The best part of Valentine’s Day is undoubtedly the chocolate, so I was excited when Stonyfield asked their bloggers to make a dessert that paired yogurt with Divine chocolate. Yogurt’s a great addition in brownies to replace some fat and keep them moist. Like the chocolate, these brownies will melt in your mouth. 

My local grocery store only had Divine’s white chocolate in stock. White chocolate can be difficult to bake with because cheaper brands melt of burn but the chocolate chunks came out smooth and full of flavor. Spreading the jam in a layer in the middle instead of mixing it into the batter adds a little bit in every bite. 

Divine White Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients(Makes 1 8 x 8 pan):

• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose or gluten-free flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 5.3oz Stonyfield vanilla greek yogurt
• 1 3.5oz Divine White Chocolate bar, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup raspberry jam
• 2 Tablespoons water

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs, Stonyfield yogurt, oil, and 2 Tablespoons of jam.
4. Add in the chopped chocolate and mix. 
5. Pour half of the batter in a greased 8 x 8 pan.
6. Mix the remaining raspberry jam with 2 Tablespoons of water. Spread the jam over the top of the brownie batter covering all parts.
7. Add the rest of the batter layered on top of the jam. 
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean. Let these cool completely before cutting in.

From time to time I like to make “chocolate” with coconut oil, agave, and cocoa powder to keep in the refrigerator for a snack. It’s tasty and I can almost tell myself it’s healthy because I made it from scratch instead of peeling off a wrapper and eating a whole Hershey’s bar.

The last time I went to make it, I remembered about the flavored agave nectar I picked up a while back and had yet to use. Have you seen these? They’re popping up more and more places; I think I found mine at Ocean State Job Lot or Market Basket but now even Whole Foods is making their own store brand flavored sweeteners.

And then I remembered the best dessert ever and decided why make chocolate when you can make ganache? Adding a little almond butter into chocolate prevents the coconut oil from fully hardening and gives it a nice, soft, fudgy texture.

If you don’t want to buy specialty flavored agave, you can substitute that for 6 Tablespoons of plain agave and 2 Tablespoons of seedless raspberry jam. If you want to keep this fully raw, you can use 2 Tablespoons of raspberry puree instead. I haven’t tried either of these yet but I’m fairly confident they’d work, albeit with a slightly less intense flavor.

Raw Chocolate Raspberry Ganache

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 0 minutes(allow 30 minutes to harden)

Ingredients(Makes 36 1-inch squares):

• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup raspberry agave nectar
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons creamy almond butter

1. Mix the coconut oil and agave nectar together.
2. Slowly incorporate the cocoa powder until it’s completely mixed in, too.
3. Lastly, add in the almond butter and mix to completion.
4. Pour the ganache into a 6×6 pan.
5. Refrigerate for 10 minutes until it’s semi-soft. While it’s still soft, cut the ganache into 1-inch squares. Then continue to refrigerate for another 20-30 minutes until it’s completely cooled.

I just put this into a pan and let it harden and have been eating it like a fudge, but you could make a crust and use it as the filling for a chocolate torte, or even use it as a filling for some chocolate wafers and make sandwich cookies. There’s really no way this wouldn’t taste good.

Normally I like fudgy desserts, or just a piece of thick chocolate. But this Summer I haven’t been able to get enough mousse desserts, like this one or this one or this one. So naturally I had to try this recipe when I saw it on the Whole Foods website.

I’ve made chocolate and peanut butter tofu mousse before but never a fruit flavor. This came out really well in flavor, although the texture reminded me more of pudding rather than mousse. It’s thick and slightly dense with a sweet, bright flavor to it, perfect for hot Summer nights when chocolate is too rich(I’ve never experienced this myself but I hear some people do—weird).

Raspberry Tofu Pudding(lightly adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients(Makes 6 servings):

• 12oz fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1 16oz block silken tofu
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup corn or tapioca starch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Zest from half a lemon
• Chocolate and mint to garnish

Combine the tofu, raspberries, starch, sugar, salt, and zest in a food processor and blend until smooth and homogenous.

Pour into individual dishes and refrigerate until serving. Garnish with shaved chocolate and/or mint.

It does not get much better than this.

If you add in 3/4 cup of cocoa powder, the flavor gets even better. Although—I warn you—the color isn’t as appetizing.

After I baked this cake recipe for my birthday, the cake looked good but a little plain so I decided to throw together something for the top. I love the pairing of raspberries with chocolate so I decided to make a raspberry chocolate sauce to go on top. I had no clue how it would turn out but I’m happy to report it was perfect. Heated, the sauce is easy to work with and at room temperature it hardened to a semi-soft, fudge consistency which was easy to cut through. It was great on cake but would be good over ice cream, too.

Raspberry Fudge Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons maple syrup(or any liquid sweetener)
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat the raspberries over low heat in a sauce pan until they’ve reduced to about half their volume and cooked down to a sauce.

Toss in the chocolate chips, butter, maple syrup, and salt and mix until the butter and chocolate chips have melted. Frost or scoop over ice cream while the sauce is still warm and liquid.

I should have made extra to eat with a spoon; one year older, still not wise enough.