Homemade Crunchy Cashew Nut Dark Chocolate Spread - Palm Oil Free and filled with Vegan Protein

Easy Homemade Crunchy Chocolate Spread Recipe with only two ingredients!

Given that we love a nutty and chocolaty spread with bread, we experimented using our KARU Cacao Cashews and found that they are perfectly suited to creating a crunchy dark chocolate nut butter with a few simple steps. You will need a food processor, which we called our nut butter machine, or a alternatively a high-speed blender, but we found the blender can be more messy and create a lot of wastage.

This homemade chocolate spread (i) is easy to make, (ii) high in vegan protein, (iii) without palm oil (yay!), and (iv) best of all has a crunchy nut texture. Let's get started on how to make homemade vegan protein chocolate spread!

• Approximately 135g of nut butter spread

• 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 150g pack of KARU Cacao Cashews
• 1-2 tablespoons of Canola oil (as needed)
• Optional: 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder (to taste)

 

KARU Cacao Cashew - the perfect Chocolate Spread Base

Our cacao coated salted caramel cashew already have all the ingredients we need for a delicious chocolate spread! We only use four ingredients in KARU Cacao: (1) high quality roasted cashew nuts filled with vegan protein (14g per 100g) and important minerals, (2) a dusting of rich cacao, (3) a pinch of salt, and (4) a thin layer of caramel to wrap it all together, creating a great balance of complementing flavours.

That’s it, no nasties! Don’t let the simplicity of the ingredients fool you, the taste and satisfying crunch of KARU Cacao will “wow” you and make a great dark chocolate spread recipe base! You can get them here:

Please reach out to us if you have any questions on hello@karu.co and sign up for our Newsletter to hear more about everything KARU, including more recipes and promotions.

 

How to make chocolate spread

1. Setup your food processor or blender on the counter, so that you can gradually fill in the cashew nuts and turn on your machine.
2. Start to incrementally fill the cacao coated salted caramel cashew nuts into the machine and once all the nuts are being processed let the machine run. You will see the cashew nuts go through various stages. In the pictures below, you can see how the roasted cashew nuts transition to a smooth nut butter. 

1. At first, the nuts will turn into a fine meal. After around 2 minutes, they should then start to release their natural oil, forming a clump that stats to resemble a nut paste. Check that the mixture is all being processed and pause the machine to scrape down any escaped nuts from the sides of the jug. This also avoids your nut butter machine overheating and ensures all the nuts are evenly processed.
2. It will depend on the machine you are using, but you should expect to run the machine for 8-15 minutes including pauses based on your ideal texture. You can make it into a perfectly smooth mixture or if you prefer, as we do, it can be nice and crunchy. Cashew nut butter is milder in taste and smoother than other nut butters, such as peanut butter or almond butter, so you can play around with the preparation.
3. Once you see that the nuts have developed an even texture, you can decide whether or not to add some oil to bind the mixture and make the spread smoother. Using oil also means you have to process the nuts less, so you retain some larger nut pieces that give a nice crunch. We use canola oil for a neutral taste, but you can also use alternatives such as coconut oil.
4. At this stage, you could also sieve some cocoa powder and add it with the oil to create a full chocolate aroma. You can try the spread before and adjust based on your taste. You can also add any other ingredients, such as salt, sugar or cinnamon!
5. Once you think the spread is ideal, transfer it to a lidded jar or enjoy it right away! Store in a fridge or enjoy it on the day.

 

Things to watch out for:

• Use a high-power and sturdy food processor or blender as your nut butter machine and make sure you do not overload the machine with the whole cashew nuts, this can either stop the machine from starting or break it. We found it best to gradually add the cashews.
• If the nuts do not turn creamy enough, add oil to them in increments and see how the texture develops, we found that 1-2 tablespoons got us a nice creamy texture that still had a good crunch. It's still as palm oil free chocolate spread! Adding a small amount of oil will also make the nut butter easier to spread, should you want to use it on bread or toast.
• Transfer the spread into a jar and store it in the fridge to extend the shelf life. We would suggest you finish it within a week of making it, but it will likely be hard to resist that chocolate crunchy nut taste much longer than that anyway!
• Cashew butter usually separates into solids at the bottom and oils at the top when it is kept in the cool. Don't worry about this and just stir it before you us it.