Cocoa crackles

August 9, 2015

We were invited to celebrate the first birthday of our youngest friend last weekend. Her party had a rainbow theme, and the savoury food was provided by the wonderful Las Vegan Catering (I ate so much pizza). A week ahead I asked how I could help, and I was enlisted to make chocolate crackles.

Chocolate crackles are always vegan and very nearly gluten-free, but these ones have the 2015 treatment. There's coconut oil instead of copha, of course, and coconut sugar instead of regular icing. I even had gluten-free brown rice puffs on hand instead of Kellogg's bubbles. This version appeals to 2015 me much more than the original recipe - although it's a little crumbly, it's got a stronger cocoa flavour and none of the greasiness of copha.

The party wasn't exclusively new age mama mania - there was plenty of lurid colouring in the vegan-friendly Skittles and the spectacular six-layered rainbow cake prepared by a pro.

Cocoa crackles
(slightly adapted from a recipe at Natural New Age Mum)

125g coconut oil
1/2 cup coconut sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
pinch of salt
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
2 cups brown rice puffs

Melt the coconut oil in a medium-large saucepan. Add the sugar, cocoa and salt, stirring until smooth. Stir in the dessicated coconut and then the rice puffs, until everything is well mixed.

Line a muffin pan with a dozen papers and spoon the crackle mixture out equally between them. Refrigerate the crackles for an hour or more before serving.