I Can't Believe it's not Chocolate

Dairy free, sugar free chocolate – yes, it can be done!

I’m trying to eat Paleo. It’s hard. I love sugar, I love food, I love bread, but it doesn’t love me. You can go and Google about the Paleolithic lifestyle, but for the purpose of introducing this recipe, I’ll just let you know the very basic ‘rules’ – nothing refined and no grains. That's right, no rice, no wheat, no sugar. It’s not so much a diet to lose kilos (although that can be a pleasant side effect), but about health and digestion and giving your body what it was designed to metabolise. I’ve only been trying it for 4 weeks about 80% of the time as I just can’t seem to give up my 5pm G&T nor glass of vino with dinner, but I certainly feel lighter, though I don’t own scales. It’s made my skin clearer, given me loads more energy and helped me sleep better.

The meals are the easy part. I love meat and salad/veges – no complaints. My difficulty is my sweet tooth, love of chocolate and snacks. Reaching for the container of dried apricots or raw nuts just doesn’t cut it for me day-in-day-out.

Someone my husband works with had some of this ‘chocolate’ and I believe she subscribes to the Paleo lifestyle so I thought I’d give it a go when she was kind enough to share the recipe. I needed it sweeter than her original guide so tweaked it a little.

If you are a normal, chocolate eating person, you will hate this, but if, like me, you have deprived yourself of chocolate, this is a DELICIOUS treat. Some of the ingredients might sound weird, but honestly you can get everything at the health food store.

Paleo Friendly Chocolate

200g raw cacao

80g goji berries

150g raw mixed nuts

120g sultanas

50ml Manuka honey

80ml coconut oil

1tbsp boiling water

Process dry ingredients as finely as you can.

Add honey, oil and water.

Process to combine and pour into a 20cm, lined, cake tin.

Refrigerate 4 hours to set and cut into bite sized pieces.

Keep in refrigerator.