Cardamom Hot Chocolate – Vegan & Sugar Free
Cardamom and chocolate pair very well together in this quick and easy hot chocolate drink. I am not against dairy or sugar but sometimes I run out of organic milk (and sometimes I have too much dessert) so this is a perfect morning drink to make me feel good.
I opted to not use sugar in this recipe but you can replace the dates with your sweetener of choice. I like the idea of the dates here because they naturally sweeten and help thicken the water. Otherwise it can resemble a tea instead of a hot chocolate.
Sometimes I add one date and sometimes I add two. If you are new to sweetening with dates, I suggest you start with 1 date and taste when you blend everything. If you find that you need it sweeter, go ahead and add the second date into the blender. The warm water should be enough to help soften it for blending
Since we are only working with 1 cup of water here, feel free to add a bit more water if you find that you boiled it too long. If it has cooled down significantly in between you boiling and drinking, just take it back to the stove and heat the entire thing again. Try not to boil though, just heat. If you boil the mix with the dates, it might get really thick.
This recipe is based on ground cocoa nibs which can be called cacao paste, cacao/cocoa liquor, unrefined chocolate, bakers chocolate or chocolate de mesa without sugar. The importance here is that the ingredients be 100% ground cacao. It is the step before it gets processed into chocolate. The texture might not be smooth and that is ok. It is not 100% chocolate which is refined chocolate and tastes delicious as an eating chocolate … and will be a bit more expensive than the others I suggest. But the others I suggest, I would not eat, they are strictly used to make drinking chocolates.
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Cardamom Hot Chocolate – Vegan & Sugar Free
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes
- Total Time: 9 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
Description
Ingredients
1 1/4 cup of water (300ml)
4–6 cardamon pods (depends how much cardamom you like)
7 grams unrefined chocolate (also known as baking chocolate or 100% cacao chocolate) should be in a solid form, not powdered form. This is not cocoa powder.
2 dates (remove seeds first)
Instructions
- Place water, pods, and dates in a pot and boil for 2 minutes. Allowing to boil will release the aroma of the cardamom.
- Remove from heat and place pods, dates, chocolate, and half of the water in a small blender and blend until the dates are liquid. My favorite blender for this is Magic Bullet, but make sure not to add all the hot water, only a bit to get it blending.
- Sieve into your cup and add the remaining water from the pot.
Notes
- You can replace the dates with the sweetener of your choice, 1 tablespoon or 15 grams of sugar replaces 1 date.
- The date in this recipe is purely to avoid using sugar, it is not necessary, but a bit healthier.
- I blend in either a magic bullet or Vitamix. Sometimes I prefer the ease of the Magic Bullet but I have to be very careful because the water is hot. If you are going to use a small blender, only pour half of the boiled water into the blender with the things you need to blend. Then you can add the remaining water into your cup with the blended ingredients.
- I prefer Vitamix because it does not matter if the water is super hot, there is enough room in my Vitamix for the steam, but it is more time consuming to clean up.
- Category: drinks
- Method: boil and blend
Keywords: hot chocolate, cacao drinks, cocoa drinks, hot cocoa
