Howdy!
Today I’m wanting to draw your attention to a recipe which is already hidden on the blog, but you may not have noticed it. It’s embedded within another recipe – it’s the Magical Chocolate Sauce which fills the indentations of the Spiced Peanut Thumbprint Cookies.
I’m still having some trouble converting blog posts into recipe pages on this new website, but that’s not your problem. Unfortunately what it means at this stage is that some of the recipes are on the recipe pages and some aren’t, so the unassuming little chocolate sauce recipe is easy to miss. But it’s pretty spectacular and deserves a post in it’s own right.
A couple of weeks ago, we ran a workshop which had quite a few attendees who’d been at an earlier event (a few months previously). It was great that: a. they enjoyed the first workshop enough to come back for more, and b. we got to hear about how people were incorporating the recipes and principles we’d talked about into their own lives. This Magical Chocolate Sauce recipe was something we’d served at the first workshop, and if it had ears they would have been burning, as it came in for more than its fair share of compliments. The people who had not been at the first workshop were (metaphorically) twisting my arm for the recipe – and then I realised it’s actually already on the blog, so they could give me back my elbow thank you very much. Here it is again.
Magical Chocolate Sauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cacao or cocoa powder
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted (see note)
2 – 3 tablespoons maple syrup (according to taste)
Place all ingredients in a jug and process with a stick blender, or use a mini blender/food processor. Actually even a whisk and a deft flick of the wrist would do the trick.
Optional extras: a dash of cinnamon, a splash of nut milk, a sprinkle of grated orange or lime rind
Note: If it isn’t one of the three days of the year when coconut oil is liquid at room temperature in Dunedin, I melt this in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Should the inevitable happen, and you get distracted on the phone while a “representative” of “microsoft” berates you about the “virus” on your computer which is about to bring about the end of world civilisation, you may return and find that the sauce is now solid again. If so, just remix it as above – in a bowl over simmering water. The coconut oil may make it firm up at room temperature pretty quickly, depending on your climate.
The big question about this recipe: is it magical? I believe it may be. It’s ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. It’s vegan, free of processed sugar and dairy, and tastes absolutely divine. It has a multitude of uses – if you have strawberries in need of coating, it will do just that; it can be drizzled over bananas and ice cream to make a banana split; it serves as icing or filling for cookies/biscuits (as in the thumbprint cookies recipe); and I sometimes inexplicably find myself just eating it by the spoonful at the end of the day. It’s also really great if you remove the stone from a fresh medjool date, fill the gap with a pecan nut, then dip the whole thing in this sauce. (But for Pete’s sake do NOT forget to remove the date pit – your dentist can add a few more days to his/her next Mediterranean cruise if you neglect this step.)
It also makes a fabulous chocolate fondue, and I know for a fact (as a four-year-old told me) that I am a very strong contender for Aunty of the Month if I make this when my nieces come around. I hope you enjoy it as much as they do!
(For a printable version of this recipe, click here – scroll down and click “print” on the right.)
