Homemade Chocolate Chips

I tried another Heavenly Homemaker recipe yesterday for homemade chocolate chips.  This was really easy to do.  And the chips taste really good!  Plus you get to control the ingredient quality.  I need to experiment with them a bit, though.  The recipe says you can use coconut oil or butter.  I only had a 1/2 cup coconut oil left, so I used a half cup of each.  And I think they didn't work too well together.  My chocolate kind of separated.  There was a top layer of hard chocolate.  And a bottom layer of softer chocolote with sugar.  I'd like to try using all of one or the other.  These are still good, though.  They would make a great homemade candy bar :)  Just break it into larger chunks.  The down side is that they melt very easily...and can make little hands messy very quickly :)  I'm anxious to try them in cookies or brownies. 

Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup rapadura or sucanat
1 cup coconut oil or butter (I used half of each since I only had a 1/2 cup of coconut oil left)
1 T. vanilla

Begin by placing the cocoa, sucanat and butter (or coconut oil) into a quart sized jar.  Fill a small saucepan with two or three inches of water. Place the jar into the saucepan/water. Turn the heat on medium/high to begin melting the butter.  Stir often.

Mine took about 10 minutes for the butter to completely melt (I think it goes much faster with cocount oil...that was metled down really quickly).  Pull it out of the water.  Add the vanilla and stir well.

Pour the mixture into a 9×13 inch pan covered with parchment paper. Spread it as evenly as you can.

Place your pan into the refrigerator. It takes a couple of hours for the chocolate to harden. Once it’s hardened, remove it from the parchment paper and break it into chunks. Store in refrigerator in an airtight container.