. “Umm….. sure?”. So that’s how they invited themselves in.
Anyways, turns out they hung out for 2 hours while I continued to do “blog stuff”. At one point they said, “I feel like making something yummy”. At this stage I had done part one of these chocolates and needed to finish the filling and the chocolate toping. I decided this was the perfect task for them. So I gave them instructions on how to fill the chocolates with the nut filling and top it with chocolate while I did a photoshoot outside – yay free labour!
They turned out perfect – which proves this recipe is so easy, an eight year old can do it.
- ½ cup coconut oil
- 3 tablespoons cacao butter
- ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons raw cacao powder
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon Himalayan salt
- ¼ cup almond butter
- ¼ cup peanut butter (can use 100% almond butter or substitute for other nut butter if following a Paleo diet)
- 1 tablespoons or maple syrup
- Himalayan salt to taste
- In a double boiler (or a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water), melt coconut oil and cacao butter together.
- Add maple syrup and whisk to combine.
- When completely incorporated, remove from heat and sift in cacao and Himalayan salt.
- Adjust seasoning if necessary.
- In your ice tray (I used Ikea heart trays, mini silicon muffin tins also work – basically something what will be easy to remove), put about ½ a teaspoon of chocolate in each segment. You want enough to make a thin layer and to only use approx ⅓ of the chocolate, as you will need the remaining to finish. Swirl around in the tray so the chocolate goes up the sides of the molds. Let it set a bit and repeat the swirling so you cannot see any mold through the chocolate.
- Place in the fridge or freezer and cool until solid, about 15 minutes.
- Make the nut butter filling by combining all of the ingredients. Check the seasoning – you want salty but not too salty!
- Once the chocolate is set, spoon the nut butter into each mold being care to keep it within the chocolate. Flatten with a spoon or fingers.
- Spoon the remaining liquid chocolate on top, making sure to cover the filling completely.
- Place in the freezer to harden for at least one hour.
- Removing from the Ikea ice cube trays should be quite easy – use a knife if needed, but be gentle – don’t worry though, any rejects will still taste amazing ^__^.
