Chocolate Ganache Recipe

So easy and silky smooth – a dairy free delight.

Whether you need a quick choc fix or an impressive chocolate sauce, here it is.

Equipment:  Big bowl and a whisk

Ingredients:

10 Tbs Cacao Powder

6 Tbs Agave Syrup

1 teaspoon coconut oil, sesame oil, or other light unflavoured oil on hand

1/2 vanilla bean (optional)

fine sea salt to taste

Add the first 3 ingredients to the bowl and begin mixing with the whisk – cut the vanilla bean in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds inside, add them to the choc mix, keep mixing. Taste this as you go along, it’s pretty good – now here’s the magic – add just a little salt and taste again to see how the flavour changes – the salt really balances and grounds the sweet sweetness of the agave – you just have to experience this, so go do it!

Use the ganache as a filling, a topping, an icing, a drizzle, chocmilk base, slather it on anything!

"LIKE A COW" - say it like that,

 and stand up!

CACAO that's its real name - not the bastardised Cocoa version - that's for the Englishmen of old who couldn't speak properly while retaining their upper lips stiffened then kindly left us with a confused legacy of cocoa/coco.  It's cuckoo - and it still gets me too.  Coco is for coconut, Cacao is for chocolate (Cocoa is cooked and refined and yes it still has antioxidants and health benefits, providing you select quality) - but!

CACAO IS ALWAYS BETTER - so if I say chocolate - this is what I mean.

 Check out those  fruits growing straight off the trunk!

Cut them in half to reveal the cacao bean inside.  David Wolfe recommends growing Cacao as an indoor plant in Perth - does anyone have any viable seed?

And it's raw - heated under 43* Celsius to retain the nutrients.

There's bucket-loads of info on raw cacao online - I'm about MAKING STUFF - so go googling for info.

All right - I admit, I'm also known to be pedantic with a penchant for pronunciation,  spelling and punctuation but that's completely irrelevant here,

although tangents are fun.

SO

I have a chocolate/raw cacao workshop coming up on April 3rd

and I've been playing a lot in preparation for it

and making silly, impractical things like 

white chocolate zombie skulls with mango jam and walnut brains

and easy and delicious things like cacao mousse, berry pie, brownies, superfood balls and smoothies.

So if you're coming to the Cacao class and have novelty silicone ice trays - bring them!

we'll fill them with things like:

*goji/coconut (better than cherry ripe)

*mango jam

*activated nuts

*crunchy minted buckwheat

*any other delights that pop in between now and then - any requests?

Remember these are all gluten, dairy, cane-sugar and additive free

so you can indulge virtuously,

Naturally!