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Friday 29 March 2013

Creamy Almond Coconut Easter Eggs


So, with Easter upon us, I decided to make a healthier Easter treat for Jim and the boys. I found this idea online,  made a few tweaks to suit the ingredients I had on hand, and came up with this recipe. Which tastes pretty darn good. I had such high hopes! Everything was going along great, until the dipping part. The chocolate chips, when melted, were pretty thick, so I used a bit of coconut oil to thin the mixture. But, alas, when I set them on the parchment, it pooled all around the edges, and didn't look very pretty. So I set them on a wire cooling rack instead, and the extra chocolate could just, in theory, drip away. But, as it cooled, they stuck soundly to the wire rack, and, when cold,  peeled most of the chocolate off the bottoms of the eggs. I had to patch the bottoms with more chocolate, which was messy, and by this time, not fun anymore! I ended up having to drizzle the last of the melted chocolate over the tops to disguise the drips from the patch job.  On the bright side, Jim says they are awesome, so maybe someone out there in internet land can figure out a way to make coating them easier! Leave a comment if you do, I would love to give them another go!

Creamy Almond Coconut Easter Eggs
Filling: 
½ cup coconut sugar, whizzed in blender to a fine powder (see picture below)
1 cup smooth organic almond butter (or other nut butter of choice)
1 200g package of organic coconut cream (soften bag in a bowl of warm water to make it workable)
½ cup room temp (slightly soft) coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla

Chocolate coating:
1 283g bag of Enjoy Life Chocolate chips
2 Tbsp coconut oil

In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl with a hand mixer,  mix all of the filling ingredients
Mix well in blender with paddle attachment until you have a smooth creamy batter.

***Optional step:  For Chocolate variation, at this point add:
egg shaped filling
6 tbsp raw cacao powder ( I took out half of the batter, and added 3 tbsp to one half of the recipe so we would have 2 flavours)

Chill for 1 hr to firm up the batter.
Using a 1 tbsp measuring spoon, scoop out the chilled batter onto a pan covered in parchment paper or waxed paper. Gently encourage each tbsp of batter into an egg shape.  THIS IS A MESSY JOB!!! The dough does start getting mucky when it starts to warm up, so you will need to work quickly. Don’t worry a whole lot about the overall texture of the egg, as the chocolate coating will cover it anyway, you are working towards the shape.
Place egg shapes in freezer to chill again for another ½ hour or so.
When the eggs have firmed up, melt your chocolate chips and coconut oil together in a double boiler or heat proof bowl over gently boiling water. As soon as it is melted, dip your eggs, using a fork or other convenient dipping tool. Place dipped eggs on a wire rack and refrigerate again until the chocolate coating has hardened.
*** Now here is where I ran into some trouble. When I tried to take the cooled eggs off of the wire racks, most of them stuck, and ended up removing most of the chocolate from the bottoms. I used a spoon and more chocolate to patch them up, and chilled them again , upside down to firm up the base.
When completely  cool, turn eggs over and drizzle with remaining chocolate to decorate the tops and disguise any drips from patching up the bottoms.
Dipped Eggs
These will need to be stored in the refrigerator or freezer, as they will melt somewhat at room temperature. This made about 35 tbsp sized eggs.
So sad, the bottoms
peeled right off :(

Action shot!
This shows the difference
between the coconut sugar
as is, and then after it has been
blended, you want a nice fine
powder.





After much to-do, they look kinda pretty!

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