It is once again time for the Secret Recipe Club! I actually had to skip it last month, simply due to all the other things going on, but I am glad to be back on the wagon with a post inspired by a blog I’d never visited before. I was assigned to Eat Little Eat Big, the blog written by Susie from the beautiful island of Maui (lucky woman!). Like me, Susie is very much concerned with health-conscious recipes and it shows on her blog. Many of her recipes are low carb and South Beach Diet friendly, and they all look delicious. She tends to focus on the savoury foods, but for some reason, when I visited her blog, I really wanted to find a sweet recipe to inspire me. I persisted and I was glad I did, when I came across a recipe for Raspberry Jalapeno Almond Butter Cups.I do adore the combination of raspberry and almond together, so I know that’s why this recipe caught my eye. I confess, thought, that I found the addition of jalapeno in here a little strange at first. But as it turns out, Susie was simply using a raspberry-jalapeno sauce, since she’d run out of raspberry preserves. Don’t get me wrong, I love jalapeno in sweet things, but I did have plain (sugar-free) raspberry preserves on hand and that’s how I decided to make mine. Additionally, I wanted to make them quite low carb, so I went my own route and did 90% cacao for the chocolate coating, adding just a little butter to help it melt and be on the softer side.
The Results: These taste fantastic but the way I made them, they are messy, messy, messy. You essentially have to pop them into your mouth whole, or you get goopy almond butter oozing out all over. It didn’t help that I over-filled the cups with almond butter and raspberry preserves and then had chocolate running down the sides when I tried to cover them with chocolate. Word to the wise, go lightly on the filling so you have room to top them up with chocolate.
I might also, next time, try to thicken the almond butter with some almond flour and some powdered sweetener so it didn’t ooze out all around. But all in all, another enjoyable SRC experience!
Raspberry Almond Butter Cups
1 tbsp butter
5 oz high % cacao chocolate
(I used about 1 1/2 bars Lindt 90% Cacao)
3 tbsp almond butter
3 tbsp sugar-free raspberry jam
In a small saucepan over medium low heat, melt butter and chocolate together until smooth.
Using a pastry brush, coat the bottom and sides of 20 foil-lined petit-fours cups with about half of the chocolate. Place cups on a plate or baking sheet and place in refrigerator until firm, about 20 minutes.
Divide almond butter between chocolate-filled cups, then divide raspberry jam between cups. Reheat chocolate gently, then top each cup with chocolate to cover. Return to refrigerator and let set, about 20 minutes.
Store in refrigerator.
