Introduction: DIY Keto Chocolate Bar

The keto DIY keto chocolate bar is a chocolate bar that is easy to make. It is also keto which means healthy to eat, as long as you don't eat way way to much of it. But it is a simple fun project that can be very customizable.

There are 5 - 7 steps to this project depending on how much you customize it, and it can be even more than seven steps. But more than seven steps is beyond where I want to go.

  1. Cutting the coco bars into shavings.
  2. Melting the coco with the double boiler system.
  3. Mixing the melted chocolate with the other ingredients.
  4. Pouring the chocolate mix into the molds.
  5. Your own custom touches of art or finesse. (Like custom wrappers).

Now you know what there is to it lets wade in!

Supplies

Ingredients

The ingredients for this blissful healthy chocolate bar are:

  1. Bakers 100% unsweetened chocolate baking bar. (Coco Bars Amazon)
  2. Swerve (a sugar replacement) (Swerve Amazon) I don't know what works better granular or confectioners, but I used confectioners.
  3. Fine Shredded coconut. (Coconut Shredded Unsweetened Amazon)

Optional:

  1. Butter salted/unsalted
  2. Your own ingredients.

Equipment

The equipment you will need is very minimal. The equipment that you need is for the double boiler system of melting chocolate.

  1. Sharp knife.
  2. Cutting board.
  3. A pair or two of plastic surgical gloves.
  4. A stove for boiling the water. (a grill or a small outdoor propane cooker will work)
  5. Two pots, a smaller one and a larger one. The smaller one needs to be able to fit inside the bigger one with about an inch of play around on all sides.
  6. Something to stir the chocolate with. A spatula, a spoon, or even a dedicated stirring utensil.
  7. A quarter of a cup measuring cup. (you might want a couple different sizes, but I only used a quarter cup one).
  8. A mold of some sort. (for pouring the chocolate into once you have it melted). (Rubber Chocolate Mold Amazon)
  9. And The Most Important Thing Of All… A Mouth To Eat It!

Optional:

  1. A scale for weighting your chocolate.
  2. A graphic drawing software. (for designing custom wrappers)

Step 1: Shaving the 100% Coco Bars

In order to melt the chocolate consistently we need to chop it up into small shavings. This is where the sharp knife and cutting board come in. So taking the chocolate out of the bakers wrapping and place it vertically on the cutting board. Then take your knife and cut along the edge of the chocolate bar. I personally found this to be the most efficient method. I recommend periodically sweeping the chocolate shavings into a separate container to avoid spilling them off the cutting board while you are cutting. Do this until you have all the chocolate you want to melt.

Step 2: Melting the Coco

Now that all of your chocolate is cut up into shavings put into the smaller pot. Next take your larger pot and fill it 1/2 to 2/3 full of water. And put it onto the heating device of your choice. Turn the burner on high and let the water get boiling. Once the water is boiling take your smaller pot and set it on top of the boiling water. Make sure there is not any chance of the smaller pot tipping over and getting water in the chocolate. After making sure the small pot cannot tip over put a lid on it and get the swerve and the coconut ready. Make sure once 50% or more of the chocolate is melted to stir it every couple of minutes. Chocolate likes lots of stirring.

Step 3: Mixing Your Custom Chocolate

Once it is melted you can start to add the other ingredients. I started with the swerve and I added a quarter cup of it at a time. For a batch of 6 – 4oz bars I used a total of 1 and 1/8 cups of swerve. After getting the swerve melted and blended nicely with chocolate I added ¼ cup of shredded coconut. One batch I did I added butter and it made the chocolate have a creamier texture. I only added ½ of a cup of butter to the mix of chocolate, swerve, and coconut. The differences between the batch I did with butter and without butter are:

  1. The texture of the chocolate bars that I added the butter to was smoother.
  2. The batch of chocolate bars I didn’t add butter to retained more of a rich dark chocolate taste.

So whether you add butter or not it is up to you. You can actually add any ingredients you want. The only thing that is a must have is the Chocolate! One thing that is important when mixing your ingredients is that you might want to taste it after you add something in order to get it just right. I used a bunch of split in half "new" popsicle sticks for tasting. I got a new one every time I tasted.

Step 4: Pouring Your Chocolate Mix Into the Molds

Now that you have your chocolate melted and all of the extra ingredients added, it is time to pour! In order to pour your chocolate you need somewhere to pour it. There are several choices of which to chose from. Since I have a CNC machine I was able to cut my own molds from a counter top material called corian (corian is food grade). The molds I made have custom lettering (Metal Magic) for my YouTube channel. But as not everyone has a CNC machine to cut out their own molds. Now the choices that I am aware of are:

  1. Buy a couple flexible rubber molds from amazon or other store carrying confectionery equipment.
  2. Use a cookie sheet. If you use the cookie sheet make sure to have it sitting in the freezer till just before you want to pour. This will keep the chocolate mounded higher. (Suggestion)
  3. If you don’t have a cookie sheet you could use something similar, like a frying pan, a glass pan, or a couple of foil sheets on a counter top. These are just a few. But who doesn’t have a cookie sheet I would like to know? Small bread pans would probably work great. If you only fill the up half an inch you will have a nice fat chocolate bar!
  4. Shaped muffin tins should work great too. (Shaped Muffin Tins Amazon)

These are just some ideas, there are many many more that I am sure creative people like you can come up with. But I don’t want to take the time to think of them all, besides it would take away the fun of it for you.

Okay, we have the mold, and the liquid chocolate mix... it is time to pour. So we will start with taking the pot of chocolate out of the pot of boiling water. Now we can go carefully to where we have the molds setup, and gently tilt the pot over the mold. The chocolate probably won’t be as runny as liquid butter, it will be more like a slightly stiff honey. (At least it was this way for me.) So when you tilt the pot over the mold you will need a spatula to scrap it into the mold. When you do this it will tend to ribbon into a kind of mound in your mold. If you are trying to make a bar and have a mold with corners and sides you will in order to get it to flow into the extremities of the mold need to vibrate it somehow. There are several methods that come to mind.

  1. Taking the spatula place on the chocolate and move it up and down slightly vigorously, this will cause the chocolate to vibrate and flow into the corners of your mold. (I used this method.)
  2. Take hold of the chocolate mold and move it slightly side to side gently but vigorously. So that you don’t risk spilling it.
  3. If you have one of those small shoulder massaging bug things, I would assume one of these would work quite well by placing it on the bottom of the mold and turning it on. If it is not altogether to easy to move your mold you can place the massaging bug in contact with the same surface on which the mold is resting. If that surface is not too solid it will vibrate the chocolate.

One thing to note is that if you use the spatula method of getting the chocolate to flow. Once you remove the spatula the back of the chocolate bar won’t have a smooth surface. So if you want your chocolate bar to have a smooth surface than you will have to think of a way to make it that way. I have a couple ideas that pop into my head for example; a sharp knife after the chocolate has hardened, a flat piece of cookware, another spatula coated with something to make it not stick to the chocolate. Lame ideas I know, but they will help spark the creativity in you. So be inventive and come up with a good system yourself, and tell me about it! P.S I used a sharp blade to flatten/smooth my bars out.

Step 5: The Results

My chocolate bars turned out quite well, each weighing ~5oz. The flavor in my opinion was outstanding. The people to whom I gave some of the chocolate bars thought the flavor was out standing as well. Although they did say there was room for improvement. But overall I am was and am very satisfied with this first attempt. I am sure that should you try this, that you will also be satisfied.

Step 6: An Extra Touch

So when I decided to make these chocolate bars I had originally only planned making my own molds with the Metal Magic text and fancy edges. But as the project progressed I decided that I wanted to make my own custom Metal Magic wrappers with all the “nutrition facts” on the back and everything. I just thought the idea was cool so I well…

I took the measurements of the bakers chocolate bar boxes, and opening up inkscape I designed a wrapper to wrap around the boxes. I just did some really simple coloring and image manipulation to get a nice wrapper. The next thing to do was print them. After I printed them I used a sharp knife and cut out each wrapper from its sheet of paper. With them all cut out I used tape to wrap them around the bakers chocolate bar boxes. I tried several techniques and I finally settled on one. The technique I used is hard to describe, but with a couple of tries you will settle on a good technique. I have full confidence in you.

Note: The nutrition facts I put on the wrappers for my bars are only estimations.

Step 7: Done! (To My Limited Imagination)

I made these chocolate bars for Christmas presents for my family. But after completing this project I decided to share it. If you have any suggestions or ideas I would glad to hear about them. I hope you enjoyed this project, and if you do this project may I wish you luck!

Sincerely,

Patrick

The links provided are not affiliate links, and I have not used any of the molds or muffin tins. So I can't recommend them, but I put those links in to give you ideas.

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