Author: Chocolate made with honey is not only possible, it’s downright easy! Honey sweetened chocolate still has the same sheen and snap of chocolate made with sugar, but you get the benefits of honey instead!
With just 4 simple ingredients you will be making your own chocolate at home in just a few minutes!
Making your own dark chocolate at home is actually very fast once you know what you’re doing! With this recipe creating chocolate without sugar (using only natural sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, coconut sugar, or stevia) is simple!
And like all well tempered chocolates, this homemade chocolate will harden in less than 3 minutes (thin layer), has a sharp snap and beautiful sheen, and is solid at room temperature!
No need to store this chocolate in the fridge or freezer, keep it in the pantry for up to 3 years without any issues!
Whether it’s a few chocolate chips in pancakes, chocolate chip cookies, or even just a nice piece of homemade peppermint bark… we enjoy chocolate around here!
But when we started doing the GAPS diet for healing, I knew we needed to eliminate sugar.
And while the amount of sugar carbs in a tablespoon of organic chocolate chips is pretty low, it’s not just about carbs when you’re doing a gut healing diet.
So I started looking into honey sweetened chocolate options and found that there was only one organic honey chocolate option out there, and it was pretty expensive for me to want to buy on a regular basis!
I decided it would be better to attempt to make my own, and thankfully, making your own chocolate with honey is really easy!!
Here are a few ways we love to use this honey chocolate!
Honey Sweetened Chocolate Chips
Honey Sweetened Chocolate Coins
How to Make Honey Sweetened Chocolate
This super simple recipe calls for just 4 ingredients and produces and chocolate that is just as hard, shiny, and versatile and sugar sweetened chocolate.
It’s tempered so it’s shelf-stable and can be used in homemade candies without needing to be refrigerated like most homemade chocolates that use coconut oil!
We’ve used this in our homemade chocolate bars with all sorts of fillings, in these adorable Harry Potter Chocolate Frogs, and more!
Whatever you would normally use “regular” chocolate for, you can use this chocolate for instead!
It’s also a great option for Paleo Honey Chocolate and Primal Honey Chocolate!
Step One:
Gather your ingredients: Cocoa Butter, Cacao (cocoa works too), Honey, and Vanilla Extract.
In a double boiler, melt cocoa butter. A glass bowl works best!
Step Two:
Remove glass bowl from heat and stir melted cocoa butter with a spoon or spatula for 2 minutes. You want to stir quickly enough to emulsify the cocoa fats, but not fast enough to introduce a ton of air into the mixture.
Step Three:
Transfer melted cocoa butter into a room temperature glass bowl. That part is optional, but it does cut WAY down on your stirring time!
Either way, continue stirring until cocoa butter is 90°. At this stage the temperature is low enough you still have the benefits of using honey! We use raw honey in our honey chocolate and since there is no high heat at this stage, none of the beneficial aspects are destroyed!
Reaching 90° while stirring constantly also serves to temper the chocolate, which is what allows it to remain solid and crisp at room temperature.
Otherwise it would be chalky in texture and would develop a white “bloom” after a few hours. This happens with all poorly tempered chocolates, not just honey chocolate.
Step Four:
Add cacao and honey, stir until well combined. Again, be careful not to add a lot of air to the mix. Add vanilla extract and switch to a whisk to get the mixture smooth.
Step Five:
Once mixture is nice and smooth, transfer your completely honey chocolate into whatever chocolate mold you want to use!
Here are a few we like:
Break Apart Chocolate Bar Mold
Mini Candy Bar Mold (perfect for homemade chocolate bars with filling)
Chocolate Frogs (super fun for this Harry Potter recipe!)
and many more!
And of course, these beautiful homemade kisses!
Step Six:
Wait until chocolate is completely solid before removing from molds. This wait time will vary based on how thick the chocolate is.
DO NOT place it in the fridge, or the chocolate will “bloom” and get white scale on it (still edible, but not as pretty).
Once chocolate has been removed from the mold, store at room temperature indefinitely. We have stored them for up to 3 years without issues and without any change in taste or texture!
See the entire process in this video, and get the full recipe below that! Enjoy!
UPDATE: This recipe has been updated to include weight measurements and nutritional information.
Honey Sweetened Chocolate
Ingredients
- 1/2 Cup Cocoa Butter (113g) this is the organic brand we use
- 1/3 Cup Cacao Powder (58g) we use this raw, organic brand - cocoa works too
- 2 Tbs Honey*
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- In glass bowl, melt cocoa butter (double boiler works best). Remove from heat and stir with a spoon or spatula for 2 minutes.
- Transfer to a room temperature glass bowl. Stir for 2 minutes or until mixture is 90°.
- Add cacao and honey. Stir well.
- Add vanilla extract and stir with a whisk until smooth.
- Pour into chocolate mold and allow to sit at room temperature until hardened.
- Remove chocolate from mold and store at room temperature for up to 6 months!
Notes
Homemade Honey Chocolate Nutritional Facts
This label assumes you used honey as the sweetener (2 tbsp)
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Thank you for the recipe! I was a bit confused with the cacao powder, since 1/3 of a cup was only 30g. I’m guessing it’s maybe 2/3 of a cup?
Hi Kyle! It’s a 1/3 cup when I measure it, but not everyone measures the same, so that’s why I put the grams too :-) definitely go by the grams!
I tried this today, and it seems weird. There’s like little oil bubbles in the chocolate. Not sure what I did wrong.
Hi Matthew, are they oil bubbles or honey bubbles? If oil, then I would double check how you were mixing – were you using a whisk during the oil beating phase? That would incorporate air and might cause bubbles.
If they are honey bubbles, then you likely used just a touch too much honey. When I eyeball the honey I often get honey droplets throughout the chocolate. It doesn’t bother me, so I don’t worry about it, but if you want a really smooth chocolate you’ll want to measure the honey really accurately.
I hope that helps!
I’m going to try this out later today, but I noticed there is no salt. I would imagine adding salt would enhance the flavor. Is there a reason you didn’t add salt?
It’s not needed as there are other flavor enhancers, like the vanilla and honey. However, if you’d like to try it, I say go for it! I’m sure it will be lovely with the salt, but it’s lacking nothing without it!
I made it yesterday and unfortunately the consistency was weird. Used same exact ingredients and followed instructions. It tasted a little airy, although there are no air bubbles and I was stirring with a wooden spoon slowly – as if it was not dense. It did seem to lack flavor. I think salt probably would have helped to quite a bit, or maybe some more honey, but the consistency is not like normal chocolate. Any suggestions?
Please watch the video in the post, as stirring slowly is not recommended. It needs to be stirred quite vigorously to work the cocoa fat properly. The texture is not the same as “normal chocolate”, but it’s not supposed to be. It is light and smooth though, so if yours wasn’t I would try again with the recommended technique in the video. As for a lack of flavor, I would imagine that’s a difference in brand of ingredients. However, add salt if you’d like! We’ve never needed it and our chocolate is extremely rich. I hope that helps and that you are able to try it again!
I love this recipe! I tripled it but forgot and only doubled the cocoa butter. Can I melt another 1/2 cup cocoa butter and stir it for 2 minutes then add it to the rest of the chocolate (after melting that)? The flavor is good, and the smoothness is good, but it didn’t harden up like it should.
Or would it work like chocolate anyway? I want to use it for ganache. I am worried it won’t do what it is supposed to do in the ganache recipe.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! What I would do is melt the extra cocoa butter and then mix the room temp finished chocolate into the melted (off the heat) for the 2 minutes (vigorously) like the original recipe. I’ve never tried it in ganache, but I would imagine it would work the same way! Let me know if you try it!
Thank you!
I did try. The oil wouldn’t incorporate completely into the chocolate, even the first batch. I think the main problem was my cocoa butter. It all turned to a yummy blob of chocolate goodness that I can’t use in the recipe. I will get better cocoa butter and try again. Thanks again. I am passing your recipe onto a couple friends who are thrilled to be able to make a healthy chocolate!