Raw Chocolate Oat & Currant Cookies

I know I said I wasn't going to do much in the way of healthy food this month but whilst I was scoffing my way through a packet of biscuits yesterday I decided I should really be eating something just a little bit healthier. Also as one of my favourite blogging challenges, We Should Cocoa, has a no sugar theme this month, I needed to have a go at making something to fit in with this challenge. Towards the end of last year I was lucky enough to win a raw chocolate making kit from Elements For Life. I'd been saving it for a time when I was feeling creative enough to play around with the chocolate. I won the prize from a giveaway on Bangers & Mash blog and there is an excellent write up there about raw chocolate and how to make it. Essentially all you need is some raw cocoa butter, raw cocoa powder and something to sweeten it with. In the kit there was a bottle of sweetener called Sweet Freedom which is made from carob, apples and grapes and it can be used in place of honey. I wasn't overly keen on the taste of the sweetener by itself but when incorporated into the chocolate it worked really well. I followed the recipe that came with the kit for making up the chocolate but only used half the recommended amount of sweetener as I wanted a really dark chocolatey taste.

For the cookies I adapted a recipe from Ani's Raw Food Desserts which I've made a few times before but this is the first time I've blogged it. I swapped the raisins for currants as I still had some left from my Christmas cake and added some of the vegan sweetener and some nuts to the recipe. I also half coated each cookie in the raw chocolate. As these taste so good it's hard to believe they are good for you. With the rest of the chocolate I used the mould that came with the kit and some of my own moulds to make little chocolates which are perfect for nibbling on.

Ingredients - makes 12 cookies plus about 20 little chocolates

For the cookies:
90g oats
90g pitted Medjool dates
70g currants
1 tsp ground cinnamon
60 chopped mixed nuts
2 tbsp Sweet Freedom vegan syrup/agave syrup/maple syrup or honey

For the raw chocolate:
120g raw cocoa butter, grated
100g raw cocoa powder
3 tbsp Sweet Freedom vegan syrup/agave syrup

• To make the cookies put the oats, cinnamon and dates in a food processor and blitz on high power until everything starts sticking together. This will take a few minutes depending on how powerful your machine is. Then add the currants and blitz again followed by the nuts and the syrup and blitz again until everything comes together into a dough.
• Divide the cookie mix into 12 pieces and press each one into a medium star shaped cookie cutter. Do this on a non stick surface e.g. a silicone baking mat or on baking parchment.
• To make the raw chocolate, gently heat the cocoa butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (bain marie) until it is melted then remove from the hear, whisk in the cocoa powder and then add the sweetener. This will thicken and seems to set quicker than normal chocolate.
• Dip the cookies in the melted chocolate to half coat and leave to set
• Pour the remaining chocolate into small silicone moulds and leave for a couple of hours to set

 

 

I'm entering these into We Should Cocoa run by Choclette and Chele where the theme this month is no sugar and also into alphabakes run by Caroline and Ros, this month hosted by Caroline where the chosen letter is 'D' and I used dates in this recipe.