At Pana Chocolate we are passionate about creating the best tasting chocolate and raw desserts. Everything at Pana Chocolate is raw, organic, handmade and free from dairy, soy, gluten and refined sugar. As they say, it’s as nutritious as it is delicious!

I’m a trained pastry chef, so when I first started working at Pana I had to unlearn everything I knew about using sugar and butter, and find new ways to do the same things with nuts, natural sweeteners, and coconut. As Head Chef at Pana Chocolate it is my job to challenge people’s perception of what a raw or vegan dessert is, tastes and looks like. There are no traditional pastry ingredients (like butter, eggs, sugar) but who needs them when you can create sweets that tastes amazing and are actually good for you?!

Over this month I will show you four recipes designed to give you a taste of the raw food lifestyle, all with a hint of cacao of course! You will notice that some of the method carries an ingredient across more than one recipe, so that ingredients can be used wholly with minimal waste.

To start things off we have a Chocolate cinnamon mousse with cacao chia crisps, date crisps, candied nut shards and pear chips. This smooth and rich mousse is made using the warming spice blend from the Pana Chocolate Cinnamon bar, and complimented with crispy, crunchy and chewy thanks to four different dehydrated ‘crisps’ created using chia seeds, dates and, dried pear and nuts.  This is an easy but impressive looking dessert that’s perfect for autumn and winter. And you don’t even need a spoon – the novelty of this dessert is using the shards and crisps to get close to your mousse!

Method

For the cinnamon mousse

Place cashews, coconut cream, coconut nectar and pinch of salt into a high speed blender. Blend until smooth.

Place the Pana Chocolate Cinnamon bar and coconut oil into a small bowl. Place this bowl in to a larger bowl of hot water and melt together with the occasional stir. If you wish for the recipe to remain ‘raw’, monitor the heat with a thermometer to maintain under 42 degrees.

Once melted add the chocolate mix to ingredients already in the blender. Blend until fully incorporated.

Pour into a container and set in fridge overnight.

When set, quenelle mousse to serve. Break up the shards and crisps and serve one of each atop your scoop of mousse. The shards can be used as your spoon!

For the date crisp

Place all ingredients into a high speed blender and blend until smooth.

Spread mixture nice and thinly on to a dehydrator tray lined with a silicon mat and dehydrate at 40 degrees overnight in a dehydrator (see tips below for how to use a conventional oven in place of a dehydrator).

If not completely dried by morning, flip on to mesh tray and dehydrate for another couple of hours.

Peel off tray and allow to cool. Once cooled, break into shards.

For the cacao chia crisps

Place all ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine. Cover with glad wrap and allow to sit for 2 hours, until mixture is thick and the chia has absorbed most of the liquid.

Spread mixture on to a dehydrator tray lined with a silicon mat and dehydrate at 40 degrees overnight in a dehydrator (see tips for use in conventional oven).

Allow to cool. Once cooled, break into shards.

For the candy nut shard

Place whole nuts in to a food processor and blitz on pulse until nuts are finely chopped.

Place nuts into a fine sieve and shake off excess nut meal to leave nicely clean chopped nuts.

Place nuts in a bowl with coconut nectar and water. Stir to coat. Cover with glad wrap and allow to sit for a couple of hours.

Pour nuts into a sieve and drain liquid.

Place nuts onto a dehydrator tray lined with a silicon mat, dehydrate overnight at 40 degrees. Flip nuts half way to ensure they dry out enough.

Allow to cool. Once cooled, break into shards.

For the pear chip

Slice pear to approximately 5mm thickness. Coat with lemon juice.

Place on to a dehydrator tray lined with a silicon mat and dehydrate at 40 degrees overnight in a dehydrator (see tips for use in conventional oven).

*TIP:  We use a dehydrator a lot at work to obtain a crispy texture whilst ensuring all our ingredients remain raw. If you don’t own a dehydrator, you can use a conventional oven on the lowest possible temperature, and placing the mixtures on baking paper instead of a silicon mat.  However, if the lowest setting is above 42 degrees, the dish will no longer officially be considered ‘raw’, but the end result will be very similar in taste / texture. Timings will differ per oven, but generally slow and steady is best, as you don’t want your ingredients to cook! Allow at least 8 hours (or overnight) and keep an eye on the dehydration process in the final stages.