Raspberry Cream Filled Chocolates

The filling for these confections is made with raw cashews, lemon, vanilla, coconut

and brown rice malt syrup. It gets its bright pink color and slightly tart flavor from fresh raspberries. Making them is a bit of a process, but don’t let the multiple steps scare you off, as they’re totally worth it. You can store them in the freezer and have them as a frozen treat, or leave them in the fridge and enjoy them like a chocolate-covered cream. But don’t leave them at room temperature.

Raspberry Cream Filled Chocolates [Vegan, Gluten-Free]

Ingredients

Raspberry Cashew Cream Filling:

• 1/2 cup cashews, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained (for a short cut, cover cashews in water and bring to a boil, turn off heat, cover and let sit for 2 hours, drain, rinse and proceed)
• 1/2 cup fresh raspberries
• 1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 brown rice malt syrup
• 1/4 tsp pure bourbon vanilla powder
• 2 tbsp coconut butter at room temperature (not coconut oil) or 2 Tbsp unsweetened dessicated coconut shreds

Dark Chocolate Coating:

• 7 ounces dark chocolate

Preparation

1. Combine all filling ingredients in a food processor or high speed blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.
2. Melt half the chocolate, using a double boiler method, by placing a heat resistant bowl over a pot of boiling water and using the bowl to melt the chocolate.
3. Coat the bottom and sides of a silicone chocolate mold with the melted chocolate, as evenly as possible. It’s ok if it’s not perfect, they’ll just come out rustic looking like mine did, with the raspberry cream peaking through.  I kind of like the homemade appeal.
4. Place mold in the freezer for about 10 minutes until the chocolate is solid.
5. Remove the molds from the freezer, fill them with the raspberry cashew cream, about 3/4 full, leaving room for more chocolate at the top, and return them to the freezer for about 1 hour, until the filling has firmed up a bit.
6. Remove them from the freezer, melt the remaining half of the chocolate, using the double boiler method once again, and drizzle it over the filling, as uniformly as possible so you don’t end up with jagged bottoms (once again, no biggie if you do, it happens as you can see from the pictures). The cold filling will start to solidify the warm chocolate on contact, so be sure to work quickly.
7. Return the molds to the freezer and let them solidify completely for at least 4 hours or better yet over night before removing them from the molds. If you try to remove them too early, the chocolate will  crack, so it’s worth waiting.
8. Store them in an airtight container, in the fridge or freezer and enjoy whenever you feel like having a sweet chocolaty treat.

Notes

Another alternative is to pour the cream filling into chocolate molds or mini muffin tins lined with paper wrappers, freeze them for 2 hours, then remove them from the paper wrappers and return them to the freezer for an additional 2 hours or overnight until completely solid, then dipping them into melted chocolate using a fork. However, I found this process to be a bit messy and tricky as the cold filling causes the chocolate to start solidifying so you have to keep melting it as you go and work really fast so that the filling doesn’t melt in the process.

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-recipe/raspberry-cream-filled-chocolates/