Homemade Reese Cups (Paleo, Grain-Free)

I made these bad boys a few years ago, at the time I made them they were full of artificial sweeteners, and chemically laden low calorie products such as PB2. Skip ahead 3 years and a lot has changed for me. While I'd say I'm pretty much fully recovered from my eating disorder, which my previous blog was entirely centered around, I'm now struggling with severe IBS , a disorder I've had since high school but has hit new peaks within the last year, with the possibility of having undiagnosed IBD.

In light of these recent health issues, I've been trying to find the best ways to manage my pain and other symptoms as holistically as possible. This means seeing naturopaths, taking supplements, meditation, light exercise and most importantly, following a diet designed to heal the gut. This diet is called the specific carbohydrate diet, as outlined in the book , Breaking The Vicious Cycle. This diet is mainly no grains, no starches, no refined sugars, and mostly no dairy. With the help of my naturopath and specific food testing, I am mostly going to be dairy free as well. And while you won't see me stray from SCD very often, I have decided that once in a blue moon some organic cocoa powder is not going to kill me. Cocoa is illegal on SCD for its own reasons, but not because it feeds the bad bacteria in the gut. It is outlined as being illegal because it has "addictive" components, which  in all truth I find outdated. If there's one thing I'll stray on, it's this one. Some die hard SCD'ers would kill me for saying that. So if you're SCD and you aren't with me on this one, just don't make these peanut butter cups.

Eventually I will do a step by step tutorial with these ones , pictures and all, but right now I'm just doing a quick post transfer from my old blog, with a few ingredient updates and ouila! Here we have the first recipe post on this blog, and it took literally no labour. Look at me go.

These Reese's inspired cups are refined sugar free, dairy free, grain free, paleo and vegan! While they're not exactly legal SCD, I assure you they're about as good as it gets in the world of sugar free. I was inspired by this recipe from The Coconut Momma of healthy 'caramel' cups, I am not a huge fan of caramel so I thought I'd put my own spin on it!

Reese's Cups

made with homemade dark chocolate and nut butter

Ingredients:
1/3 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup cocoa powder
3T honey
1tsp  vanilla extract

1/4 cup nut butter of your choice (I used almond butter)

Directions:
for the chocolate
1.Melt the coconut oil in a small sauce pan, remove from heat.
2.Stir in cocoa powder and whisk lightly until no lumps remain
3.Add the agave nectar and vanilla extract

for the nut butter cups
1. Line a muffin pan with liners, pour about 1T of the chocolate into the bottom of each liner (make sure the bottom of each liner is covered) and stick in the freezer for 5-10 minutes
2. Evenly distribute your nut butter among the 12 cups ~ leave room around the edges for the chocolate to cover!