Beetroot Nut Butter Chocolate Cups (Clean)

Oh, dear God.

The frustrations and difficulties and exhaustion people have to deal with these days.

The frustration of writing poetry and having to justify your decisions

The difficulty of memorizing French terms

The exhaustion of learning about polynomials and factoring them without a GDC

The annoyance of having a VPN that constantly quits on you

The struggle of getting home at 6pm, and having to eat dinner, do homework, practice piano, practice violin, Instagram, check emails, reply to emails, leaving no time for rest

The misery of majorly organizing an event without credit

The realization that you’re so tired that you’re sorta writing really bad poetry.

Oh, English.

And so there’s the relief of chocolate, which supposedly makes you happy (according to SCIENCE, guys). That’s where these lil’ beetroot nut butter chocolate cups come in.

Quite frankly, chocolate usually doesn’t require tempering as long as you heat it very, very gently. I mean, c’mon, who wants to deal with all those temperatures and mixing and taking 2/3 of the chocolate out and blah blah blah.

The thing I love about these chocolate cups is that when the chocolate bar is melted and changes form, with a little dollop of beetroot nut butter wedged in the center, the texture changes. It’s difficult to explain, but trust me on this one. The chocolate – although the content doesn’t change much – takes on a completely new satisfaction to the bite. It’s like the difference between eating a really cold chocolate bar that you can bite into and get that gadijp sound, verses eating a warm chocolate bar thats melty and that you don’t really bite into. With these, essentially, you could just shove the entire chocolate cup in your mouth and let it melt (though you won’t be able to speak for a minute or two), but I’d rather bite right through the middle of it and let the chocolate break into it’s naturally thin, beautiful, yet chunky pieces, revealing a gorgeous, hot pink patch of creamy goodness hidden inside.

Yeeesss ❤

I’m writing so much. Can you tell I’m tired? I went swimming. We did hypox. Don’t blame me.

Oh and hang in here for just another second…or not. You can just skip to the recipe now if you want, but there’s something I need to talk about. Something non-food related (unless you count Zack Merrick as being ketchup idk). Imma do an album rating thing, just because.

ALL TIME LOW’S NEW ALBUM IS AMAZING. It’s called Future Hearts. If you guys haven’t heard it – go listen to it now. I don’t care what you “usually” listen to. Heavy metal, k-pop, alternative, country – just go listen to it.

The entire album is preetty perfect. Imma talk about what I think just because I have nothing better to do and I need text to balance out the large number of photos (jk that’s just an excuse).

1. Satellites – Something really different from ATL’s usual stuff. I don’t mind. I found the line “Wishing on a star that’s just a satellite” to be kinda sad though. Like, you’re wishing on something that’s believed to be magical and natural and mysterious and far away, and in reality, it’s just an artificial, man-made imitation of stars. I like the song tho
2. Kicking & Screaming – There’s a proper scream in this one. ‘Nuf said.
3. Something’s Gotta Give – I will admit that the music video scared me. I won’t talk spoilers. Well, I won’t talk about music-video spoilers, but I can say that omFG THE FINAL NOTE OF THE SONG MADE ME DIEE.
4. Kids In The Dark: Holy moly I love this song so much. “Beautiful scars on critical veins. Come together. State of the art. We’ll never surrender. The kids in the dark.” Plus, the music video’s preetty cool tho and ALEX LOOKS HOT AF.
5. Runaways: Another favorite. Okay, this one’s really good. I mean, I know that I said the same thing about all of them, but I really love this one.
6. Missing You: Aw man this one’s beautiful. It’s one of those songs where you feel like the lead singer is holding you close and that everything will be okay and listening to it makes you feel like you’re getting the biggest, warmest hug ever from Baymax.
7. Cinderblock Garden: I love the intro a lot but tbh it’s not my fav song (sorry guys)
8. Tidal Waves: OH MY GOD NO WORDS C’MON MARK HOPPUS IS IN IT! NEED I SAY MORE? MARK HOPPUS! IT’S GORGEOUS AND LISTENING TO IT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE BEING CARRIED AWAY BY TIDAL WAVES AND IT’S WONDERFUL.
9. Don’t You Go: I’m obsessed with the way Alex sings the line “Don’t you go”. There’s just so much force and emotion. Agreed? Agreed.
10. Bail Me Out: Kay Joel Madden sings in this song and there’s definitely that Good Charlotte influence, so his voice fits in perfectly. I know that the lyrics aren’t necessarily super happy and stuff, but the song makes me want to do that thing where you nod your head from side to side and tap your feet and makes you happy?
11. Dancing With A Wolf: Oh my god. There’s so much sass and attitude in this one, which I think is awesome considering Alex Gaskarth has that sass and attitude. It’s definitely going into my workout playlist. I’m listening to it right now and suddenly I’m not even tired anymore. Please listen to this.
12. The Edge of Tonight: LISTEN TO IT LISTEN TO IT! I BEG YOU THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG EVER I MIGHT EVEN LIKE IT BETTER THAN THERAPY. IT MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE ALL TIME LOW SONG – EVER. THAT’S SAYING A LOT!!!! I BEG YOU TO CLICK ON THAT LINK AND PLUG IN EARPHONES AND LISTEN TO IT. I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND THE MELODY IS GORGEOUS AND I CAAAN’T
13. Old Scars/Future Hearts: I thought this song would be better, since the whole album is titled Future Hearts. I absolutely adore the bridge, “We got scars on our future hearts, but we never looked back, no we never looked back.” It’s a good song though.

Back to these things.

You will end up with leftover beetroot nut butter, but I think that’s kinda a good thing. I’ve been using it on everything. I add it onto my oatmeal, I spread it on bread or rice cakes… It’s like any other nut butter, but with a girly makeover.

Notes: I apologize for using both weight and volume in the ingredients list. Anyways, for the beetroot, you can just stick the whole thing (unpeeled) in a pot of boiling water for 20-40 minutes (depending on size) until it’s tender. Then, you can purée it in the food processor, remove the purée and place it in a bowl, and then use the food processor for the cashews (in the recipe). Less clean-up! Also, make sure to melt the chocolate in a double-boiler, or in the microwave at short 10-second intervals, stirring in between and stopping when 80-90% of the chocolate has melted and there’s still a few chunks, allowing the rest to melt from residual heat.

Beetroot Nut Butter Chocolate Cups

Makes 8 chocolate cups

Ingredients:

• 200g cashews (or other light-colored nut. e.g. peeled almonds)
• 3 tbsp beetroot, cooked and puréed
• 250g chocolate, melted
• 1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
• Shredded coconut (optional, for garnish)
• Cacao nibs (optional, for garnish)

Method:

1. In a food processor or strong blender, blend the cashews until they form into a thick paste, scraping the sides down as necessary. This may take anywhere from 5-20 minutes depending on the strength of your food processor.
2. Add the beetroot purée into the food processor and process until fully combined
3. Transfer the beetroot nut butter into a jar and store in refrigerator until ready to use (You can use it as regular cashew/peanut/almond butter)
4. In a medium bowl, stir together the chocolate and coconut oil until combined
5. Spoon approximately a tablespoon of the chocolate onto the bottom of a muffin tin lined with paper liners, or into metal cupcake liner/mold things
6. Place the liners in the refrigerator until they set (5-10 minutes)
7. Remove the liners from the refrigerator and spoon a teaspoon of beetroot nut butter onto the center of each one. Use a wet spoon or a wet finger to press it down into a small disk in the center of the chocolate.
8. Spoon more chocolate over the beetroot nut butter until the nut butter is completely hidden by the chocolate. Sprinkle some shredded coconut and/or cacao nibs on top and repeat with the rest of the liners
9. Place in refrigerator until completely hardened, and store these in the refrigerator