Bite-Sized Chocolate Treats

Even if you know the Easter holidays aren’t about candy, it’s hard not to feel lonely and deprived when everyone else is enthusiastically tearing into chocolate bunnies and cheerful little bags of candy. Chocolate isn’t an everyday staple food, but it’s a delicious Paleo treat, and these homemade chocolate bites are a much healthier indulgence than a bag of store-bought candy. The miniature size makes them easier not to overeat, and you can adjust the recipe to make more or fewer. I used a mini-muffin tin tray that makes 24 cups, but if you know you’ll eat any leftovers right away, you can just make enough for one dessert to avoid the temptation.

A note on the ingredients: if you’re going to treat yourself, treat yourself well, and use the best ingredients you can find. Choose a good dark chocolate, not the cheap kind full of preservatives and sugar. If you can get a brand without soy lecithin, that’s even better. Not only is this healthier for you (more beneficial antioxidants and nutrients, and less sugar), but it also tastes better.

Once you have high-quality ingredients, make sure to also treat them properly. Burned chocolate tastes terrible, so use a double boiler (also called a bain-marie) to heat the chocolate slowly and evenly and keep it delicious. If you don’t have a bain-marie, an aluminum bowl on top of a pot full of water will work just as well.

The chocolate is the base for this recipe, but the rest is up to you: try one of the suggested fillings below, mix and match, or bring in your own ideas. An almond butter filling will give you a kind of Paleo Reeses Cup, only without the plastic, waxy taste of cheap chocolate. Coconut flakes, dried fruit, or other nuts or nut butters would also be delicious. For any kind of nut butter, it’s easier to add if you let it come to room temperature before spooning it into the cups, since it gets hard in the fridge.

Bite-Sized Chocolate Treats Recipe

Serves 24

Prep. Time: 30 min.

Cooking Time: 1h15 min.

Ingredients

• 500g chocolate, (70% cacao or darker);
• 24 mini paper cups

Filling Suggestions

• 1 tsp. per paper cup: Almond butter;
• 1 tsp. per paper cup: Raw honey combined with thinly sliced almonds;
• 1 tsp. per paper cup: Homemade raspberry jam or peach butter;

Preparation

1. Place a paper cup in each muffin tin.
2. Heat the water in the bain-marie.
3. Melt the chocolate in the bain-marie on a low heat, about 5 minutes.
4. Remove the bain-marie from the heat and keep the chocolate over the hot water during the whole preparation to keep the chocolate from hardening again.
5. Add 1 tbsp. of chocolate to each paper cup and spread the chocolate all around the cup.
6. Once the paper cups are all done; place the tray in the freezer for approximately 10 minutes.
7. Keep the remaining chocolate over the hot water for the next steps as well.
8. Once the chocolate has completely cooled down and has hardened, add 1tsp of any filling of your choice to each cup.
9. Add more chocolate (1 tsp. or more) to fill the paper cups, making sure the filling is all covered.
10. Place the tray in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to ensure that all the chocolate is well hardened.
11. You can serve these treats with or without the paper cups.