How to Make EASY Real Food Homemade Chocolate

This homemade chocolate is seriously amazing! It’s dairy free, gluten free, soy free and yum, yum, yummy in my tum, tum, tummy (as OG would say).

Yep, that’s right. None of that soy emulsifier yuckiness. I’ll get to the soy free emulsion stuff a bit later.

It’s also made with healthy fats which you can’t say about most store bought chocolate.

That means that this homemade chocolate is quite healthy, with high-quality, magnesium-rich cocoa powder, healthy fats, and just a little natural sweetener.

Why Make Homemade Chocolate?

At Easter time last spring OG started noticing all of the interesting duck shaped and bunny shaped candy. I couldn’t find any dairy-free chocolate Easter candy (at least not any in my budget) so I decided to make homemade chocolate instead. 

There are many dairy-free chocolate recipes using coconut oil but I wanted to learn how to make homemade chocolate that would stay solid at room temperature.  

I checked the back of my favorite DF chocolate and realized (duh!) that I could just use cocoa butter instead of coconut oil!

How to Make Homemade Chocolate

Super simple and delicious homemade chocolate! What could be better?

Supplies:

• 1 cup plus 1 tbs. high-quality cocoa powder (you’ll know it’s high quality when the fat content is 1 gram per tbs. serving, I like this one)
• 1 cup high-quality cocoa butter, food grade (I like this one)*
• 1-2 tsp real vanilla extract
• 1/8-1/4 cup maple syrup**
• Chocolate molds (optional but fun! I used this one for a bar and these ones for fun shapes)

*You can substitute some or all of the cocoa butter with coconut oil, just keep in mind that chocolate made with coconut oil will be softer than chocolate made with cocoa butter.

** I prefer my chocolate on the bitter side so I use closer to 1/8 cup. I suggest starting with 1/8 cup and adding more to taste.

Directions:

In a double boiler (I prefer a metal mixing bowl over a saucepan), add extract and cocoa butter; melt.

When fully melted, turn off heat, whisk in cocoa powder, then whisk in maple syrup.

Now here’s the part about getting the chocolate to emulsify without using an emulsifier. Keep stirring as the chocolate cools. Yep, that’s basically it. Sometimes I’ll stick the bowl in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes at a time to speed up the process.

The more you stir it while it cools the smoother your chocolate will be. It also helps to keep the syrup from sinking to the bottom. This is especially true for chocolate made with coconut oil.

Keep stirring periodically until the chocolate resembles (warm) hot fudge.

Pour into silicone molds or into a greased baking dish. Allow to cool on the counter, in the refrigerator or freezer (if you can get them there without spilling!). If you make a mess, as I did, just use a rubber spatula to clean as much of the spilled chocolate up as possible. A little bit of spilled chocolate will just break off when you remove the chocolate from the molds.

There you have it! Yummy, healthy and adorable homemade chocolate. 

Have you ever made homemade chocolate? How do you do it?