Chocolate Turtles

I love how shiny the chocolate is!
(I set it on top of my organizer, so ignore the sorry background!)

Here is another recipe from Stephanie Tourles’ book, Raw Energy. This is a reworking of a classic chocolate treat, turtles, which combines chocolate, caramel and nuts. People have reworked turtles, but never like this! I have successfully enjoyed this treat and didn’t feel guilty one bit. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Have a sweet treat, don’t deprive yourself, and don’t feel bad about it either!


To demonstrate how much better this recipe is in terms of ingredients, I thought I’d compare it to a recipe for regular chocolate turtles. I went to http://www.cooks.com/ because it had an actual recipe for chocolate turtles. Other places had recipes for chocolate turtle pie, cheesecake, brownies. Not exactly what I was looking for. (Did I mention people had reworked the turtle recipe? Wow!) Anyway, I found a recipe that seemed simple and was the classic chocolate turtle treat with nuts, caramel and chocolate. You can click here to go to the recipe I found, but the ingredient list includes caramels, evaporated milk, pecans, butter, chocolate chips and vegetable oil.

The caramels are cooked butter and sugar, the evaporated milk is processed, cooked and canned, the pecans are, well, pecans, the butter is probably pasteurized, and the chocolate chips are full of sugar and processed chocolate. And, most likely the vegetable oil is probably soy, which I choose to avoid. (To find out why, see this post.)

Now, compare all those processed, sugary ingredients with the ingredients for Ms. Tourles’ turtles: raw almond butter, raw cocoa (cacao) powder, raw agave nectar, raw pecan halves. Four ingredients with no butter and no extra sugar. Granted, there’s no caramel substitute. But, believe me, once you try it, you won’t care that there’s no caramel. If you like chocolate and nuts, you’ll love this version. And, it is so easy!

Basically, the recipe is equal parts almond butter and cocoa powder, with half the amount of agave nectar. For example, if you use ½ cup almond butter, you’ll use ½ cup cocoa powder and ¼ cup agave nectar. Put these three ingredients in a bowl and slowly stir together. You have to go slow because the cocoa powder is so loose and light. Eventually, you’ll see it mixing and becoming a dark chocolate mass. Once it is all incorporated, pinch off small pieces and roll them into balls, placing the balls on wax paper. Gently press your chosen nut, whether that is classic pecans or what-I-have-on-hand almonds, onto the top of each ball. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Ms. Tourles recommends an 8-inch pan, but I just lined a large rectangular tupperware with wax paper. This was very convenient for covering, chilling and storing. Ms. Tourles also says she likes to store them in the freezer (for up to 3 months), where they “become quite firm but still chewy”. Mine were a little too hard when coming out of the freezer, so I prefer to keep them in the fridge, where they can be stored in a tightly sealed container for up to 3 weeks.

So, I’ve included a picture of my almond-topped turtles. I love how easy this recipe is, and they really are delicious. The almond butter gives you good fats, and if you make it yourself, you know there are no preservatives or additives. The agave nectar is a wonderful sweetener that won’t give you a sugar rush or crash later. And, of course, the almonds are full of fiber, good fats, protein and all kinds of good stuff. The cacao powder – well, that’s up for some debate. I suppose chocolate is still chocolate. But, I for one am happy to have a yummy alternative to a chocolate treat loaded with sugar and butter.

Organic Chocolate!

This was my Valentine's Day gift from my hubby. Two bars of chocolate that we can both feel good about! Both are made by Alter Eco (their website, www.altereco.com is in French for those who would like to test their French, but they have a link to their North American website, www.altereco-usa.com, which is in English). The bars have information on their packaging about the chocolate, where it comes from and how purchasing their product helps farmers.

The cocoa is from the El Ceibo cooperative in Bolivia, and benefits 800 families/small-scale farmers and promotes sustainable agriculture and improved living standards, while protecting their environment. Interesting, funny tidbit - the cocoa is from Bolivia, the chocolate was made in Switzerland, and it was distributed by Alter Eco Americas out of San Francisco. It's a world-wide production!

The packaging also contains information about the ingredients. I loved reading the ingredient list: four ingredients in the Dark Chocolate Almond, and five ingredients in the Dark Chocolate Velvet - and I could pronounce them all without a degree in science. Isn't that refreshing? No preservatives, no -oses, no -ates, no -ides, no partially hydrogenated ANYTHING! Just cocoa mass, unrefined or raw cane sugar, cocoa butter, almond, whole milk powder and melted butter. And, all ingredients (except the melted butter) were Organic, with most of them also being Fair Trade Certified. The Almond was also labeled as Vegan and GMO Free, while the Velvet was labeled Gluten, Soy and GMO Free. I can feel pretty good about that!

Oh Yeah! The taste! It tastes wonderful! My husband is not a fan of dark chocolate, and I myself would probably choose it last if given a choice of the 3 chocolates (milk, white or dark). I think that might be a result of the bitter taste I've experienced in the past (which may - for all I know - come from the processing with chemicals or from preservatives) AND how I tended to eat chocolate as a youngster. By the handfuls! Oh, come on, we all ate chocolate that way. They don't sell bite-sized, individually wrapped chocolates in a huge bag for no reason! And, I cannot eat just one. In my younger days, a whole bar of chocolate would be devoured in one sitting. Now that I am older, I savor my chocolate like a good wine paired with the right meal.

This dark chocolate was really good, though. The bittersweet-ness was there, but it was much more subtle and just at the beginning. As the chocolate melted in my mouth, the creaminess became more apparent, and the chocolate flavor was sweet but not too sweet. I was so happy to receive this as a gift, and it was so special to me that we have shared one square each for the past two nights, just to make it last longer. And, you know what? That one square of lovely chocolate is almost enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. Then, I open the other package, take a square from it and then I'm good! :-)

So, in summary, it is delicious, and simply made with no preservatives, 100% natural, and organic and helps small-scale farmers protect their environment and practice sustainable agriculture. What's not to love?

Glendale Chocolate Affaire

The Glendale Chocolate Affaire (Festival) took place last weekend, February 5th through the 7th, at Historic Downtown Glendale. I thought it would be fun to go and try to find purveyors of raw chocolate or organic chocolate. Plus, I thought we would be able to sample chocolate - yummy! Who can resist that?

It worked out wonderfully. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and Downtown Glendale has quite a few restaurants right around the park area, so we had dinner first (that post coming later), and then walked around the festival and had dessert. (When we had finished dinner, our server asked if we would like any dessert. I quickly responded, "No, thank you." My husband looked at me with surprise, almost asking if I was okay, how could I not even ponder the idea of having dessert? I ALWAYS have dessert. I smiled and told him I planned on getting some chocolate at the festival, and he laughed, saying, "I thought you said no really quick!" He didn't realize I already had a plan!)

I know I'm posting about this a little late (since it's over), but I highly recommend going next year. They have two stages for live bands to perform, vendors who sell stuff besides chocolate, and of course, food vendors - of chocolate and other yummy stuff. They also had tours of Cerreta's Candy Company all weekend.

Another feature of the festival is the Romance Writer Workshops, sponsored by the Valley of the Sun Romance Writers. Romance authors from all over the country put on workshops for aspiring novelists, autograph their novels and have their novels available for purchase. Some of the workshops would have been awesome to attend. Some workshop titles were "How to start a book and get it finished", "Five keys to unforgettable dialogue" and "Promotion 101". All were presented by a published, successful author or authors. Unfortunately for me, the workshops were only on Saturday and Sunday, and we were there Friday night, with plans for the weekend. So, I'll have to attend the workshops - which were free! - next year.

The festival also had things for the kiddies, like horse and carriage rides and a kids zone.

But, I was there for the chocolate!! We cased the whole joint, seeing who had what, and then, while I decided what chocolate I wanted for dessert, we listened to the live music. The band performing at the time was Peppermint James. They were really good!

I finally decided to have two of my favorite indulgences AT THE SAME TIME, and bought a chocolate covered cheesecake, dipped in nuts. The vendor was the San Francisco Chocolate Company. Here is a picture of my yummy treat. (Again, I just started diggin' in before I remembered to take a picture!)


They can put anything on a stick!



Doesn't that just look sinfully delicious?! It was so yummy. I enjoyed it, and I even shared it with my hubby.

The other reason we were there, besides eating yummy chocolate, was to find vendors of raw and/or organic chocolate. I didn't find any raw chocolate, but we did find organic chocolate. Wei of Chocolate sells dark chocolate that is USDA organic and fair trade certified organic, and vegan, in flavors with names that evoke calming and holistic images - Daily Gratitude, Inner Peace, and Inner Delight, just to name a few. Check out their website by clicking here, or check out their blog by clicking here. We tried samples of their Chai, Chili and Fruit flavored dark chocolate, and both liked the Chai best - but we are Chai tea drinkers, so that was probably going to happen.

I will definitely want to go back to the Glendale Chocolate Affaire next year, for the writers workshops, the live music and above all - the CHOCOLATE!