Cacao Buckini Crackles (Cocao Pops High Class Cousin)
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I went through a phase in my first year of Uni when I was mad for cocoa pops. I think it was a bit of a rebellion against my uber-heathy upbringing and I was a bit drunk on the freedom of knowing I could suddenly eat whatever I wanted without parental frowns of disapproval. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for the novelty of eating cheap confectionary for breakfast to wear off (partly motivated by the effect it had on the size of my arse) but there’s still a chocolate loving part of me that can see why I liked that nutritionless nastiness. They really are just like a chocolate milkshake only crunchy, which is a pretty delicious concept in theory, but in practise they’re also full of fuck knows what processed, sugary, manufactured shit that I choose to avoid these days.
But despite the fact that I do try to eat like a grown up, sometimes it’s still fun to have chocolate in the morning so I whipped up these Cacao Buckini Crackles as a compromise, they're kind of like cocoa pops high class cousin. Made from gluten free buckwheat, antioxidant rich cacao, metabolism boosting coconut oil and a touch of rice malt syrup for sweetness without the fructose to fuck with your hormones, you’re actually doing yourself a healthful favour here.
These little morsels makes a great crunchy breakfast topping for your fruit or smoothie bowl, or an equally good dessert treat with a bit of greek yoghurt or whipped coconut cream. Fuck, who am I kidding, they're good by the handful straight out of the jar.
Get this stuff
2 C buckwheat groats, activated or straight up, your choice
4 T virgin coconut oil
2 – 4 T rice malt syrup according to taste, you can also sub in maple syrup, coconut nectar or honey if you prefer
4 T cacao or good quality dark cocoa
1 t cinnamon
Do this with it
Preheat the oven to 120 degrees or 100 fan forced and line an oven tray with baking paper.
Combine the buckwheat, cacao and cinnamon in a large bowl.
Melt the coconut oil and rice malt syrup together – you’ll note that I’ve left the quantity of sweetener a bit open. I prefer my crackles more on the dark and bittersweet side so I go for less but if you want them a bit sweeter and stickier then feel free to add more to suit your taste.
Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and stir thoroughly to make sure the buckwheat is evenly coated a rich chocolate brown.
Spread it all on the lined tray in an even layer and shove it in the oven. The idea here is to go low and slow with the cooking so it dries out and becomes all good and crunchy which should take between 60 – 90 minutes and there's a trick to help facilitate that process. If possible, keep the door slightly ajar to let the air circulate by jamming a wooden spoon or similar implement in there to hold it open (note wood not plastic, 100 degrees will still melt that bastard and that will just make a fucking annoying mess). Sometimes I can't do this thanks to the nosy little toddler I live with threatening to throw herself in the oven Hansel & Gretel style. If you have a similar problem is no big deal, it may just take a bit longer for them to try out so just chill, be patient and let your crackles do their thing.
Poke your nose and spoon in every 20 minutes or so to check on it and give it a stir around. You’ll know it’s done when it’s quite dry and will have baked into crunchy clumps.
Let it cool completely and it will firm up a bit more then break up the clumps and store in an airtight jar – if it survives that long between ‘sampling’ and ‘quality testing’ of course…Yes, it’s a super simple recipe but damn good and sometimes simple really is best.
Aside from being a bloody delicious breakfast/ dessert/ snack food it’s also a fantastic ingredient in clean baking treats as I discovered when I used it in my new Clean Salted Caramel Snickers Slice. I’ll bring you the recipe for that one very soon but in the meantime get this good shit made so you’re ready to go, because when there’s Snickers slice to be made, there’s no time to waste mo’fos.