How to Make Divine Raw Cacao Delicacies

Raw cacao is a delight to experiment with its divine and delicate nature in raw cuisine and gourmet treats. Here at Sunfood, we're fortunate to have several different forms of purely raw cacao - beans, nibs, powder, butter, and paste. This gives us opportunities to experiment and discover, from more traditional Mayan methods to gourmet raw food cuisine delicacies.

How to Use Untempered Cacao

Sunfood cacao paste comes directly from delicious Ecuadorian cacao beans. It's prepared by delicately grinding cacao nibs at low temperatures to yield a rich chocolaty paste. This cakey mixture is poured into molds and allowed to cool, creating pure sold bricks of cacao paste.

Cacao butter makes up part of cacao paste. As cacao butter can crystallize into several different forms, only one of these forms is stable and produces crisp, smooth chocolates. Tempering is when the cacao paste is held at a precise temperature and further mixed for an extended period of time. By tempering chocolate, chocolatiers can 'control' cacao butter to only use the form that produces perfect chocolate results every time.

This process creates the very smallest particles of cacao (60 microns) and causes the cacao butter within the paste to crystalize evenly when it cools, preventing a chalky or crumbly paste and giving it a consistent, dark color and shine. This form of cacao is ideal for creating the very best chocolaty creations.

Using both tempered and un-tempered cacao paste is easy. Simply melt paste in a dehydrator or over very low temperatures (around 115 degrees F) to produce thick, luscious, creamy liquor. This can be then be used in making thick hot chocolate beverages, chocolate sauces or raw chocolates. Un-tempered cacao paste will not be quite as shiny and smooth as tempered cacao paste, but the flavor is remarkably similar.

Additional Benefits of Cacao

Just like Sunfood's other raw cacao products, raw cacao paste offers a powerful boost of phenylethylamine (PEA) and anandamide. A natural aphrodisiac, PEA is the pleasure chemical found in brains of people in love; no wonder people are attracted to chocolate!

Cacao is a natural source of trace minerals, such as manganese, zinc and copper, helping to maintain healthy blood while theobromine, iron, chromium, magnesium and omega-6 fatty acids play an important role in heart health, brain function, growth and development. Also, antioxidants, including polyphenols, catechins and epicatechins help to fight off free radicals, giving you a healthy, energizing complete superfood.

Recipe for Simple Delicious Chocolate

Rich in magnesium, iron, antioxidants, this amazing simple recipe is like no other. Add in maca, bee pollen, goji berries, shilajit, or cashews to enhance the super nutrition of this extra-ordinary chocolate recipe.