Gepofte Chocolates!

After the disappointment of the Maize and Amaranth Dark chocolate cakes, we decided to make our own version.  Allergy Little enjoyed the “Gepofte Amaranth” (popped Amaranth) in the original product so we thought we would incorporate Amaranth in these very easy chocolates.

We used a Star Wars heroes chocolate mould that we bought from Lakeland Limited.  The chocolate we used is Kinnerton’s Luxury Dark Chocolate, which is nut, dairy, egg, wheat, and gluten free, and is suitable for Vegans.  We used Alara’s Into The Garden Organic muesli, and we used the Active variety.  This muesli has a high proportion of puffed Amaranth (20.5%), which Allergy Little really likes.  Don’t forget you can win a box of this cereal in our giveaway.

Our method was very simple as this was a fun activity for Allergy Little and I, while Big was at school.  We carefully melted the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  We found that one 85g bar was just the right amount to fill one mould with twelve chocolates.  When the chocolate was melted, we took the bowl off the heat.  We vigorously shook the cereal box so that the heavier pieces of the muesli sunk to the bottom and the very light Amaranth settled on the top.  Then I sneakily used a spoon to scoop up just the Amaranth, but we didn’t get stressed if a few stray other bits added in.  Allergy Little meanwhile mixed it in the chocolate.  We stopped adding more Amaranth (plus extra bits) when there was still plenty of chocolate to coat the bits.  We wanted this to be chocolate with bits in, rather than coated bits!  Allergy Little spooned the melted chocolate into the mould.  We put the mould in the fridge and the chocolates took about an hour to set solid.

Allergy Little enjoyed this as an activity, he was very proud of his chocolates, and he was pleased to share some with Big as a snack after school.  It was also a good chance to talk about the changes from solid to liquid to solid caused by heating and cooling.  Cooking is such a useful and yummy way to learn science!