Jump straight to the Vegan Chocolate recipe
This homemade raw vegan chocolate is a staple in our house.
You might not normally think of chocolate as a staple food, but to me it is.
This smooth, dark piece of heaven has got me through many a wobbly moment, and it also makes the good days even better!
I’m also blessed to have an automatic chocolate maker (AKA my husband) who has taken on the responsibility of ensuring I’m always well stocked with my life-giving raw vegan chocolate.
He’s also the one who perfected this recipe – and simplified it fabulously – after I got frustrated with the fussiness of chocolate recipes.
Yes, unlike many of my foolproof recipes, this one can be a little picky, but it’s definitely worth mastering.
And it’s wonderfully low-key – all you need is a bowl and whisk, although a pair of scales and a thermometer definitely come in handy too.
I also splurged and bought these fantastic chocolate block moulds, so it even comes out looking like the real deal.
Everyone I’ve ever shared this raw vegan chocolate with (when I could bear to part with it, that is) has raved about how amazing it tastes, and I’m sure you’ll feel the same way about it too.
So here it is. My recipe for homemade raw vegan chocolate.
Simple, delicious and definitely worth the effort.
Vegan Chocolate recipe
Make sure to read the tips below the recipe to get the most out of this delicious vegan chocolate recipe.
Homemade Raw Vegan Chocolate
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup cacao butter , melted (170g)
- 1/4 cup agave nectar (65g)
- 2/3 cup cacao powder (60g)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla bean powder
- 1/64 tsp salt , finely ground
Method
- Melt cacao butter at around 40-45°C (104-113°F) on a double boiler or in a dehydrator.
- Grind salt to a fine powder (e.g. in a mortar and pestle).
- Add agave nectar to cacao butter.
- Sieve cacao powder, vanilla powder and salt onto butter and agave mix.
- Whisk until smooth.
- Keep stirring and whisking until chocolate reaches around 31°C (88°F).
- Pour into moulds.
- Put into the fridge until set.
- Store in the fridge or at room temp.
Preparation
- Before: 30 mins to 2 hours (to melt cacao butter)
- During: 20 mins
- After: 30 mins (to set chocolate)
- Need: Double boiler or dehydrator
Nutrition Information
Tips
- I have estimated the volumes for this recipe, because we always make it by weight. You may need to tweak your amounts until you’re happy with the result if you make it by volume, but if you follow the weights as specified, it will definitely turn out well.
- The cacao butter will melt faster and more evenly if you grate it first. Even better (and faster) if you can buy it already kibbled.
- If you want to keep your cacao butter raw, the best way to melt it is in the dehydrator. Not only will this ensure that the temperature doesn’t get too high, it reduces the chance of splashing water into it, and if you use a glass bowl, it gets wonderfully warm and helps to stabilise the chocolate’s temperature.
- If you don’t want to use agave nectar, you could use coconut nectar, maple syrup or your favourite liquid sweetener. Just remember that the flavour will change noticeably, and you may need to adjust the quantity to ensure that the chocolate sets properly, as each sweetener has a different water content.
- Sieving the dry ingredients into the mix ensures that there’s little to no lumps in your finished chocolate, which is important. Nothing spoils a mouthful of chocolate like a lump of undissolved cacao powder!
- This recipe makes a very dark chocolate, so if you’re not a fan of dark chocolate, then this probably not the recipe for you.
- Vanilla bean powder is just fresh vanilla beans air-dried and ground into a powder using a spice blender or coffee grinder. You can make your own or you can buy it from your local health food shop. If you can’t get your hands on any of this, you can just scrape out a fresh vanilla bean or two into the mix. I wouldn’t recommend using vanilla extract in this recipe, as it will definitely upset the balance of ingredients, and your chocolate may not set properly.
- I’ve found that grinding your salt as finely as possible produces the best results. Either you can buy very finely ground salt, or you can grind it yourself in a mortar and pestle. Having it this fine will ensure that you don’t get a nasty salt bite in a piece of chocolate somewhere. Eeewwww!
- I use pink Himalayan crystal salt in my chocolate because it contains lots of trace minerals that are good for you, and apparently it tastes better too.
- You should find that when you add the dry ingredients to the liquid ones, that the temperature drops to around 33°C (92°F), which is very close to where you want to get to, so it shouldn’t take too much more whisking to get it down.
- The point in starting with warm chocolate and then bringing it down to 31°C(88°F) is to bring chocolate into temper. Having your chocolate “in temper” before you put it into the moulds ensures that you get a nice hard setting chocolate, with a lovely sheen on it and a good strong “snap” sound when you break it.
- If you’re making chocolate on a warm day, you may struggle to get it down to the right temperature. You may need to move to a cooler spot, help it along with some ice-packs around the outside of the bowl, or turn the air-conditioning on. You’ll also want to get the chocolate into the fridge quick smart so it can set before it starts to separate out.
- Chocolate moulds are most definitely not necessary for this recipe. Just use any flattish container you have, and don’t pour it too thick. I enjoy my chocolate best when it’s thin and delicate rather than thick and chunky. But if you can use chocolate moulds, I highly recommend it for the “authentic” experience.
Variations
This raw vegan chocolate recipe is an absolute delight for variations. The only limit is your imagination.
- Add cashew pieces and sultanas (about 1/4 cup for each) to the mix once it reaches temper, for homemade fruit and nut chocolate (my favourite).
- Add chopped activated hazelnuts (about 1/2 cup) to the tempered mix , for homemade hazelnut chocolate.
- Add 1/4 tsp of orange essential oil and 1 tsp of finely grated orange zest, for homemade orange chocolate (can I have two favourites?)
- Add 1/4 tsp peppermint essential oil, for homemade mint chocolate.
- Add whatever nuts, dried fruits or essential oils you prefer and see how it turns out. Be brave!
- Use the tempered mix in Easter egg moulds, for homemade raw vegan chocolate Easter eggs.
- Pour (or scoop) the mix out of the Easter egg moulds before it sets fully for hollow eggs, or fill them with raw caramel sauce, berry sauce, or vanilla cashew cream, and then melt the two halves together for soft-center raw vegan chocolate Easter eggs. Yum!
- Fill pitted medjool dates with raw almond butter, and then coat with chocolate for an out-of-this-world raw vegan snickers bite. O.M.G.
- Drop or pipe small amounts of the tempered mix onto baking paper and freeze for homemade raw vegan chocolate buttons and bits.
- Grate it over your latest raw or vegan masterpiece, like my nut-free chocolate cheesecake.
Have some fun with it and create the chocolate recipe of your dreams. And let me know how it goes.
My inspiration
I started playing with making my own raw vegan chocolate after I came across the Raw Chef’s chocolate making course a couple of years ago.
I also tried a recipe from Chef Amber Shea’s Practically Raw Desserts, and also bought myself Matthew Kenney’s Raw Chocolate cookbook, which has an amazing collection of recipes for inspiration.
I got a bit twisted in knots trying to find both the perfect recipe and the perfect method, and gave up in frustration at one point.
But then I tackled it again, got it mostly sorted, and then my wonderful husband took over for me, and proceeded to make the method incredibly simple.
So I’m very grateful to him for doing that for me, because it keeps me in chocolate, and it allows me to share this (relatively) easy and delicious recipe with you.
Have an awesome day!
36 comments
Dori
I am typically not a commenter. But … I feel I have to.
Actually you are only doing half of the true raw chocolate tempering process. Professional chocolatiers I’ve spoken with (I’m a bit obsessed with raw chocolate!) as well as multiple articles and science on V crystals will tell you …. The most important part is actually lowering the chcocolate to around 81 or 82 degrees F (depends on who you ask!) stirring often, but not fridge or it messes with the crystals !) and then heating it BACK UP to 88 degrees and no hotter. This step is essential to forming the proper V crystals that will give the chocolate the hardest and snappiest snap!
I’ve definitely “cheated” many times and done it half way as your recipe suggests, out of impatience to eat my chocolate, and the result can be very good, but not AS good if done through the full actual tempering process.
Nikki
Hi Dori,
Thanks for the tip. I learned my chocolate making from less well-informed sources apparently.
So that would mean allowing it to get to around 27C and then warming it back up to 31C.
I might just have to add this extra step into my next batch and see if we can’t get an even sharper snap and less “meltiness”.
Thanks!
Sara
Hello Nikki,
I am curious did it work?
this tempering step? did it make it snappier?
Thanks
Nikki , Eating Vibrantly
Hi Sara,
Sadly, I’ve not got around to making another batch and testing this out, as I’m not eating chocolate at the moment.
If you do give it a try, I’d love to know how you go.
gabe
hey is there a trick to make them not melty? Mine melt right when i touch them : (
Nikki
Hi Gabe,
The tempering step (where you heat it and then cool it), should make it firm, snappable and not melty.
However, I have occasionally had this issue where it melts to the touch even then, and what seemed to fix it was slightly adjusting the balance of sweetener, because they may vary in water content, which can affect the setting properties of your chocolate.
Start by putting in a little less and see if that helps it to stay firm at body temperature. And be super precise with your measurements too, because this recipe can be quite fussy.
Let me know how you go!
Natalie
Hi there I have used your recipe about 4 times with great success! I love it and so do friends and family. I add orange zest, cinnamon and chilli :) Thank you so much for Sharing.
Now for my question. Can I freeze the chocolate to keep it longer?How long can it last in fridge? Thanks again Natalie x
Nikki
Hi Natalie,
Wow, I love the sound of your combinations! Thank you for sharing them.
You can absolutely freeze this chocolate, although keeping it in the fridge also works.
Honestly I’ve never kept it until it went off, so I don’t know how long it too long, but we’ve certainly kept ours in the fridge for weeks and even months without an issue.
I would say that 3-6 months in the fridge would be the ideal maximum, possibly longer in the freezer.
Really what you’re trying to do it ensure that the oils in the chocolate don’t go rancid.
Hadara
Hi Nikki,
This is a fantastic recipe! I am a pretty strict vegan and its really difficult sometimes to find good deserts. I actually tried it with two variations of sweeteners, one with maple syrup and the other with coconut sugar. Both turned out to be fantastic. Thank you for this!
Nikki
Hi Hadara,
Thanks for sharing that your variations worked out so well for you. I’m so glad you loved it!
sue
Hi!
I know this changes the recipe but I dislike agave and maple syrup.
Any ideas on using organic sugar or coconut sugar?
Many thanks!
Nikki
Hi Sue,
I haven’t tried this recipe with dry sugars, so I’m not sure how I’d adjust the recipe to make it work.
If you want to avoid agave nectar and maple syrup, it might be simpler to use another liquid sweetener, like coconut nectar, yacon syrup, raw honey (not vegan) or brown rice syrup (not raw).
kelli
ok so if i a using a dehydrator how do i do it? do i still temper it ?
Nikki
Hi Kelli,
Absolutely. Tempering your chocolate gives it that “snap” and stops it melting in your hand, no matter what method you use.
I use my dehydrator to melt the cacao butter to around 40-45°C. Basically just put it in a bowl, put it in your dehydrator at around 40-45°C, leave it in there until it’s all melted (which might take a little while) and when you take it out, it will be at 40-45°C, ready for the next steps.
You can get all of the other ingredients ready while it’s melting, and if you use a glass mixing bowl to do it, I’ve found that it maintains the chocolate at just the right temperature to bring it into temper, at around 30-32°C, as it cools down while you’re mixing in the other ingredients.
Apperna S
Hi. I wanted to know how much Maple syrup should be used in the place of agave syrup in this recipe.
Nikki
Hi Apperna,
I would say that you should be able to swap maple syrup directly for the agave nectar, so I’d use the same amount (1/4 cup). I know that maple syrup is slightly runnier than agave nectar, so it might change the setting properties slightly, but if it does, just try decreasing the maple syrup a little with the next batch.
Martine Bracke
Can I had coconut milk so it doesn’t taste to dark?
Nikki
Hi Martine,
I’ve never tried this, but I suspect that the chocolate won’t set if you do that. In fact, that’s how we ended up making our raw vegan chocolate cheesecake by accident (but that used a whole tin of coconut milk).
The few suggestions I’ve seen around to make it taste less dark involve adding nuts as inclusions – so you could add chopped cashews, macadamias, hazelnuts or Brazil nuts – which will help to break up the dark flavour without preventing it from setting.
Fiona
Hi Martine and Nikki
:) Thank you Nikki for a wonderful site, I like the update! To make more of a “milk” chocolate, (using an extremely basic and not-so-elegant recipe as Nikki’s) I use a handful of unroasted cashew nuts, ground finely, and reduce the cacao powder. I hope that helps. My favourite is peppermint with cacao nibs for the peppermint crunch!
Nikki Stokes
Hi Fiona,
I like your suggestion for a milkier vegan chocolate, and your peppermint crunch sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing!
francine lee
hey there!
just made this last night and shared with my neighbor — delicious!!
came out glossy and tasty. thank you for sharing this recipe <3
one question — my chocolate is soft. it does not have a snap, and immediately melts in my hand. what could i do to make it set harder?
i followed the weight (grams) of the recipe, and just made a quarter of the batch as it was a test. i dont have a thermometer, so i just had a double boiler set on the lowest stove setting. after everything melted and stirred together, i took the bowl off, and left it aside to cool for some minutes. then i poured into a mold, let it sit for 5 more minutes, then put it in the fridge for an hour.
Nikki
Hi Francine,
I think the temperatures are reasonably important to get it to have that hard “snap”. So if you want it to set hard, you might need to find a way to measure the temps more accurately as you go along.
But sometimes, even mine melts a very little around the edges in my hands, so a little melting is not entirely unexpected. And if it tastes great anyway, then you’re most of the way there.
The only other thing you might do is try using slightly more or less sweetener, because that one seems to have the biggest impact on the setting ability of my batches.
Emma
Id love to know where you got those moulds from! They look great :)
Nikki
Hi Emma,
I ordered these fantastic moulds from a place called Aldax in Australia.
But if you search your favourite online stores for chocolate bar moulds, or break-apart chocolate moulds, you should be able to find something similar, like this chocolate bar mould from Amazon.com.
jayney
Hi, I tried this recipe and found that the agave was sort of ‘bubbling out’ of the chocolate when cooled. It made it very difficult to get the chocolates out of the mould as half was left in the mould. Any thoughts?
Many thanks
Jayney
Nikki
Hi Jayney,
I’ve had this problem before, and I think it was because it cooled down too slowly.
I made some on a very warm day and the agave started to separate out before it could set properly.
Do you think that could be what happened to you?
Katie
Hello
I was wondering if you could use liquid vanilla instead of powdered. I have no idea where to even get powdered vanilla. Do you have a homemade recipe I could follow for it?
Nikki
Hi Katie,
I’m guessing that liquid vanilla might change the balance in the chocolate, and it might not set properly, but I’ve never tried it so I can’t say for sure.
I make my vanilla bean powder by leaving a bunch of vanilla beans in an open jar in my pantry for a month or two, and then grinding them in small batches to a powder in a coffee grinder.
But if you can’t wait that long, just split a fresh vanilla bean in half down the length of it and scrape the insides of the bean into your chocolate, and that should do the trick, without stopping the chocolate from setting.
If you don’t have access to vanilla beans, you might be better off leaving it out entirely. I’m sure it will still taste good.
Gregor
This is THE best chocolate recipe I have tried! I have a few questions if someone would know to answer:
1. have you tried to do it with cacao paste and how much would it go into this recipe?
2. have you tried to make it darker by putting in more cacao powder and how much?
3. by calculating this would be 20% dark chocolate (60g of cocoa powder is 20% out of all ingredients). Is this correct or should I add the cocoa butter to that 60g of cocoa powder? It just doesn’t seems right…in store they have 80% dark chocolate..I can’t imagine putting that extra cocoa powder in, it probably just wouldn’t work it would be too much density (?)
Today I’ll make your Raw vegan cheesecake ;) Can’t wait to try it!! :))
Thank you!
Nikki
Hi Gregor,
Thank you for your enthusiasm. It is pretty good, isn’t it? I love how simple it is too.
In answer to your questions:
1. No I haven’t tried it with cacao paste, mostly because I’ve never seen it in my health food shops and I’ve never gone looking for it. As I understand it cacao paste is ground up cacao beans, which means it includes both cacao butter and cacao powder. It’s a totally different recipe at that point, which I can’t help you with, but the basic chocolate recipe (which I’ve never made) in Matthew Kenney’s Raw Chocolate cookbook uses 2.5 cups cacao liquor (AKA paste) to 2 cups cacao butter, plus 1 tbsp vanilla extract and 1/2 cup liquid sweetener, so that might give you an idea.
2. I have not tried making it darker, although I have played a little with the quantities and found that adding more powder did stop it setting as well.
3. I’m not 100% sure how they calculate the percentages on chocolate, but I do believe that any ingredient that comes from the cocoa bean is included, so the cacao butter is included in that total, which would make this recipe around the 77-78% mark, so it’s pretty dark already.
Enjoy the cheesecake!
Ria
Thanks for this recipe, did you mean to write 1/64 tsp salt?
Nikki
Hi Ria,
Yes, I did mean 1/64 tsp. The chocolate needs some salt to balance the flavours, but a little goes a long way.
I have some fancy measuring spoons that go down to 1/64, but basically it’s a tiny, tiny pinch, equal to 1/4 of 1/4 of a 1/4 tsp.
Hope that helps :)
Bethany Beyer
Wow! Awesomeness. I too need chocolate daily. I love salt as well, especially with caramel chocolate! However, I have been using baker’s 100% chocolate (by kraft) because of Consumer Lab’s reports on cacao powders. I am hoping the insane amounts of raw cacao powder that I have consumed has not been detrimental to my health (lead and cadmium concerns) I am also hoping consumer lab was not bought off by Kraft! I don’t suppose you have heard anything more than the average citizen? Thanks!
Nikki
Hi Bethany,
There’s a lot of mixed messages out there about the benefits and risks of cacao, isn’t there? And honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t some “undue influence” coming from industry. But at the same time Consumer Lab have probably also tried to be as impartial as possible.
Sadly, I don’t have access to any more “insider” information about this. Many people who recommend dark and raw chocolate, still suggest eating it in moderation, and personally I’d be more concerned about the sugar content in my desserts than the heavy metals. At least Baker’s is 100% chocolate/cacao, so that’s something.
If you’re concerned about heavy metals, some of the best ways to detox them from your body are lots of leafy greens (especially coriander/cilantro) and lots of water, plus anything that supports your liver, like garlic and onions, milk thistle and chlorella.
And the best kept secret of all? Listen to your body. It’s constantly sending you subtle signals, including after you eat certain foods, so if you can learn to listen to them, and only eat what makes your body feel better, then you’ll be headed in the right direction, whether that includes chocolate or not. ♥
Yum Girl
Welcome to Yum Goggle! I am Kelli – my daughter Holli and I own this website and are about to celebrate our 3 month anniversary. We have upgraded, redesigned and put new emphasis on this established website and hope you will grow along with us. We are now following you on all applicable social media and hope you will follow us back. As we feature your post we will tag you. We hope you will continue to submit…BTW, this post will lead off our nightly newsletter – hope you are signed up! Kelli
Nikki
Hi Kelli,
Thank you and all the best with growing your site.