Gluten Free Vegan Living

Dark Chocolate is one of my very favorite foods!  Me and my husband joke that it should be listed as one of the main food groups!  When I found out about my food allergies, and had to give up so many of the foods that I loved, I decided that I would find a way to continue to eat chocolate!

Our featured story is about, of course, Chocolate!!  Keep reading to find out how chocolate is made.

How Chocolastic!

The 10 Best Vegan Dark Chocolate Bars

Adopting a plant-based lifestyle may mean “giving up” a few things, but chocolate certainly isn’t one of them.

Unfortunately, it seems that chocolate has become synonymous with milk chocolate. But in reality, pure dark chocolate (you know, the heart-healthy kind), is totally plant-based! Here’s a quick primer on how most commercially available chocolate is made:

1. Cacao pods are harvested from cacao trees growing throughout the tropics.
2. The beans from inside those pods are then placed in earthen pits or wooden bins, covered with banana leaves, and left to ferment.
3. After fermentation, the beans are dried in the sun for about a week.
4. Dried beans are shipped to a factory, where they are first sifted and roasted.
5. The beans are then cracked and winnowed, leaving the bitter but edible cacao nibs.
6. The nibs are crushed and ground into a thick paste called chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor has a strong, bitter taste, and a grainy texture.
7. To make what we know as chocolate, manufacturers then add sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla, yielding a sweet but still grainy mixture.
8. Finally, manufacturers run the mixture through a series of steel rollers to refine the texture, and may add more cocoa butter and soy lecithin.

READ FULL STORY — including their list of the top ten favorite chocolate bars!

More links to articles on chocolate:  Choose Dark Chocolate for Heart Health

And it you love to make Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate dishes, check out the Amazing Gluten Chocolate Book

Great place to buy high quality dark chocolate:  Gnosis Chocolate

Gluten Free Cupcakes is one of the most requested recipe.  And these Cupcakes are Vegan as well as Gluten Free!

This recipes, from Squidoo writer, Cara Reed, is almost too good to be true.  The three parts to this recipe include:

1. Date Caramel Sauce
2. Chocolate Cupcakes (recipe listed below)
3. Coconut Buttercream Frosting

Check it out below:

Beggin’ for Samoa Cupcakes

• 3/4 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. quinoa flour
• 1/4 c. brown rice flour
• 1/4 c. arrowroot
• 1/4 c. potato starch (not flour)
• 1/3 c. dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
• 3/4 c. hemp milk
• 2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 c. oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

READ FULL RECIPE

Squidoo is one of my favorite places to share recipes and other information.  If you are interested in finding more information on Gluten Free flours (and where to find them), check out my Squidoo Lens on Gluten Free Bread Baking Tips!

For all you chocoholics, like me, here is a wonderful Gluten Free Vegan S’more recipe.  Listed below is the beginning part of the recipe that includes Vegan Gluten Free Graham Crackers …. so you get two recipes in one.  Boy, don’t these look good!

Vegan and Gluten-Free Graham Crackers

• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 cup superfine brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 3/4 cup corn starch
• 2 teaspoons xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup cold non-dairy margarine
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup non-dairy milk
• 1/4 cup agave
• 1/4 cup molasses
• Dash cinnamon

READ FULL RECIPE

Interested in more Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Recipes?  Check out the following e-book that has some wonderful recipes:  Amazing Gluten Free Chocolate.

Here is a sneak preview of one of the recipes from Amazing Gluten Free Chocolate:  Blush Tarts

Just because we are vegan doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy good treats like ‘ice cream’. Frozen bananas or avocados can substitute for the “cream” and make a really delicious frozen dessert.

It’s a recipe that can be done without a churner and is ridiculously healthy and good for you-but of course I had to go ahead and add chocolate chips to it.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

3 medium or 2 large frozen bananas (ripe ones are sweeter)*
1 ripe avocado
1/3 cup cocoa
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup chocolate chips or cocoa nibs (use dairy free dark chocolate if you’re keeping this entirely vegan)

READ FULL STORY

If you are interested in more delicous GF Vegan dessert recipes, check out the Amazing Gluten Free Chocolate E-book

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