Unfortunately, in-store chocolates contain not so much healthy chocolate as harmful additives. To get a pure product, you need not be too lazy and make exceptional chocolates with your own hands. Then you will definitely know their composition. This is useful for the whole family, and especially for children.
Chocolate is undoubtedly healthy
Sweeties - chocolate lovers - can enjoy their favorite treat with pleasure. The myth of the dangers of chocolate is dispelled! Moreover, its undoubted benefit has been scientifically proven. Having carefully studied the chemical composition of the basis of chocolate - cocoa beans - scientists came to the conclusion that chocolate:
- slows down the aging of the body, prevents the development of cancer, cleanses the body of "harmful" radicals due to the presence of a large number of antioxidants;
- It is a valuable preventive measure for cardiovascular diseases;
- prevents the development of tartar;
- activates mental activity;
- due to serotonin (the hormone of happiness) increases mood, fights stress;
- stimulates sexual arousal;
- increases the immunity of the whole organism.
The main thing is to consume chocolate not excessively, but in the "right" amount: about 50-60 g per day. Further, the article will tell you how to make chocolates yourself. Read the recipes carefully and enjoy the dessert.
Recipe 1. Everything is simple and affordable.
It’s not difficult and very inexpensive to make chocolates at home yourself.
Ingredients : 220-250 g of cocoa powder, 150 g of cow's butter, an incomplete glass of water, 150 ml of milk, 30 g of flour (some advise replacing the flour with baby food or milk powder), 100-130 g of sugar.
Cooking process : combine finely chopped butter with cocoa powder, mix until a homogeneous paste (spoon or blender) is obtained. Pour water into a saucepan and heat over a fire, not allowing it to boil. In hot water, add chocolate paste, milk, sugar and flour. Mix everything thoroughly until the lumps disappear. Put the mass in a food container, the bottom and walls of which should be covered with parchment or foil. Place the container in the freezer until the sweet dessert completely hardens. Carefully remove the hardened mass on a cutting board and cut into portioned sweets. Chocolate homemade sweets are ready!
Recipe 2. Delicacy - Homemade Truffles
Using this recipe, it’s very simple to make chocolates with your own hands. Kids will be happy to help sculpt sweets.
Ingredients : 1 bar of extra-bitter or just bitter chocolate, 65 ml of fat cream (35% better), 60 g of icing sugar, a tablespoon of alcohol (rum or cognac), 1 tablespoon of chopped cashew nuts and almonds, 3 tablespoons of powder cocoa.
Cooking process : put finely broken chocolate in a saucepan in a water bath. Mix cream with powdered sugar, heat well and beat thoroughly. Constantly stirring, pour the sweet cream into the melted chocolate in a thin stream. Continue to whip the resulting cream until smooth, add alcohol and nuts. Mix well again. Put in the refrigerator (NOT in the freezer!) For about an hour and a half. The mass should become the consistency of soft plasticine. Remove the mass from the refrigerator, pour cocoa powder in a saucer. Using hands moistened with cold water, use a teaspoon to form chocolate balls, roll them in cocoa powder. Put on a clean and dry chopping board and refrigerate again for 1 hour. In an hour, help yourself and treat others!
Recipe 3. It will be a little harder
Here you will have to try a little more to make amazing chocolates with your own hands. Recipes are not always easy.
Ingredients : 1 cup cocoa butter, a glass of cocoa powder, half a glass of liquid honey, an incomplete teaspoon of real vanilla extract, toasted chopped almonds, mint or orange extract to taste.
Cooking process : melt the cocoa butter in a double boiler or over low heat in a steam bath. Make sure that the saucepan with cocoa butter does not touch the water in the large saucepan (double bottom method). When the cocoa butter has completely melted, remove it from the heat and add cocoa powder, honey, vanilla or other flavors. Mix everything thoroughly until a smooth and shiny mass is obtained. It is impossible for the liquid to get into this cream, as this will violate its texture. The hostess should be careful with wet hands or with wet dishes. Put the resulting mass (called ganache in the culinary terminology) into a large container lined with parchment or in special silicone molds. Put for several hours in the cold. According to this recipe, you will get real chocolates at home!
Note Cocoa butter can be replaced with coconut oil.
Recipe 4. Homemade truffles in white chocolate
The sweets prepared according to this recipe look just wonderful. Guests may not even believe that you made these chocolates yourself.
Ingredients : 200 g of dark chocolate, 2/3 cups of fat cream (33-35%), 1 tablespoon of cow butter, less than half a glass of Nutella, 1 bar of white chocolate, 1 tablespoon of table sunflower oil (odorless), grated chocolate for sprinkling.
Cooking process : break the dark chocolate into pieces, add cream, butter and Nutella to it. Melt everything in a steam bath. Cool. Cover with cling film or a lid and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Manually form balls from the chilled mass, which they put in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. While the truffles harden, melt the white chocolate in a steam bath, add vegetable oil to it. Paste each truffle onto a toothpick and “bathe” it in white chocolate. Already put white candies on a plane covered with parchment. Sprinkle grated chocolate on top of the beauty. Again, put the sweets in the refrigerator for 40 minutes. After that, enjoy eating.
Some tips
In order to make delicious chocolates with your own hands, you need to follow simple rules.
- All products must be of good quality.
- Do not bring the liquid to a boil. It is necessary to work with a hot, but not boiled mass.
- Alcohol and nuts can be removed from the recipe at the discretion of the hostess. This will not affect the taste of sweets, it just changes a little. For the experiment, you can add mint, orange or lemon extract, vanilla and other flavoring additives.
- Be sure to use NOT sugar, but only powdered sugar. Its amount in the composition of sweets can be changed.
- Before you put the container with the chocolate mass in the refrigerator for solidification, it is necessary to cover it with a lid or cling film to avoid the admixture of extraneous odors.