3-Ingredient Dark Chocolate Sorbet is the light dessert you’ve been waiting for. Sinfully delicious, easy to make and no ice cream machine needed! Paleo, vegan, gluten free.
Get ready for an intense chocolate experience! This much dark chocolate is a total rush, especially without extra fat or refined sugar weighing it down.
Three simple ingredients – water, cocoa or cacao and maple syrup – are all you need. See the Recipe Notes below for help replacing maple syrup with another sweetener.
Gin Butters / Eat Healthy Eat Happy
Yields 6
Three simple ingredients are all you need to make this vegan and Paleo-friendly dark chocolate sorbet. Enjoy dark chocolate's health benefits without extra fat and refined sugar. Adapted from a recipe published in Bruce Weinstein's i][The Ultimate Ice Cream Book [/i].
2 hrPrep Time
1 hr, 5 Cook Time
3 hr, 5 Total Time
Save Recipe5 based on 1 review(s)
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- about 3/4 cup of your choice of sweetener (see Recipe Notes for more info)
- 1 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
Instructions
- Combine the water and sweetener in a saucepan. Cook and stir on medium heat until the sweetener dissolves.
- Add the cocoa a little at a time, using a flour sifter or shaking it through a mesh strainer to reduce clumping.
- Continue to cook and stir until the mixture begins to simmer. Simmer for three minutes, then pour it into a container to cool.
- Chill for at least two hours before freezing it into sorbet. There are many good ways to do this without a machine (links are below). An ice cream machine does the churning for you, but isn't necessary.
- Sorbet should form after about an hour in the freezer, less if using a machine. You can serve it soft, or leave it in the freezer until it's firm enough to scoop.
- Store in an airtight container to keep the flavor fresh. If it freezes solid, let it sit at room temperature until it's soft enough to scoop.
Notes
Resources for making ice cream/sorbet without a machine:
How to Make Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker - Taste of Home
6 Ways to Make Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Machine - Kitchn
How To Make Ice Cream Without An Ice Cream Maker - Epicurious
Nutrition info calculated using MyFitnessPal for Android. Per 1/2 cup serving (sweetened with maple syrup): 138 calories, 35.3g carbs (83%), 2g fat (11%), 2.8g protein (6%)
Recipe Notes:
Replacing maple syrup with another sweetener
You’ll get the creamiest sorbet by using a sweetener that shares chemical properties with sugar. I’m explain that as well as I can in a minute. In practical terms, pure maple syrup fits the bill. It’s not refined sugar, but it acts a lot like it in most recipes. It also has a mild-ish flavor that can’t overpower anything as strong as all this dark chocolate.
Other unrefined sweeteners you could use include agave, honey, coconut sugar, coconut sugar syrup and brown rice syrup. If you’re Paleo or vegan, you’re probably recognizing at least one of those you might avoid.
I believe all these sweeteners except honey are plant-based and don’t contain any gluten. Finding vegan- and gluten-free- certified brands should be no problem.
Highly processed foods and grain products are among the ingredients Paleo recipes avoid. I think maple syrup, coconut sugar and syrup and honey qualify as Paleo, and it’s best to buy minimally processed varieties. Descriptions like “raw” and “pure” are a good sign.
These sweeteners work because of their chemical resemblance to sugar. Their health advantages come from not being as extensively processed as refined sugar, but they have comparable calories and carbs.
What about Stevia and other low/no calorie sweeteners?
Food without calories is something I actually fantasize about, so I experimented with these sweeteners a lot for a few years.
Even though the results were mostly awful, I kept trying. This very dark chocolate sorbet recipe coming out as a single giant, brown ice cube I literally couldn’t chip with a spoon finally pushed me over the edge.
As usual, there’s science behind these ingredients’ dick-like behavior. If you add enough sugar to water, it prevents it from turning solid at freezing temperatures. Even though they taste sweet, the actual chemical structure of no/low calorie sweeteners is different from sugar, and they lack magical ice-melting powers.
More sweetener options
Over the last few years, a number of sweetening alternatives have hit store shelves. Swerve®, monkfruit, erythritol and others are out there. I play with the idea and threaten to order some from Amazon occasionally, but I never go through with it. I guess I’m not in a hurry to try them.
As I consider why, my favorite reason so far is I’ve more or less made peace with chocolate sorbet having more calories than carrot sticks.
If you question whether an ingredient is Paleo/vegan, safe, nutritious, available in your area, etc, the only way to be sure is get the answers yourself. Opinions and statements, even the well-meaning ones, are no substitute for your own research.
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