Tag Archives: Kate Magic

Best and easiest raw chocolate recipe ever

10 Aug
best, easiest, yummiest raw chocolate recipe ever

best, easiest, yummiest raw chocolate recipe ever

Having now taste-tested/gorged myself on the many new brands of raw chocolate popping onto the shelves at my local health food stores, and in the spirit of the current financial crisis, I decided to find the easiest, tastiest recipe to make my own.

There are loads of recipes for raw chocolate on the internet, and loads of raw recipe books with some great ideas in them. The ultimate recipe I looked for would, as usual, not involve too many strange ingredients, no fancy equipment and wouldn’t take too much time. But i found that even following the most basic recipe, it’s very expensive to set up! However once through the financial pain barrier – and even in mid mix – I can guarantee it is worth it. Particularly as I am not only satisfying my chocolate addiction, I am also adding lots of really important nutrients and antioxidants into my system without the dairy found in classic cooked chocolates. As per an earlier blog, some of these include sulphur (the beauty mineral), magnesium (balances hormones), PEA (molecule of joy), neurotransmitters and aphrodesiacs…

As I discovered, the key is to get the basic mixture just right for your taste and then adding whatever extras you like; raisins, goji berries, almonds, orange zest, chilli, peppermint oil, cinammon, sunflower seeds…

KATE MAGIC
I started with Kate Magic’s basic recipe, which is based on an equal ratio of fats, sugars and chocolate. As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, Kate Magic is something of a raw chocolate guru and fountain of knowledge on raw food lifestyle. She shared this recipe with me at one of her raw chocolate talks in Camden.

The key ingredients:
200g of ground cacao nibs (or 150g of cacao powder)
200g of coconut butter (or cacao butter)
200g of natural sweeteners (agave syrup, date syrup, Lucuma powder, zylotol)

How to make it
1. Mix cacao with melted cacao/coconut butter and add sweeteners to taste.
2. Put in cake tin.
3. Pop in fridge.
4. Cut into pieces

SUNNY RAW KITCHEN and CHOC CHICK and BUZZLE
These recipes are so similar – I’ve combined them all. Hence I also would say that if you follow this formula, you can’t go wrong.

The key ingredients
1 cup (100-150g) coconut butter
3/4 cup raw cacao powder
4 tbsp agave nectar (or honey)
2 tsp vanilla (orange, mint would be good too)

How to make it
1. Put coconut butter in a bowl and place in another bowl of hot water, stirring until liquified.
2. Stir in other ingredients until smooth.
3. Pour onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and pop into freezer for 5-10 mins. Alternatively, you could put mixture into little moulds.
4. Leave to set in the fridge for 1 – 2 hours or in the freezer for half an hour.

Top tips from Choc Chick
1. Around 70g of powder (4tbs) and 100g of butter makes approximately 2 trays of chocolates (slightly less powder makes the mix easier to pour but equal amounts make a slightly harder chocolate – so experiment to see what suits you).
2. Keep the heat low so as to not overheat and take care not to boil the butter as this will damage the nutritional benefits of the raw chocolate
3. Enjoy yourself or place in gift bags for the perfect gift!

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Raw Cacao Top Ten Bliss Benefits

15 Apr
raw cacao nibs

raw cacao nibs

According to my raw chocolate guru, Kate Magic, ‘we are defined as either healthy do-gooders or live-hard-die-young types and raw cacao is the bridge between the two.’ Sounds good doesn’t it?

 And to prove it – Kate gives this list of benefits:

1. Raw cacao is known as a ‘grounded’ food because it contains so many minerals from zinc, calcium, phosphorous, copper…and it is therefore thought to be spiritually ‘grounding’;
2. It’s an aphrodisiac because amongst other things, it contains anandamide, often described as an euphoric substance;
3. It’s high in essential feel good neurotransmitters such as seratonin;
4. It carries PEA (phenylethylamine) also known as the ‘molecule of joy’.  While this super molecule exists naturally in the brain, the only other food that contains PEA is blue green algae;

raw cacao butter
raw cacao butter

5. It’s also considered a natural appetite suppressant on the basis that it apparently helps the body ‘tune into its natural appetite’;
6. There are two cannibinoids in the world. One is racked with downers, paranoia, appetite increase and bad publicity and the other isn’t;
7. It’s the best source of sulphur there is, which is, by the way, also known as the beauty mineral;
8. It’s a rich source of magnesium, which is great for keeping anxieties and hormones at bay;
9. It’s extremely high in antioxidants – according to the US ORAC scale – seven times that of normal chocolate;
10. It tastes delicious.

As Kate continued; ‘Everyone is addicted to something so just choose your addictions wisely. Mine are my children, green juices, raw chocolate and yoga.’

So – raw cacao gives the high of cannabis without any of the lows, it carries something called the molecule of joy, it has the beauty mineral in it, it’s an aphrodisiac and an appetite suppressant. See you later – I’m off to Venezuala.

You can buy raw cacao in its various forms from Rob at Funky Raw or from Kate at Raw Living.

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Happy Raw Chocolate Easter with Kate Magic

13 Apr

I’m sure some London-born children must think that, like Parsley, chocolate eggs sprout up from the ground from late Feb to late April. It’s damned well everywhere at Easter time and my willpower can only take so much. So – to help me deal with my chocolate addiction, my nutritionist pal and fellow chocoholic invited me along to the Camden meeting of CFEA (Cooked Food Eaters Anonoymous).

Kate - this is an old pic - she looks ten years younger these days

Kate - this is an old pic - she looks ten years younger these days

OK – there is no such thing as CFEA and it wasn’t really a CFEA addiction meeting. Even though it felt very self-helpish, it was a raw chocolate lecture by Kate Magic, a raw chocolate pioneer, author and guru, mother and raw foody foody for some 16 years! And Kate delivers on her name. She is magical. If she told me she was 172 years old, I would have believed her. She is youthful, glowing and clear eyed with a magnetic, happy energy. And she is for real. Kate’s pink-dyed hair and wholesome, some would say hippy get up, only momentarily distracts from her obvious focussed discipline and ambitious vision for her raw food business called Raw Living.

Kate describes herself and her business partners as ‘long-term, raw futurefood pioneers’.This is a superb description for the ‘raw food movement’, which is fast moving beyond a trend and into the mainstream. Her online shop sells the concept of living raw, alongside the equipment to live the raw life hands on, and a wide range of raw foods; delicious chocolate bars, something scary called high vibrational food, books, DVD’s, natural sweeteners (not sugar) and a range of raw cakes. Either Kate had her publicist planted in the audience or one excited lady could not stop raving about the cakes because they are so good. I’m about to order one.

An important part of the business being these lectures that spread the word and certainly give comfort to those of us who stick to the hypocritical cooked side of life. The topic of tonight’s lecture was ‘raw cacao’, but Kate’s extensive knowledge and experience of living a rewarding raw food life spilled over, almost taking up half the talk. Her advice makes so much sense.

As Kate said; ‘Raw food is a journey. It’s not about going 100% raw, it’s much more helpful to have some basic guidelines and nurture your cravings.’ But Kate, (wishing I asked this at the time) what if your cravings are for a roast pork sandwich?

Besides a tonne of insight about raw cacao (in my next post) – I took three things away with me:

1. The more enzymes in your system – the younger you’ll look. And raw fruit and vegetables are packed with valuable youth promoting enzymes…I like this. A lot.
2. The five most addictive foods are rice, corn, potatoes, wheat and soya. That’s almost my entire diet on a bad day.  I’ll be looking into why all my favourite food groups are no-nos.
3. 1 x Hi-Buzz Bar. This was a delicious raw chocolate bar loaded with bee pollen, and of course, raw cacao.

You can buy Kate’s books from here and her Hi-Buzz bar from here.

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