Dear members,

My girlfriend has decided to give the low carb 'diet' a try, having seen how easily I got down to my target weight, which I have now maintained for about eight months.

Today was the last day of her 'induction' (Atkins), and I would like to reward her for sticking with it, despite missing her favourite indulgence: chocolate!

I was going to buy her some diabetics chocolate, thinking that would be lo-carb, but not at all! So I had an for making some:

Melt 70% cocoa dark chocolate, together with some artificial sweetner and some soya milk. I'm guessing the dark chocolate is quite low in sugar/carbs, but I haven't been able to check. If it is, the result might be a low-carb alternative to milk chocolate.

Has anyone tried this, or similar? How much sweetner do you think it needs? Would the soya milk combine with the dark chocolate okay - I presume I need to blend the two over a bain Marie?

Any advice gratefully received - if I can find a lo-carb substitute for milk chocolate that doesn't cost a fortune then I think I could persuade her to remain on the diet - otherwise I fear her self-discipline will crack!

Thanks. MLS

Hi MLS,
Maybe u'd like to try this, it kinda tastes like Toblerone, also like a rich choc pie

ingredients-
250g cream cheese
50g butter
3oz of Bakers' unsweetened chocolate
4 eggs
a tsp of vanilla
6 packets of artificial sweetener

(1) In a small pot, melt butter & choc on low heat.
(2) Add in the cream cheese. Stir til everything is melted.
(3) Turn off the heat, stir in the AS & vanilla.
(4) Add in the eggs. Make sure the mixture is not too hot or the egg would be "cooked".
(5) Pour the mixture in a dish lined with baking paper, butter the paper slightly.
(6) Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 30min, at 165c.
(7) When u insert a toothpick in & come out clean, it's done

This treat is great to have hot or chilled.
Have a great day!

Bebe

PS. I used to live in England. Which team do u support? Arsenal? West Ham? Spurs? Hehe, I'm a Liverpool's gal

Thanks DisneyBebe - I will add it to my list of sweet treats, which I cut and pasted from elsewhere on here yesterday - they all sound yummy!

I made up a very simple mouse last night (just whisked double cream, cocoa and AS together), but may experiment - it definitely needed more cocoa, and I may add an egg for richness!

However, I am STILL keen to find a lo-carb recipe for actual milk chocolate... rather than chocolate flavoured puddings. Ideally, I would like to be able to make a proper bar of chocolate in time for her birthday on 25 May, so keep the ideas coming!

Thanks all. MLS

Hi,

As a self-confessed, chocoholic, I've got to say that eating LC does not give you the same high quality sensation compared to sugar chocolate. The highest quality chocolate has a lot of cocoa butter formulated with sugar so that is melts below body temp. Hence the way fine chocolate truly melts in your mouth. (Cheaper chocolate takes much longer to dissolve and usually you end up chewing it up!) In my experience sugar coats the tongue and adds to the mouth feel of the chocolate experience. So sugar is not just there for sweetness but adds to the texture of chocolate. Diabetic chocolate made with other sweetners such as polyalcohols are pretty good but not the same and it does not seem to have that "coating" effect that fine chocolate formulated with sugar has. That said here's my recommendation:

Buy the highest quality unsweetened chocolate you can find, such as Callebaut. If you don't mind a bittersweet kind of chocolate simply gently melt and add pkgs of splenda to taste.

If you are attempting to formulate milk chocolate it's a bit more involved.

I suggest you start out 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Stir in a double boiler over low heat until it condenses to about 1/4 cup. It will turn a light caramel color and will thicken. Add your sweetner to this say about 1/2cup of intensity. In a separate pan melt 6 oz of unsweetened high quality chocolate. Add the two together and allow to cool at room temp. This will not make a chocolate that has "snap" but it will smooth out that bitter chocolate taste.

Lastly find a source of cocoabutter. If you can find it you can use the above recipe and use only 2 oz of chocolate with the rest in cocoa butter. This will improve the snap and the chocolate will be much more like milk chocolate.

Good Luck and let us know what you tried and your girlfriend's reaction!

Bebe,

I made your recipe yesterday for my husband, Mike's, birthday. We're both on low carb (me for a little over a month, Mike for about 3 weeks).

He was feeling a little blue about not having a birthday cake with candles (we all have a child within us, even at 60 )

I made this and it was a big hit for both of us, although our daughter and son-in-law didn't think much of it. Their taste buds are too used to junk food, I guess. Mike had 1/8 of the total (7 carb grams) with Splenda-sweetened whipped cream and Walden Farms Calorie Free Chocolate Syrup. I had a little nibble, just to be sure it tasted good, after April's & Kevin's reactions. I don't really care for chocolate, except as a craving, for some reason. Next time, I think I'll cut the chocolate down to 2 oz. and eliminate a yolk or two.

Anyway, it was lovely. I froze the remainder and Mike is going to use them as a treat every now and then.

Thank you for posting this recipe and allowing me to make this landmark birthday a low carb celebration. Afterwards, we went out and did Karaoke til 2:00 am!!!

Hey PineSlayer,

First of all, Happy Birthday to your DH

I'm glad that u liked that recipe

I agree with u, maybe we should use 3 eggs instead of 4

Have a great day!!

Bebe

MLS,

Wow! I came into this forum subject to post a question about making chcolate bars and there was your question. I am also a confirmed chocoholic and have been experimenting to find a way to make chocolate bars!

The best result so far has been :

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 ounce paraffin (to prevent melting at room temperature)
2 T. butter
2 T. heavy cream
Sweetener to taste
Nuts or flavorings as desired (peppermint was good)


Melt the chocolate, paraffin, and butter in a double boiler. heat cream a bit in microwave until warm, not hot. Add cream and sweetener to chocolate mixture and pour into a mold the shape of a chocolate bar. Let cool. Makes 2 bars.

I used the bottoms of two cream cheese boxes for the molds and made inserts with freezer paper. It worked really well and my DH took a candy bar to work today.

I love these, but DH says the chocolate taste is too intense (but he eats them anyway, of course ) And that's why I was going to post a question, to ask how to tone down the intense chocolate taste somewhat.

Milk chocolate has dry milk solids, which would make the bars too high in carbs, so I dismissed that.

But I am going to try your idea, fleadogs, and see if I can't find some cocoa butter at one of the web sites that sell candymaking supplies! Thanks and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Karla

Fleadogs, your suggestion to use cocoa butter was the right answer! I ordered some immediately after reading your post and it arrived a few days later.

I was in too much of a hurry to try adding the cream, but I will do so this week. The first time I just used 1/2 ounce of unsweetened chocolate, 1 ounce of cocoa butter, and sucralose. Well, I mean to tell you it tasted sooooo good and had only 2 grams of carbs, and I had a really hard time leaving any for DH to try.

The only problem was that when I left it out to see if it melted at room temperature, it did, so I had to put it in the fridge.

The second time (today) I added half an ounce of paraffin to 1 ounce of chocolate and 2 ounces of cocoa butter. It still didn't stay solid at room temp, although it was a little better.

Do you or anyone else have any suggestions? I was going to try adding a little more paraffin, because it doesn't affect the taste at all.

Would tempering the chocolate make a difference? Is that how candymakers solve the problem? I'm not even sure I could do this at home without a special and probably expensive machine!

But if I have to store them in the fridge I will, because they are so much better than the low carb chocolate bars and I don't have to guess at how many carbs are in them!

I found a better source for cocoa butter than the one I just used, and tomorrow morning I'm going to order a lot more.

I just wish the people who make Splenda would sell the liquid form here, so everyone could make these with 2 grams of carbs per bar. With 1/2 cup of Splenda each 1-1/2 ounce (2 ounces with the paraffin) bar would have 12 grams of carbs, but if you can keep yourself to half a bar at a time, that would still be amazingly low carb for such a luxurious treat. As a matter of fact, I don't eat more than half a bar a day, even with the low carb count. That's usually because I share them with DH, who loves this latest version!

Somehow knowing that this (or any other sweet) is a legal treat and that I don't have to feel guilty and I can have more tomorrow makes it easier to not go crazy and eat four of them a day.

Karla