I Crave Chocolate

My immune system smells allergens like a shark smells blood in water. One of the knock on effects of this is that I can't eat chocolate.

I don't mean my home made hot chocolate or coca infused brownies, cakes or mousses. The crunchy bar stuff. The stuff that's always got soya lecithin included as an ingredient, or "may contain traces of.." the things that put me in so much pain I might as well imagine someone hitting me fully in the face with a frying pan the moment I pick up the bar. Talk about aversion therapy. I was lucky enough to find a brand of dairy free, gluten free chocolate that did not include soya, but which "might include traces of soya". I figured my soya allergy wasn't so pronounced to be affected by such tiny amounts yet so bought it, but by the third day I was reaching for the antihistamines immediately after and was wheezing in an unmistakable true-food allergy fashion.

I gave the rest of the bar to Mr Umami, even though 70% dark cocoa isn't his thing; he's more of a swiss chocolate type. Me, I prefer the "crack" of chocolate, at 70% or 80% - a single square leaves me my nerves tingling and my tongue satisfied, but my preference is probably because this way my chocolate -the mythical bar that's that's allergen free- would last longer than one sitting.

So I was really happy when Quirky Cooking posted up this recipe for "almost raw" chocolate. This is because, like the author (Jo), I also have a thermomix. It's one of the smartest investments I ever made once I had confirmed that food was the source of my health problems. I had also bought chocolate moulds earlier this year but my plans at making chocolate stagnated. Her recipe for the thermomix seemed extremely do-able, no adaptations needed.

I found cocoa nibs at amazon.co.uk along with cocoa butter. JOY! You'll notice amazon also stocks ground cocoa powder by the same company, but one thing I've learned about my storm trooper immune system is that if something isn't milled in a dedicated gluten, dairy and soy free factory, then I'll react. One particle in 500 may be enough to fit the gluten and wheat free criteria by E.U law, but try explaining that to my white blood cells. Really, find a way, and I'll be more than happy to go nuts in the free from section again. That's one of the reasons I shelled out for my Thermomix, and why I prefer to buy things whole and grind them myself if I don't know for certain where they've been milled. I've had to throw out a lot of expensive "naturally gluten free" flours (coconut, chickpea, buckwheat, quinoa, corn) because my skin was able to tell me they weren't gluten free enough. I've since learned to rinse rice and other gluten free grains a few times before using, and to soak dried fruit and nuts to get rid of any "other" particles.

So. Chocolate. 100% home made, no traces of anything.