Wow, these are tasty. To make this recipe, I used part of a batch of passionfruit curd to fill. Because the passionfruit curd is wonderfully sweet, I hardly sweetened the chocolate and so the bitter chocolate compliments the sweet centre beautifully. You can stuff your chocolates with anything – caramel, coconut, strawberry curd. Think of a flavour you love and go with it. But for me, its all about the passionfruit curd.

Makes 16 chocolates

a chocolate mould
80 grams cacao butter
40 grams cacao powder
1 teaspoon maple syrup
about 6 tablespoons worth of passionfruit curd

1. In a double boiler (a stainless steel or Pyrex bowl sat on top of a pot of simmering water), melt and stir the cacao butter, cacao powder and maple syrup.

2. Pour in to chocolate mould and let sit for about 10 minutes. In summer, you can put it in the fridge for about 5 minutes. Once the time has passed, tilt the mould so that the chocolate coats all sides of the mould. (If you did this immediately after pouring, the chocolate would be too hot and therefore create too thin a coating. Leaving the chocolate to thicken up a bit will give you a better shell but time and temperature is obviously going to affect the result so just keep an eye on the chocolate and if all else fails, they’ll still taste great.

3. A couple of minutes after you have tilted the mould to coat all sides with chocolate, turn the mould upside down over your chocolate melting bowl and let all the excess chocolate pour off. Use the flat edge of a knife to scrape all along the mould to get rid of all the excess. You will use this to seal the chocolates.

4. Return the mould to the fridge until set. About 10 more minutes.

5. Fill each chocolate with passionfruit curd, leaving a little space at the top. Whatever you fill your chocolates with, just make sure its cold.

6. Re-melt your remaining chocolate in the double boiler and pour in to each chocolate to seal. Return to fridge for about 15 minutes.

7. Gently tip your mould and tap to pop out your chocolates.

Serves 6

1/2 cup cacao
2 cups coconut cream
4 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup chia seeds
1/2 tsp sea salt

1. Whisk all ingredients until all cacao is combined and set in fridge for at least four hours. The chia seeds will swell and your mousse will be ready to eat.

2. If you would like a smooth consistency, blend the mousse ingredients in a high powered blender until smooth and then set in fridge.

Serves 10

SOAKED BISCUITS
~20 plain digestive brand biscuits
3/4 cup freshly brewed coffee, cooled
3tbsp maple syrup
3tbsp kahlua

CREAM
1 3/4 cup cashews
1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/3 cup freshly brewed coffee, cooled
1 tablespoon Kahlua
Pinch of salt

ADDITIONALLY
Cacao powder

1. Combine cooled coffee, maple syrup and kahlua in a bowl or container that is wider than your biscuits as you’ll be dipping them in here.

2. In a blender: Cashews, soy milk, maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, coffee, kahlua and salt. Blend on high until smooth and refrigerate.

3. About 6 hours before serving (you can also make a day ahead) get your individual serving crockery ready. Ramekins are a good option as they’re the right size to fit the digestive biscuits. Submerge each biscuit in coffee soaking liquid for about ten seconds then place in bottom of ramekin. You want them to be soaked through but not falling apart. Top with ~2tbsp cream and finally, dust with some raw cacao. Repeat the biscuit and cream layers again and return to fridge until ready to serve.

4. Dust with cacao just before serving.

300ml soy milk
400ml can of coconut cream
2 vanilla beans
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
150g maple syrup
approximately 3/4 cup fruit mince mix

1. Pour soy milk and coconut cream in to a 1 litre jug

2. Cut vanilla pods in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon. Add to jug.

3. Add vanilla paste and maple syrup and stir with fork until evenly mixed.

4. Pour in to your ice cream machine and churn for approximately 60 minutes.

5. In the last ~15 minutes, slowly add the fruit mince mix and finish churning.

6. Put in a container and set in freezer until ready to enjoy.

Notes:
You can rinse your vanilla bean pod, dry it and keep it in your caster sugar.
I’ve served this ice cream with some left over fruit mince pie pastry for that extra mmmmm….

2 cans 400ml coconut cream
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2/3 cup raw cacao
1 teaspoon vanilla
100g chocolate

1. In a pot, combine all ingredients except the chocolate.

2. Using a whisk, stir constantly while on low heat until the mix is lump free and the sugar is dissolved.

3. Turn the heat off and stir in chocolate. Leave for a couple of minutes and stir again. The residual heat will be enough to melt the chocolate.

4. Allow to cool and then churn in your ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions.

1 cup good quality soy milk or other non-dairy milk
3 tablespoons cornflour
4 tablespoons icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1 vanilla bean
1 can 400ml coconut cream

1. Put all ingredients in to a medium sized pot (Split the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds from each half with a teaspoon. Put the seeds and the pod in to the pot) and whisk so the corn flour dissolves.

2. Cook over medium heat constantly stirring with a whisk until the mix starts to thicken. This should take about 7-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit until you’re ready to serve. The custard will thicken more as it cools. Can be served cold or reheated in the pot over low heat and stirring with a whisk to avoid any lumps.

1 cup bonsoy soy milk
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup glucose syrup
400 gram tin of coconut cream
1 tablespoon matcha powder
a pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ICE MAGIC
100 grams dark chocolate
50 grams coconut oil

TOPPING
small handful of almonds, chopped

1. In a saucepan, heat soy milk, sugar and glucose syrup until sugar is dissolved.

2. Turn the heat off.

3. Add all other ingredients and stir until combined.

4. Keep in fridge until chilled.

5. Place in ice cream machine according to manufacturers instructions.

6. Melt together chocolate and coconut oil in a small pot, stirring constantly on low heat until chocolate is dissolved.

7. Drizzle over ice cream just before serving and top with chopped almonds.

1/3 cup cacao
4 tbsp linseed/flax meal
150g dark chocolate
150g nuttelex
1 1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup gluten free flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 C and grease a 20cm cake tin.

2. Combine cacao and 1/3 cup hot water in a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a separate small bowl, combine linseed meal with 4tbsp hot water.

4. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and nuttelex over low heat.

5. Once melted, stir in cacao mix, linseed mix, brown sugar, almond meal, baking powder and gluten free flour.

6. Pour in to cake tin, tap on counter to even the top and cook in oven for 50 minutes.

Note

• Eat this cake on it’s own, serve it with ice cream or turn it in to a cake shake!