Chocolate Adventures: Part 1

As I have previously mentioned, my little sister is lactose intolerant.  Normally she takes this with good grace (as much as you can expect from a 4 year old who is being told "no"), but today she was feeling pretty down about the entire situation.  All she wanted was a strawberry rice pudding.  Such a simple wish, but one we couldn't grant.  After being told she couldn't have one because it had milk in, she just sighed and said "I wish I wasn't lactose intolereez".  Poor baby.

I wanted to make her something to cheer her up, something she normally wouldn't be allowed.  Yesterday, I'd been on Pinterest and saw a really tasty looking cookie recipe.  It was chocolate chip cookies, with a splodge of Nutella and a toasted marshmallow on top.  Basically, it was a cookie s'more.

Making lactose-free cookies is simple enough, but first I had to solve the challenge of how to make lactose-free chocolate spread.  My sister never liked Nutella, but she always loved nut-free chocolate spread.  Chocolate spread sandwiches were one of her very favourite foods.  It's like torturing a puppy to eat them in front of her now.  If I could pull this off, I'd be able to solve the problem for her.

It took a long time to find a suitable, nut-free recipe, but finally (around page 6 of Google) I found one here - http://lucysfriendlyfoods.wordpress.com/tag/chocolate-spread/

It was a straight-forward recipe (thankfully - I'm not the best at baking).  We even had a spare jam jar in the soon-to-be-collected recycling box.  I rescued it and dishwashed it.

The following recipe makes 1 jar.  As the recipe from the above website is all in cups (American measurement), I've added the equivalent grams and ounces below -

Ingredients

• Water: 1/4 cup; or 85g; or 3oz
• Caster Sugar: 1/2 cup; or 100g; or 3.55oz
• Cocoa Powder: 1tbsp
• Salt: Pinch
• Vanilla: 1tsp
• Dairy-free Chocolate: 2/3 cup; or 90g; or 3.2oz
• Dairy-free Spread: 2/3 cup; or 152g; or 5.36oz

1. In a saucepan, melt together the water, sugar, cocoa, and salt. 
2. Bring the mixture to a simmer, then remove from the heat.
3. Whisk in the vanilla, chocolate, and margarine/butter until silky and lump free.
4. Pour into a sterilised jar, and cover with cling film.  Make sure the cling-film touches the top of the chocolate mix, as this prevents a skin forming.
5. Leave to cool entirely, then remove the cling film.
6. Keep in the fridge and use within 2 weeks.

In terms of ingredients, I used -

• "Pure" Dairy-Free Sunflower Spread: Available at Asda, Tesco, and Sainsbury's.
• Tesco's Own Cocoa Powder: Contains cocoa powder only (cocoa itself doesn't have milk in)
• Dairy-Free Buttons: Available from Tesco's Free From range.  I used 2 bags, and topped the rest up with Silver Spoon Cakecraft Dark Chocolate Chips.  These "may" contain milk, but we allow that.

I found it easiest to add all the dry goods (sugar, cocoa, and salt) together first, then pour it all into the water at once.  The mixture came to a simmer very quickly, which came as a surprise, so watch out for that!  I also found it easiest to melt the chocolate, and the butter, before adding it to the mixture in the saucepan.

The only issue I had was that my chocolate sauce was ready before the dishwasher finished cleaning my jam jar!  I filled a pyrex dish with warm water, and put the saucepan into that to keep the mixture from starting to solidify.  It worked really well, but I can't take credit for the suggestion, as it was my Mum's idea.

The chocolate spread (currently chocolate sauce) is now sitting on a high shelf in the utility room, out of the reach of little fingers.  I admit, I tried some of the bit left in the saucepan as I was cleaning up, and it tastes lovely!  I'll post an update when it's finished, as well as my Chocolate Adventure: Part 2 (making the cookies), and give my sister's verdict on the chocolate spread sandwiches.

All the best,

Charli

UPDATE: The chocolate spread sandwiches were announced to be "yummy", and we're almost halfway through the jar already. SUCCESS!