I don’t know who first came up with the idea of eating chocolate on Valentine’s Day, Easter or Christmas time, but I love doing it!

Not just at holidays, but every day! What better way to be reminded of the sweetness of the gospel of Jesus Christ at holidays, and every day, than to eat chocolate?! Right?! Well, OK, the Sunday School answer is really to say “service.” So maybe make some to give away as service to celebrate Jesus and then save some to eat for yourself, :-).

The great news is, you can make your own sugar-free chocolate if you don’t want to gain weight by eating all the sugary kinds. You can get fun molds from Amazon for different holidays too!

Here’s the recipe, adapted from the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook (called Skinny Chocolate in the book):

Note: after years of making this, I’ve had to stop using cocoa powder. Eating cocoa powder every day in the form of hot cocoa and/or homemade chocolate was giving me insomnia.  Probably because of its caffeine-like stimulant. So now I use carob powder instead and it still tastes yummy, as long as I have enough sweetener. I never thought I would like carob after bad childhood memories of having it fail as a sub for cocoa in carob brownies. You just have to make sure you have enough sweetener. If you are not eating it every day then using cocoa powder would probably be OK for you.

In a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water, melt 1 cup cocoa butter or coconut oil. I prefer cocoa butter, as it tastes better, but I use coconut oil when I’m out of cocoa butter. Coconut oil melts more easily at room temperature. So if you use that you will have to keep your final product in the fridge.

Cocoa butter is harder to find in regular grocery stores. You can find it on amazon or at natural health food stores, in the health and beauty aisle. The picture below shows cocoa butter chunks as they come from Amazon.

While the oil is melting, decide where to put the chocolate when it’s ready to form. If you want to be fun and fancy, for holidays, use chocolate molds from Amazon or a hobby store, and a pipette. The molds come in fun shapes like Easter eggs or Christmas trees. If you don’t want to be fancy, use bread loaf pans lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper makes it easy to lift out the chocolate after it hardens so you can then cut it into chunks. Here’s what the cocoa butter looks like after melting.

Then mix together the following dry ingredients:

-1/2 cup carob or cocoa powder

-3/4 cup powdered Swerve sweetener of Lakanto monk fruit sweetener

(or use whatever desired sweetener you want, like ground up Rapadura or Sucanat if you don’t want to be sugar-free, but if it’s honey don’t add it yet, add the honey to the melted oil. Then add that liquid mixture to the dry mixture after you mix the cocoa and salt together.)

-pinches of mineral salt

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a parchment paper-lined loaf pan. Taste this brown powdery substance. Add more salt or more sweetener to adjust taste to your likeness. Once it is perfect, add the melted oil (already blended with the honey if honey is your sweetener of choice) and mix until thoroughly blended. Add essential oils or vanilla extract if you want. I have tried peppermint and orange oils and loved them. The Trim Healthy Mama Natural Burst Caramel Extract Flavor was super yummy as well. Freeze for a few hours. Than pop out of molds or cut into rustic chunks and store in a glass jar if your house isn’t too warm. If it’s warm, above 72 degrees F, store in the fridge.

Yum! A few squares a day keeps the sugar cravings away! The basic recipe is half the amount of cocoa powder or carob powder to 1 part cocoa butter, and then 3/4 part sweetener to 1 part cocoa butter, plus a pinch or two of mineral salt.