I’ve shared plenty of homemade vegan chocolate recipes before. However, I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve said to me that the sugar doesn’t ‘dissolve’ properly or that it ‘sinks to the bottom’ or it can be a bit crystally or crunchy. It’s true this can happen.

In this post, we are going to solve all of that so that you can make sure your coconut sugar dissipates evenly throughout your homemade chocolate every time. I’ll share an easy recipe too, with only 4 simple ingredients.

So let’s have a little chat about coconut sugar first and get this mystery sorted!

So what actually is coconut sugar?

Coconut sugar is produced from coconut flower blossoms.

According to Wikipedia coconut sugar is produced with a two-step process. “It starts with harvesting or “tapping” the flower bud stem of a coconut tree. Farmers make a cut on the spadix and the sap starts to flow from the cut into bamboo containers. The sap collected is then transferred into large woks and placed over moderate heat to evaporate the moisture content of the sap. The sap is translucent and is about 80% water. At this point it is known as coconut neera or nira (Indonesia), and as coconut toddy (Sri Lanka), maprau (Thailand), or lagbi (North Africa). As the water evaporates, it starts to transform into a thick sap syrup. From this form, it may or may not be further reduced to crystal, block or soft paste form.”

Coconut sugar has a gentle caramel-like flavour and is lower on the glycemic index than regular sugar.

To source the most ethical brands, be sure to find organic and fairly traded coconut sugar.

So let’s get on to the best way to use coconut sugar in chocolate. I prefer to use coconut sugar (rather than a healthy sweet syrup like maple syrup for example) in my chocolate because it helps keep it firmer (chocolate gets a bit softer with syrup).

Today we are going to look at how to stop your coconut sugar from sinking to the bottom of your chocolate…

So why does coconut sugar sometimes sink? The higher you heat your cacao butter, the thinner the viscosity (big word or what!!!). The coconut sugar granules are heavy and tend to drop to the bottom of chocolate (during the cacao butter melting process) IF the viscosity is too thin. So, in essence, the more you heat the cacao butter then thinner the viscosity and the more likely your coconut sugar is to sink. My trick for years has been to ‘JUST’ heat the cacao butter enough to melt it and not anymore. That keeps it just thick enough to minimise the sinking down of the heavier coconut sugar granules. That works for me a treat and is a good method which I recommend.

The other magic method is this…

The other way I discovered recently (after feeling perplexed as to how the raw vegan chocolate in the store was super smooth and the coconut sugar was always perfectly and evenly distributed throughout) was grinding down my coconut sugar! Simple magic! I figured they must have a magical grinding process that gets everything so finely ground down to ensure even dissipation. “Hmmmmmmmmm,” I thought to myself…. “I wonder what happens if I pop my coconut sugar in my nut mill”. So I did. OMG did that ever work a treat! It ground the granules down, not quite to a powder, but much finer than they originally were. I popped them into my chocolate and like a magical dream, for the first time ever, I have effortless, even coconut sugar distribution. Yay! Have a look at my quick video here for more…

So grind your coconut sugar! You can use a nut mill, nutribullet, food processor or anything that grinds stuff down.

And then here’s a super fast video to show you how to make the chocolate…

If you are wondering about chocolate making moulds then please know that you can find them easily on eBay. I often use my parchment paper method too (simply get a container and line it with parchment paper, then pour your chocolate into that).

Homemade vegan chocolate recipes are abundant in my kitchen. I usually make it up when I am at home and they all taste pretty delicious. This is a nice one that works well…

Homemade vegan chocolate ingredients and instructions

6 tablespoons cacao butter (chopped)

3 tablespoons coconut sugar

5 tablespoons cacao powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grind your coconut sugar down to a finer consistency (this ‘finer’ nature will allow it to dissipate evenly through the chocolate, ensuring that it doesn’t sink to the bottom whilst the chocolate is setting). Chop your cacao butter into fine pieces (this makes the process of melting much easier). You might also have cacao butter drops (in which case use heaped tablespoons to measure). Get a saucepan and add about an inch of water. Place a heatproof glass bowl on top of the pan (see the video above for a demo) and then heat the water on a low to medium heat. Melt the cacao butter in the glass bowl, adding the coconut sugar and vanilla. Mix in regularly over the next few minutes. When the cacao butter has melted add the cacao powder and mix in thoroughly. Pour into a chocolate mould or a parchment paper lined container. Set in the freezer (quickest) or in the fridge. Pop out of your moulds when set and enjoy!

and then set in the fridge or freezer before popping out…

Homemade vegan chocolate (and how to stop coconut sugar sinking) Yield: 4 bars Prep Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 20 minutes A delicious, easy vegan chocolate recipe made with coconut sugar to sweeten. Print Ingredients 6 tablespoons cacao butter (chopped)

3 tablespoons coconut sugar

5 tablespoons cacao powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract Instructions Grind your coconut sugar down to a finer consistency (this 'finer' nature will allow it to dissipate evenly through the chocolate, ensuring that it doesn't sink to the bottom whilst the chocolate is setting). Chop your cacao butter into fine pieces (this makes the process of melting much easier). You might also have cacao butter drops (in which case use heaped tablespoons to measure). Get a saucepan and add about an inch of water. Place a heatproof glass bowl on top of the pan (see the video above for a demo) and then heat the water on a low to medium heat. Melt the cacao butter in the glass bowl, adding the coconut sugar and vanilla. Mix in regularly over the next few minutes. When the cacao butter has melted add the cacao powder and mix in thoroughly. Pour into a chocolate mould or a parchment paper lined container. Set in the freezer (quickest) or in the fridge. Pop out of your moulds when set and enjoy!

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