So many people in our BIB family are eating in a way that is paleo-friendly. This time of year is a great time to focus on perfecting your baking skills, and this is a nice easy recipe to get you started! It contains antioxidant-rich dark chocolate, has heart-friendly healthy fats in the coconut oil, and protein-rich hazelnuts.
A tip from Catherine, our RMT and Reiki Master: “Add goji berries and pumpkin seeds for festive red and green colour boost that also provides even more antioxidants, and a ton of zinc!”
- 3 cups raw hazelnuts
- 12 oz dark chocolate (70%, 80%, 90% or even 99-100%)
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil (you can also substitute butter, ghee, lard or palm shortening)
- 1/2 tsp coarse unrefined salt (optional; crush Himalayan pink salt in a mortar and pestle for this)
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Place hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 15 minutes. Remove them from the oven and immediately pour into a clean tea towel. Fold the tea towel over the hazelnuts and let them sit for 1-2 minutes.
- Now, with the tea towel still covering the hazelnuts, rub the top to start removing the skins. You can open up the tea towel and see how you’re doing (at this point, the towel is really just to protect your hands from those hot nuts!). Pick out the hazelnuts that have the skins removed (its fine if there’s a little left on them) and continue until you’ve removed all the skins from the hazelnuts.
- Discard the skins and place the hazelnuts back on the tea towel (you could also do this step on a cutting board on in a large ziplock bag). Crush the hazelnuts with a rolling pin, until the pieces are pea-sized or a little smaller.
- Melt chocolate and extra virgin coconut oil over a double boiler or in the microwave on medium power.
- Prepare a baking sheet by lining with parchment paper, wax paper or a silicone liner.
- Mix crushed hazelnuts into melted chocolate and pour onto prepared baking sheet. Spread to 1/4″-3/8″ thick (it won’t cover your whole baking sheet and that’s fine). Sprinkle salt over the top.
- Refrigerate until chocolate is cold and hard. Remove from the fridge and break into pieces (however big or small you like). Store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge/freezer. Enjoy!
