Nut Butter Filled Chocolate / Carob Candy (allergy & sugar-free opts – similar to Reese’s)

By Kathy C.

http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/chocolate-candy-recipe-peanut-butter-balls-vegan-chocolate/

Ingredients

• Chocolate / Carob Coating:
• 2 cups coconut oil
• 1/2 cup sweetener, as healthy of a choice as possible
• 4 scoops stevia extract powder (or another 1/2 cup sweetener.)
• 1 cup chocolate or roasted carob powder
• 1 cup nut or seed butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Filling:
• 1/2 cup nut or seed butter
• 4 1/2 t coconut oil
• 1/2 cup powdered sweetener (See How to Make Powdered Sugar – Powdered Sugar Substitute)
• 1/2 t salt (I recommend Real Salt)

Details

Adapted from wholenewmom.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Melt coconut oil over very low heat (This is important. If you heat the oil too high, your nice chocolate coating will end up as a gloppy mess. Still edible, but not pretty. Not that I ever did that or anything :-).)
2. Transfer the oil to a bowl, add other ingredients and mix well. I used my Bamix immersion blender to do the mixer. It works great and is my new favorite kitchen tool.
3. Spoon a small amount of the melted chocolate into your molds. Just enough so you have the thickness that you’d like the chocolate coating to be.
4. Place mold in fridge to harden while you make the filling.
5. For filling, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
6. Place filling in freezer to firm.
7. When filling is more firm, remove from freezer and shape into tiny balls.
8. Place one small ball of filling into each mold, on top of the hardened chocolate.
9. Spoon the remaining chocolate all over the filling and fill the mold.
10. Level off the mold with a knife for a nicely shaped candy.
11. Chill until firm and store in fridge or freezer (if you can keep out of them that long).

Notes:
1. Coconut oil isn’t the easiest thing to measure, especially in the winter months (it gets really hard over 76 degrees). I melt mine first and then measure it. Much easier!
2. I used silicone molds, like this one from Amazon. Of course, you could use any shape, like these cute flower molds. I do not recommend mini muffin tins, however, or some other non-flexible option. The candy is just too hard to get out of them and you end up with a crumbly mess (yummy, but crumbly). Of course, you could also just roll the filling into balls and dip it into the chocolate, to make an alternative to peanut butter balls.