Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chip cookies need to be a staple in every child's diet regardless of food allergies or sensitivities.  My mission... to create a chocolate chip cookie using only natural/healthy sweeteners, no refined sugars.  In the past, I'd just take a cookie recipe and search the grocery store for chocolate chips with no refined sugars.  Being that I normally do my grocery shopping with a 5 month old... reading every label in the store was not an option.  Plus, I had no luck with the research that I did do... so I decided to make my own using limited natural ingredients with no preservatives.  

These chocolate chips are absolutely delicious.  I swear I chowed down on at least a half cup while making them.  Super addicting, but make sure to save some for the cookies!

Chocolate Chips

Makes: 2 cups (depending on how much chocolate you eat while cooling)

Ingredients:

4 oz organic unsweetened baking chocolate (if you don't have organic in your store, the regular is fine)

1/4 cup raw honey (this will make similar to a semi-sweet chocolate... add more to make sweeter)

3 Tablespoons organic coconut oil

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp pure vanilla

Directions:

Break the chocolate into smaller 1/2 oz pieces.  In a double boiler over medium heat, melt the chocolate until smooth.  Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes.  Add honey, coconut oil, sea salt and vanilla and stir until smooth.  

Let sit out in a cool place for a few hours until hardened, somewhat like the consistency of peanut butter.  To speed the process, move to fridge, but don't forget it or it'll get hard and you'll have to start over melting it.  

Meanwhile, cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.  Stick in freezer for 15 minutes. (or hours if you forget it)

When the chocolate is the right consistency, spoon into a piping bag with a larger round tip or a zip lock bag.  If using a zip lock bag, snip the corner of the bag to make a nice tip to pipe the chocolate out of.  Pipe small chocolate chips onto the frozen baking sheet.  When finished, place baking sheet in freezer for another hour to completely harden the chocolate chips.  

Scrape the chocolate chips off the pan with a spatula into a storage container and store in the freezer until ready to use.  

These are very soft chocolate chips so if using in a cookie recipe, make sure you add them right at the end with minimal stirring so they don't melt in the dough or just add them to the top of a cookie at the end of baking.  When I made my cookies, I added them right at the end and stirred only to combine and they were fine.  Store in freezer.