Vegan Milk Chocolate Pomegranate Raspberry Almond Butter Cups

We got 9 inches of snow in the part of Minnesota where I live last Wednesday. It was beautiful, and perfect for skiing of course but it was not so fun trying to travel to and from work in. Especially in my little compact car. I drive like a granny when conditions are like this though, and although it can be scary, I got to work and home safe. Even though the plow decided to pack my car in right before I was trying to leave work and it took effort to get out. When I got home I decided that some wine and chocolate were in order. I make my own home made fruit wines, so I had plenty on my rack downstairs, but the chocolate part I needed to work on. I had the ingredients to make chocolate on hand, so I whipped up a batch.

I usually just go for dark chocolate, but I decided to make some milk chocolate this time because Raw Guru had recently sent me a big jar of their Dastony coconut butter and I had some of their cacao butter on hand as well. Did you know you can make quick and easy vegan milk chocolate by whisking a little coconut butter into your melted dark chocolate? It is so good! It is a little more mellow than the intense dark chocolate and perfect for those who enjoyed milk chocolate before they went vegan. I myself like ALL kinds of chocolate, so it is nice to have a variety sometimes.

I decided to make some pomegranate raspberry almond butter cups with the chocolate because that just sounded amazing and I had some fruit sweetened pomegranate raspberry jam on hand. I think that jam and nut butter chocolate cups are my favorite chocolate treat. They are like a fancy step up from the classic peanut butter cups that I thought were the cat's meow when I was a kid.

These turned out so good! The milk chocolate was mellow and smooth, the perfect pairing for the sweet raspberry pomegranate jam and rich nutty almond butter. It was enjoyable to look out at the pretty snow from my home all safe and warm in my pjs and enjoy the wine and chocolate cups! I hope you are staying warm where you live. If you are a milk chocolate fan, give these a try!

Vegan Milk Chocolate Pomegranate Raspberry Almond Butter Cups
Makes 6 large candies

Milk Chocolate:

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

Filling:

• 6 scant tsp almond butter*
• 1/4 cup raspberry pomegranate 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, spoon a heaping 1 tsp of almond butter over it, then spoon 1 tsp of jam over the almond 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.

*Please note: if your almond butter is the runny variety, you may need to add some coconut butter to it to firm it up so it doesn't run when placed in the cups. Add about 1 tsp coconut butter to it if it is runny.

*If you can not get raspberry pomegranate jam, you can either stir 1 Tbsp pomegranate juice into the raspberry jam.