• Home
  • About
    • About Vanessa
    • How I Healed from Adrenal Fatigue
  • Blog
    • Healthy Beauty
    • Healthy Body
    • Healthy Business
    • Healthy Food
    • Healthy Home
    • Healthy Life
    • Healthy Mind
    • Healthy Recipe
  • Recipes
    • Main Dishes
    • Side Dishes
    • Soups, Salads & Dressings
    • Desserts
    • Breads & Muffins
    • Snacks & Beverages
    • Syrups & Sauces
    • Miscellaneous
  • Essential Oils
    • How To Order Young Living Essential Oils
  • Shop
  • Connect
  • Search

Healthy Living How To

Vanessa Rae Romero

Dark Chocolates with Smoked Sea Salt

April 16, 2013 By Vanessa Rae Romero

Dark Chocolate With Smoked Sea Salt | healthylivinghowto.com

For my fellow dark chocolate lovers, this might just be my best recipe yet. However, before we get to the recipe, let’s discuss some health reasons to indulge in dark chocolate, my three tips for selecting a healthy dark chocolate (for those who would rather indulge in store-bought) and then finally I'll show you how to make your own healthy Dark Chocolates with Smoked Sea Salt!

“The first death by chocolate occurred in the 17th Century in Mexico. The people were so addicted to chocolate they refused to adhere to a chocolate ban that forbid them from eating it during church services. The Bishop who passed the law was later found dead due to poison being mixed into his daily cup of chocolate.”

Just a fun fact you can share with your friends and family while serving them today’s recipe for healthy Dark Chocolates with Smoked Sea Salt. One bite and you will think you’ve died and gone to chocolate heaven.

Healthy Reasons to Indulge in Dark Chocolate

In recent years, dark chocolate earned “super food” status, due to its high polyphenol content. The polyphenols in dark chocolate have been reported to:

  • Combat inflammation
  • Reduce blood pressure
  • Inhibit oxidation of cholesterol
  • Improve blood flow
  • Increase levels of serotonin in the brain

Now, before you reach for a Hershey's Special Dark, understand, the health benefits of chocolate do not come in packages loaded with sugar or milk. Milk chocolate, by the way, has far less, if any of the health-promoting properties of dark chocolate. In fact, studies done on the health benefits of chocolate, use cocoa powder or dark chocolate with a high cocoa content.

3 Tips for Selecting Healthy Dark Chocolate

With a large number of chocolate options available, it can be confusing to understand which chocolate bars offer health benefits, and which are little more than extra sugar and fat. Don’t be misled by the advertising on milk chocolate products claiming the health benefits of dark chocolate consumption.

1. When shopping for dark chocolate, look for 80% or higher, cocoa content. Typically, the higher the cocoa percentage, the less sugar in the bar.

2. Like coffee, if you are concerned about fair wages and working conditions, look for chocolate that is fair trade. Pesticide use is widespread on cocoa farms. Organic chocolate starts the process off right by using cocoa beans grown without the use of pesticides.

3. To get the most for your chocolate buck, check the ingredient label, there should be three maybe four ingredients; cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla.

Make Your Own Dark Chocolate

I freely admit, I am a dark chocolate snob (I'm a coffee snob as well). I have sampled my fair share of 80-99% dark chocolates and if I had to pick my all-time favorite, it would be Alter Eco 85% Dark Chocolate Blackout. I usually pick up a  few, okay, more like four, bars, each week on our Saturday shopping trip to Whole Foods. No, it's not all for me, my husband indulges in daily dark chocolate as well.

Dark Chocolates With Smoked Sea Salt | healthylivinghowto.comThe past two weeks, WF has been out and our local co-op doesn't carry this brand. So, I took it as a sign. No, not to abstain from chocolate, but to finally use the huge block of raw cocoa butter I picked up some time ago (for this very purpose).

I've made different variations of dark chocolate several times, combining ghee and coconut oil, however, never experimented with raw cocoa butter. Boy, even though I adore my other recipes, using cocoa butter amps it up to a whole new level. I am hooked. I even got my husband hooked. Oh, and by the way, the addition of smoked Celtic sea salt, is out of this world.

Just like selecting a healthy dark chocolate bar, making homemade healthy dark chocolate starts with high quality ingredients. Be sure to click on the hyperlinks provided in the recipe below for the products I used.

One last word to the wise, the best way to enjoy dark chocolate is to put it in your mouth and let it melt. I introduced a friend to 90% dark chocolate once and she took a bite and promptly spit it out. Said it tasted like dirt. It's kind of like drinking wine versus water, sip and enjoy, don't chug.

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.”  ~ Charles M. Schulz

Print
Dark Chocolates with Smoked Sea Salt

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Yield: 12 Dark Chocolates

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. Cocoa Butter
  • 2 oz. Cocoa Powder
  • 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
  • 1/16 tsp. (pinch) Pure Stevia Extract
  • Smoked Celtic Sea Salt

Directions

  1. With a box grater, grate cocoa butter. Using a kitchen scale, weigh out 2 oz. Save any extra for your next batch.
  2. Fill large mixing bowl with very hot tap water.
  3. Add grated cocoa butter to Pyrex measuring cup with pouring spout and place inside large bowl (filled with hot water).
  4. With a spoon, stir gently until cocoa butter is completely melted and smooth. Takes about 3-5 minutes. Be very careful to not splash any water into cocoa butter.
  5. To melted cocoa butter add cocoa powder, vanilla extract and stevia.
  6. Mix again until smooth.
  7. Line mini-muffin tin with non-stick liners or use silicone candy molds and then fill evenly.
  8. Sprinkle each chocolate cup with a small pinch of smoked sea salt.
  9. Speed set in freezer for 15 minutes and then transfer to refrigerator for storage in a sealed container.
  10. Feel free to add another sprinkle of smoked sea salt to the top before indulging.
  11. Enjoy!

Notes

Nutrition Information Per Chocolate: 50 calories, 5 g fat, 3 g carbs, 1 g fiber, 2 g NET CARBS, 1 g protein

3.1
https://healthylivinghowto.com/healthy-recipe-dark-chocolates-with-smoked-sea-salt/
Copyright © 2012, Vanessa Romero www.healthylivinghowto.com

Click +1 Below. Do you like dark chocolate?

About Vanessa Rae Romero

A Christ-follower, wife, mom, grandma, entrepreneur, city slicker, purple lover, and health nut who inspires women to live healthy, love intently, lead purposefully, and to have fun along the way.

Previous Post
Next Post

Filed Under: Healthy Recipe Tagged With: cocoa butter, dairy-free, dark chocolate, desserts, homemade dark chocolate, low-carb, smoked sea salt, sugar-free

Related Posts

16,947,614

website views

117,892
52,891
14,606

Search Healthy Living How To

Let’s Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

ABOUT VANESSA

Hello, I'm Vanessa! I once had someone tell me they did not like my purple hair, said it was for the birds. My nickname is Birdie. Sometimes, The Bird. I am a Christ-follower, wife, mother, grandmother, business owner, city slicker, purple lover, and health nut. I blog about healthy living; from food freedom to financial freedom and everything in between.

SHOP HLHT

5-ml Essential Oil Bottle with Amethyst Gemstone Roll-On and Matte Silver Cap

Faux Leather Essential Oil Pouch

hang out with me on instagram

vanessaraeromero

🙏🏽💜👦🏼🏋🏽‍♀️☕️🥳💎
Healthy Living How To | #lifestyleblogger
live healthy,
love intently,
lead purposefully,
& have fun along the way!

View
Open
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! 💜
View
Open
SO LONG MINNEAPOLIS...thank you for being our home these past seven years!!! Praying today for the city and state leadership, that law, order, and safety is restored, and that the livelihoods, dreams and businesses lost, be reclaimed. 💜💙
View
Open
FOUR MORE SLEEPS...The next time we have our little buddy, we’ll be in the country in our new house!!! Four more sleeps until moving day!!! 💜
View
Open
A PRAYER FOR OUR DAD...Dear Lord, we gratefully thank you for for giving us our dad. You must really love us, 'cause you gave us the best you had. Watch over him and bless him Lord, and keep him in your care. And may he feel our LOVE for him, is our humble, heartfelt prayer. 💜🙏🏽
View
Open
Went to a speakeasy spa and got my purple pixie done up good. 💜
View
Open
All is right in my world when we are together. 💜
View
Open
Tonight I had a conversation with my dad about his experiences with racism. He told me a story about being afraid to hold my mom’s hand in public when they were newly married in 1969. When she died in December 2015, he was still holding her hand. 💜
View
Open
MEMORIAL DAY...”As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter the words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy ❤️🤍💙
View
Open
HAPPY SUNDAY...I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling increasingly unsettled. When I ask God, what can I do to make a difference, what I’ve heard over and over, is to just keep showing up. So that’s what I do. You might not think you matter, but I promise you do!!! 💜
.
.
.
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12
Follow on Instagram

SHOP AMAZON

In January 2019, I took Adsense ads off Healthy Living How To. The biggest reason being it provides for a more pleasant reader experience. However, I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission when you shop using my affiliate links.

Copyright © 2011-2019 Healthy Living How To™ · Vanessa Rae Romero · All Rights Reserved · Disclosure/Disclaimer