Chocolate Dessert with Raw Cacao
When I was a child I could eat my weight in the no-bake oatmeal cookies served at every single family and friends gathering. I would visually scan the table at family reunions and nearly loose my mind in worry that I wouldn’t get my fill of them before the other kids got to them. Flash forward to today, I wanted to make a cookie that reminded me of being a kid but also offered a solid dose of nutritional benefits. Raw cacao powder is the start ingredient for this recipe because the flavor and quality creates a memorable fresh chocolatey flavor. The taste of these is similar to oatmeal version, though these cookies are full of vitamins and minerals and leave you feeling nourished rather than regretful.
Raw Cacao Powder
Raw cacao is a required food in my opinion. When I started selecting which foods to eat to nourish my body, giving up chocolate was a deal breaker. Instead, I upgraded how I eat chocolate and switched to using raw cacao powder for making chocolaty treats.
When shopping for which powder to use, look for one that is fair trade, organic, and raw. This is one of my current favorites from the Raw Food World brand.
Chocolate comes from the cacao bean, which requires fermentation to prepare the bean for culinary use. If the bean is then heat treated it is called cocoa powder which is most commonly used in store bought chocolate treats. Raw cacao powder is made when the cacao bean is fermented, skips heat treatment, and ground into a powder. This form is preferred for it’s higher contents of nutrients and taste.
Nutritional Benefits of Raw Cacao
Theobromine is a main alkaloid in the cacao bean that has been suggested to offer oral health benefits. [1] By eating it in the fermented raw un-heated form, this ensures that the body could better absorb the nutritional benefits of cacao. The cacao bean also contains high amounts of magnesium, when combined with other foods high in magnesium like almonds and optional pumpkin seeds, and hemp hearts this dessert becomes a nutritional treat with a purpose.
Magnesium is an important mineral that is responsible for more than 300 enzymatic reactions within the human body. According to this clinical healthcare source, an estimated two-thirds of the western world population is not taking in the daily suggested amount of magnesium which lends to the possibility of widespread magnesium deficiency and the potential need for magnesium repletion in diverse medical conditions. [2] The authors find that symptoms of depression, migraine headache, diabetes, and many other health-related symptoms could benefit from the therapeutic intervention of magnesium supplementation. Guys, what if one of the reasons we see a rise in disease is because we’re all just severely magnesium deficient? It is an easy fix and would be worth exploring!
The No-Bake Chocolate Coconut Almond Bliss Recipe
This recipe is what I use when I want a chocolate candy bar, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, or just more chocolate. I know that this recipe contains a lot of calories, and it could seem like a bad idea if you are trying to lose weight. My personal experience with this recipe is that it has no ill effect on your weight. When I made my first dietary health changes (remember that I said no chocolate was a deal breaker) I ate salads, drank juice and smoothies, drank spring water with salt sole, ate wild and grass-fed meats, cut back or omitted grains, stopped eating processed dairy, and ate anywhere from 800-1000 calories of chocolate candies per day for an average of 3-4 months. I lost more weight than I had ever before, and much easier than before. At the time I didn’t realize why it was so easy to lose weight, and I sure wasn’t going to argue with it. My teenage self that starved by eating everything low-fat was screaming with joy, I had finally beaten that idea that you need to eat less to weigh less.
Now I understand why I was losing weight so easily and that the foods I had chosen to eat from the alkaline diet shifted my body into ketosis [3]. I was burning fat by not eating sugar and eating more fat. My reason for sharing this is to say,” eat up and enjoy these cookies!”
Today my diet still looks very similar except I have added back some grains and dairy to experiment with how those work with my health status. Also when I dine with others, I don’t stress as much over the food rules. I don’t go crazy and throw everything to the wind; but if we’re having pizza, I load up as many veggies as possible and enjoy having pizza.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter*
- Pinch pink Himalayan salt
- 2 Tbsp molasses
- 4 Tbsp cacao powder
- 2 cups chopped almond*
- 2 cups coconut flakes, unsweetened unsulphured
- Optional 1/4c semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Melt butter, stir the rest of the ingredients in with the butter and spoon small cookie dollops onto parchment paper. Place in the freezer or refrigerator to set the cookie, store in the refrigerator.
- *Butter options, Kerry Gold grass-fed milk butter, ghee, or cold-pressed coconut oil.
- *Almond options, blend equal parts almond, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, plus 1 Tbsp hemp hearts
Sources
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23615395?dopt=Abstract&holding=npg
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29093983
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis
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