Chocolate Bites with Freeze Dried Fruits

Chocolate is Happiness

Life is like chocolate: you should enjoy it piece for piece and let it slowly melt on your tongue, says a quote. These little chocolate bites that I made are very delicious. And they don’t contain any unnecessary ingredients, like soy, preservatives, milk, normal sugar. Chocolate is one of the most popular food and flavors in the world. Do you know anybody who doesn’t like chocolate? I don’t. Chocolate is the result of roasted and ground cacao seeds.  Cacao is a true superfood, containing more antioxidants than blueberries, in addition to a good amount of iron, calcium, and magnesium. It’s an important source of flavonoids, which may have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health, and theobromine, a bitter alkaloid similar to caffeine thought to boost moods and energy.

What does the cocoa percentage mean?

A high-quality fine chocolate bar is made of just a few simple ingredients, typically cocoa liquor – which comes from dried cocoa beans -, and sugar. Some chocolate makers add cocoa butter, vanilla and lecithin. I used 99% chocolate. The percentage means the cacao liquor component’s percentage in the chocolate. Unsweetened chocolate is mainly used for cooking purposes, as it has a cocoa liquor component of more than 85 percent for sweetened versions and up to 99 percent for the unsweetened versions.

Coconut sugar

Not many of us really like unsweetened chocolate. But it is very important what kind of sugar we use to sweeten. The coconut sugar has become very popular sweetener in the past few years, because it’s more nutritious and lower on the glycemic index than sugar. Regular table sugar doesn’t contain any vital nutrients and therefore supply “empty” calories. But coconut sugar does retain quite a bit of the nutrients found in the coconut palm. Iron, zinc, calcium and potassium are these minerals, and some short-chain fatty acids like polyphenols and antioxidants. Coconut sugar contains a fiber called inulin, which may slow glucose absorption and explain why coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index than regular table sugar. Be careful, the coconut sugar is high in calories, same as regular sugar!

I also used coconut oil in the chocolate bites. Coconut oil makes them silky when they are melting in your mouth and gives a nice extra taste too.

Freeze Dried Fruits

On top of the chocolate bites I used freeze-dried fruits with coconut chips. These fruits are not just nice red decorations, they are very delicious too. While they dissolve in your mouth you get the taste of fresh fruit. These fruits are completely natural. No additives, no sugar, and high quality and flavor. They contain all the nutrients of fresh fruit. And are great for baking and cooking.

Freeze-drying is a very gentle dehydration process used for preservation of high-quality foods. Freeze-drying was invented by Jacques-Arsene d’Arsonval at the College de France in Paris in 1906. Some foods freeze-dry very well, but not all food is suitable for freeze-drying. Freeze-drying is commonly used for coffee, fruit, juice, vegetables, herbs, food flavorings, fish, seafood, eggs, and dairy.

Satisfy your Chocolate Cravings:

Need more chocolate in your life and don’t know where to start? Try the Hazelnut Chocolate Cream and make the Crêpe Cake Layered with Fruits and Chocolate with it.