Hi everyone,

I wanted to find out... does anyone know of a brand of sugar-free/low carb chocolate bars that are made WITHOUT sugar alcohols. Those things are just nasty on my system.

Any ideas are most welcomed.

Jill in Phoenix

P.S. I have tried to make homemade SF chocolate chips by melting unsweetened baking chocolate and adding cream, splenda, davinci's, etc. but they the baking chocolate was just too pungent, I guess, to overcome. Maybe that's why the manufacturers use the sugar alcohols?!?

I like to make little puddinglike treats occassionally.

1/3 cup of ricotta cheese, 1 tbs hersheys cocoa,
1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 packet splenda

OR

1 oz of cream cheese melted, 1 TBS hersheys cocoa, 1 tsp splenda makes kind of a chocolate cheesecakey pudding

OR

1 tbs butter or coconut oil melted w/ 1 tbs hersheys cocoa w/ 1 1/2 tsp splenda and stir - then add some heavy cream and that is kind of like some uncooked brownie mix

Can you tell I have chocolate issues?!?!?

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for the reply. What I'm really wanting to find, though, is a hard chocolate bar w/o the polyols -OR- a way to make one at home. I don't want to pop a piece of chocolate bar in my mouth, per se, but love to make Dana Carpender's chocolate chip cookies, but w/o the sugar free chocolate chips with those nasty sugar alcohols.....

I'm hoping someone out there either knows of a company that makes SF chocolate bars or chips (even better) sans the SAs or has a great recipe for making some at home.

Thanks again for your post.
Jill

P.S. I have chocolate issues too!! LOL.

In short, not yet. The sugars and the sugar alcohols are what makes the commercial bars 'hard' via tempering.

Best place to look for recipes is the LowCarb Kitchen / Recipe forum, you might find some posts there using unsweetened baker's chocolate or cocoa butter as a base, there's some hope there.

www.carb-lite.au.com has recipes for making your own chocolate. (Can I link to another site???) I found this link in another forum here. I haven't tried them yet, but I have tried some others that were very good. I found lots of yummies here too. BTW I have Dana's book too. The PB silk is outrageous!!! I took it to a party the other night and it flew off the table. No one would have known it was sugar free except I told them. Again, you'd probably want to make a batch of your own chocolate first. Another great book is Eades LC Comfort foods.

Teresa

Hi Teresa,

Thank you very much. I have been to this site before, but hadn't thought about checking it for LC chocolate bar-type recipes.

I will try a few of these. My hopes is to make some that (a) tastes good-- not too strong and (b) holds up well when baked in choc chip cookies-- melts the right amount and does not turn into a puddle.

I'll post here when I figure out which one works best.

Thanks again.
Jill

I have a chocolate problem also. Have you heard of Lynn's chocolate? I had it several years ago and misplaced it when I moved. I did a search for Lynn's chocolate and behold I found it.

1 oz unsweetened chocolate(baking)
2tbsp butter
1 tbsp cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup splenda
1 oz crushed nuts (macadamias are nice)

Melt chocolate and butter, carefully. Remove from
heat, Stir in cream, Stir in cream and vanilla, Stir in Splenda. Fold in nuts. Pour into tin-foil-lined something or other. Chill

I like it very much. I can't remember how many carbs and this recipe didn't say.

Sue

Well so much for writing quickly. It was the recipe that I lost. I found another web site with the Lynne's chocolate.
This is the recipe cut in half and has the carb count.
Lynne's Chocolate
1/2 oz unsweetened chocolate(bakers) 4grmcarb/2 fiber
1 tbs butter 0.0 carbs
1/2 tsp vanilla <.50 carbs
splenda (3-4 packets)3-4 carb grams
macadamia nuts(1/2 oz) 4 carb grams/2 fiber
About 8 grams adjusted for fiber
follow reciipe instructions in previous post.

Sue

Jill,

I gave up on finding SF chocolate without the sugar alcohols, so, after a lot of experimenting and research I now make terrific SF chocolate bars and candies. I'm pretty sure I posted the recipe in Sweet Treats, so you can look there and if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

The unsweetened chocolate by itself is too bitter, so you need to add cocoa butter (food grade, of course) to make lovely dark chocolate. I buy it from www.botanistry.com, but you could do a web search to see if there are other sources. If you use really good unsweetened chocolate and the cocoa butter you wind up with chocolate as good as anything Godiva makes.

The next key is to temper the chocolate to give it that hardness, known as "snap" to chocolatiers, and so that it won't melt at room temperature. I did a search on tempering chocolate and sifted through them to find one that was doable with a double boiler and an instant read thermometer. It really isn't too hard to do, even though I am trying to justify buying a tempering machine.

HTH,

Karla

Hi Karla,

Thanks for the great suggestion. I searched the posts for your name under Sweet Treats and found the post where you talked about cocoa butter and paraffin. In the post you asked about quantities of each. Did you ever post your finalized recipe, because I couldn't find it?

Thanks again. It is definately something I'm going to try.

Jill

Jill,

If the recipe calls for paraffin, I posted it before figuring out how to temper chocolate. Now I use 4 ounces of cocoa butter and 2 ounces of Callebaut unsweetened chocolate (any high grade unsweetened chocolate will do, but IMHO there's no point in doing all this work unless you start with really good ingredients I found the Callebaut at www.chocolatesource.com and bought a 5 pound block of it :eek. I cut all of that up very fine; actually I use a pastry scraper to shave the chocolate and cocoa butter.

I follow the directions for tempering the chocolate I found at www.allrecipes.com/cb/sbs/chocolate/default.asp, which was the simplest method I could find. One note, however: in step 5 they tell you to cool the chocolate down and that one way is to add small pieces of non melted chocolate. So in the beginning I put 2/3 of the chocolate and all the cocoa butter, plus sweetener equal to about 3/4 cup of sugar, into the top of the double boiler and follow the directions. When I get to the cooling part of step 5 I add the rest of the chocolate. This speeds up the cooling.

I figured that if I were going to go as far as tempering chocolate I may as well go all the way, so I bought molds for chocolate bars, which are really cheap. I also bought molds for filled candies and am experimenting with those, too. If you are interested, the molds came from www.tcbsupply.com, but there are of course other places. But I think they were the only ones I found who had the molds for chocolate bars.

I could never live without chocolate, so I just had to find a way to make it LC. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to help.

Karla

Hi Karla,

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I picked up some food grade cocoa butter at a candy supply store today, along with an instant read thermometer, and some candy molds. (Too convenient that they had pretty much what I needed here in town!)

I have a few questions for you though, if you have a minute.

1) If I add more cream, will I get a more "milk" chocolate taste than dark? I just prefer a lighter chocolate, but it's no biggie.

2) So if I master the tempering thing (following the directions in the link you gave me), I don't need the paraffin, right? Is tempering hard to do, if I follow directions? Do you set the water temp (gas stove) to a low setting to let things melt slowly and the temp rise slowly? Or use another setting?

3) In addition to granular Splenda, do you know if you can use a SF Davinci's syrup to add more sweetness without adding a bunch of carbs, or will it make the consistency too runny? What if I added just a small amount (like a few tablespoons)? Any thoughts on this?

4) So if I'm reading all your posts correctly, you are using: a high quality, unsweetened baking chocolate, heavy cream, vanilla extract, cocoa butter, and granulated Splenda. Is that correct, or am I missing anything? (The cocoa butter replaces regular butter, right?)

5) Lastly, I bought the cocoa butter today, but they only had it in 1 ounce bars at $2.50 ea. I'm assuming I can get it in a bigger size (e.g. bulk) for a lot cheaper. Any website suggestions?

Thanks again for EVERYTHING! I'll let you know how things turn out.

Jill in Phoenix


P.S. Sorry this is a bit long. But since the ingredients are a bit expensive, I thought I'd get as much info up front, before I give it a go!

Thanks to both of you for posting this conversation. It will be much help to me when I want to make chocolates. I used to make homemade candy, but I used the "melts" so I have never tempered chocolate before. I'm hoping to try to make some for Christmas. I'm in a small town so there is nowhere to get quality chocolate. I'll have to order online so the links will be helpful too.

Any ideas on cream chees mints? I used to make those too, but obviously can't use confectioners sugar. And Splenda is a little too grainy.

Thanks Again,
Teresa

Jill,

I wish I could tell you how many carbs the Callebaut chocolate has, but I no longer have the wrapper; I bought an 11 pound block and found it too difficult to break up with the wrapper on, so I threw it out. I'm pretty sure it was around the same as regular baking chocolate, but now I'm curious, so I think I'll email either Callebaut or the place from which I bought it and ask. We are going to Paris next month and I plan on taking an extra suitcase to bring back as much unsweetened Valrhona chocolate as I can carry!

BTW, I haven't been able to get to the Botanistry website, so maybe they aren't around. But, as you said, there are other sources and it is a lot cheaper to buy in bulk.

The marzipan recipe is in a back issue of the online magazine at www.lowcarbluxury.com. Go to the site, click on online magazine, go to Back Issues and find Volume III, Number 22, December 2, 2002. You'll see the article on "Low Carb Holiday Marzipan." It is a very good recipe and even better coated with chocolate! And yes, you need the rosewater, but that you can find at big health food stores; Whole Foods has it if there's one near you.

I'll let you know when I try the filled candies again. I do want to be able to make some before my parents come to visit in two weeks.

I'm glad to pass on what I've learned; it's a lot of fun to find new and LC ways to make things I like. And I am too picky to be satisfied with merely acceptable alternatives; I want LC foods that are as good if not better than the high carb ones.

Teresa, I have not tried any candies other than the chocolate, but if you come up with some good recipes, I'd love to hear about them. I never made candy until after we went LC

You do have to be careful with things like candy while you are losing weight; some people have to avoid sweet things because it might trigger big time sugar cravings and send them off track. I find that being able to have LC treats makes things easier because I don't feel deprived, and not having to feel guilty about having a treat makes it easier to "just eat one" today and one tomorrow. It's a YMMV thing.

Karla
Karla

Karla, please, please, please post your chocolate recipe! I've been reading this thread and simply unable to resist asking.

I've made chocolates before, but not LC, and not with unsweetened chocolate, so I can really use some written amounts on this.

I can get the chocolate, cocoa butter and sweetener, and thanks to your links here I can do the rest ...

Huh? Will you? Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaase?



---Amy