Vegan Chocolate Blueberry Pecan Butter Cups

When I was little, I loved going shopping with my Mom at the mall.  And one of the local malls had this really cool store that looked like a log cabin house inside and they mostly sold home decor items.  You would think that would be a boring place for a kid to shop with her Mom at, but I loved the fact that it was like a house to explore inside and get lost in. Plus I was always up for any kind of shopping trip, it was like an adventure. They always had some goodies near the register for sale, including some huckleberry chocolates that I would always beg my Mom to buy.  They were so good, dark chocolate with jammy huckleberries in the middle!  I don't think that store is there anymore, but those candies were my main memory of it. A lot of my memories tend to be food related, what can I say?  I like food. Which is why I am sharing recipes with you all in the first place!  I have never seen any huckleberries or huckleberry jam for sale around here, but what we do have is a lot of blueberries, the huckleberry's close cousin.

I was thinking about those chocolates the other day and how good they were, so I decided to make something similar with a blueberry jam.  Now I say similar, because I made these into nut butter and jelly cups, one of my all time favorite things.  There is just something so good about the gooey nut butter, jammy fruit and dark chocolate that is so good!  Yes, I take this over a truffle any day!  I bought some fruit sweetened blueberry jam, and I had recently made some pecan butter, so it was perfect!  I decided to make both white and dark chocolate cups because Raw Guru recently sent me both some Rawmio Essentials 100% Cacao Dark Chocolate Bars and Raw Cacao Butter.  The 100% dark chocolate is amazingly smooth, and contains only 2 ingredients, cacao butter and cacao nibs.  If you are truly a dark chocolate lover, you can just eat it as is, but if you like a little more sweetness, you can add your choice of sweetener to it after you melt it down, which is what I did for these cups.  It turned out just perfect as a chocolate base for these cups!

For the white chocolate I used a mixture of cacao butter, coconut butter, and cashew butter for a rich and creamy base.  Both of the chocolates were sooo good with the pecan butter and blueberry jam filling!  I make my own pecan butter at home in the Vitamix because it is more cost effective than store bought, and I end up making it about once a week.  If you can't make your own though, and you can't find it in a store or online, you could use another nut butter like almond for these, that would be really good too.  If you need chocolate making supplies, for desserts like this, you can find the Rawmio Essentials bars, raw cacao butter, or even cacao powder, on the Raw Guru website!

Vegan White Chocolate Blueberry Pecan Butter Cups
Makes 6 large candies

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Raw Guru cacao butter (2 oz)
• 2 Tbsp raw cashew butter
• 1/4 cup Dastony coconut butter
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1/8 tsp sea salt

Filling:

• 5 tsp pecan butter
• 1 tsp Dastony coconut butter, warmed to liquid
• 1/4 cup blueberry jam

Instructions:

1. Combine cacao butter, cashew butter, vanilla, maple syrup,  and sea salt over a double boiler, and whisk until smooth.  Pour into the bottoms of 6 larger peanut butter cup tins (or molds), then place them in the freezer to set.
2. Once the chocolate has hardened, mix together the pecan butter and coconut butter for the filling, and spoon a heaping 1 tsp of the pecan butter mixture over it, then spoon 1 tsp of the jam over the pecan butter.
3. Pour more chocolate over the cups until the jam is covered, and place them in the freezer until set, about 20 minutes.
4. Store any extra in the refrigerator.

Vegan Dark Chocolate Blueberry Pecan Butter Cups
Makes 6 large candies

Chocolate:

• 1 1/2 cups Rawmio Essentials 100% Cacao Dark Chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup maple syrup or to taste (at room temperature)

Filling:

• 5 tsp pecan butter
• 1 tsp Dastony coconut butter, warmed to liquid
• 1/4 cup blueberry jam

Instructions:

1. To make the chocolate, whisk together all ingredients until smooth.
2. Spoon a little chocolate into the bottoms of 6 peanut butter cup molds, filling them about 1/4-1/3 full.  Place in the freezer until hard, about 10 minutes.
3. Once the chocolate has hardened, mix together the pecan butter and coconut butter for the filling, and spoon a heaping 1 tsp of the pecan butter mixture over it, then spoon 1 tsp of the jam over the pecan butter.
4. Pour more chocolate over the cups until the jam is covered, and place them in the freezer until set, about 20 minutes.
5. Store any extra in the refrigerator.

*If you would rather make your own dark chocolate, use this recipe that follows. Or if you have another dark chocolate you want to use, just melt down 1 1/2 cups chopped for the recipe.

Raw chocolate:

• 3/4 cup Raw Guru cacao powder
• 1/2 cup melted Raw Guru cacao butter (warmed to liquid)
• pinch sea salt
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tsp maple syrup divided (at room temperature)

Whisk together until smooth. Pour into molds, and chill until hard.  Keeps for a few months in a sealed container in the refrigerator.