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)
PIN THIS FOR LATER
Does the honey incorporate in to the cocoa butter and not settle at the bottom?
Correct, the stirring process incorporates the fats properly so the honey can also suspend properly and not separate. Whoo hoo!
Let me know if you try it :-)
ask if you can directly use normal unsweetened milk chocolate instead?? like I use honey to sweetened homemade unsweetened milk chocolate
Hi Monica, I’m sorry for the delay! I have not used milk in this recipe, but would recommend using powdered milk if you want to try it. I’d start with a teaspoon per batch of chocolate and go from there until you get the taste you like. Add the milk with the cacao and stir realllly well! :-)
Let me know if you try it!
Hi, firstly I must say thank you for both this recipe along with the video. My question is base on a business venture and wanted to confirm something base on your experience. You mentioned the shelf life for this recipe to be 3 years without refrigerating? I just want to be extra sure, I do hope you understand. I’ve read on another website that honey in chocolate may have a shorter shelf life because of the existence of water in the honey.
Hi Rissa! In our experience using this recipe for a loooong time, we have never had any issue leaving this at room temperature for years. You would have to have testing done to sell it though.
Thank you for replying
Is the 1/2 cacao butter a volume measurement of melted cacao butter? The kind from my store is in large and oddly shaped chunks, so I don’t know how to get this right. And I’d love to get it right for my son with Crohn’s disease! Maybe he could have some yummy Easter treats this year!
Hi Sarah, I’m sorry to hear about your son, I know that’s so rough. <3
The 1/2 cup is not a melted measurement, but you could chop the big pieces to help them fit better. There is also a weight measurement provided, if you want to do it that way instead! I hope that helps! We make these into all sorts of shapes for every holiday, definitely my go-to chocolate recipe.
Let me know what y'all think!
Thank you! I did just chop our larger chunks up and followed the recipe. He was super excited to have chocolate chunks in his granola bars. Yum! Thanks again!
Oh I’m so glad!!
The taste is incredible! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I made chocolate chips from this recipe and while they are great on their own, am having a hard time with them in recipes. The chocolate seems to melt very quickly and the chips do not hold their shape when I tried them in a cookie recipe. Any suggestions?
Awesome! We love this chocolate too!!
The chocolate chips definitely do melt easily in recipes, but I have found that once the cookies cool again, it’s all fine.
You can increase the cocoa butter (like double it) to see if that creates a better baking texture for you. We have done a single batch with higher cocoa butter and it was great, but I couldn’t justify the extra cocoa butter just for solid chips during baking. But it’s worth a try if losing the surface level chocolate shape is an issue!
I hope that helps!