SUGAR FREE MINTY CHOCOLATE BITES -

Sugar Free Minty Chocolate Bites. 0.5g each. Make loads of these….they’ll be gone in no time!!!!

I used to love Viscount biscuits. You know the ones: biscuity, chocolatey, minty. Totally yummy but oh so dangerous…once you opened a packet it would be finished in no time and yet every family member would VEHEMENTLY deny eating more than one!!!!

Well it has been ages since my last Viscount. Banished to the sugar poisoning madness of an era I’m not proud of.

Long gone. But not forgotten…I had had a serious on-off craving for Viscounts for a while and when I spotted a packet in the local supermarket last week I decided I would have a go at making a keto version.

I started looking for Viscount biscuit recipes on the internet, but I didn’t find any. Instead, I came across what Americans call ‘Thin Mints’. Trouble is, the texture described by the recipe writers didn’t quite match what I was looking for. Chewy. Pillowy. Soft. Not quite what I had in mind. And not ketogenic, either. So I just stopped searching and went with my baking instincts. A bit of guess work and in no time at all sugar free minty chocolate bites were in the oven. I decided to make them bite-size, by the way, so I used the cookie cutters shown in the picture below (4cm diameter). I managed to obtain 70 in total.

Never in a million years did I actually believe they would taste any good. Let alone be like my beloved Viscounts.

As predicted, when they first came out of the oven, I was not happy. My little bites were not sweet enough and too soft for my liking. So I put them back in the switched off oven to dry up a bit more, while and I set about preparing the chocolate coating. I was already resigned to yet another baking failure, as most first baking rounds usually are, but what the heck, why not add the chocolate and see how they turn out…

The chocolate coating for my sugar free minty chocolate bites was completely random guess work. I had never used peppermint extract before, so this part was another stumble in the dark.

With the biscuits now cooled and a bit firmer, they went into the freezer for 10 minutes so the chocolate coating would set quickly.

Then I spent 45 minutes dipping each of the 70 bites into my melted chocolate blend. Thank goodness I thought of using tweezers! They made the job a lot easier and a lot less messy. The picture below shows the angled tweezers I used, but any type of long handled pinchers will do the job (don’t be tempted to use eyebrow tweezers – they won’t work!).

2 trays of chocolate covered chocolate biscuit bites went in the fridge to set.

When the munch monster returned from work and asked if there was anything sweet to snack on, I said “Probably not… :(“, I pulled out the trays, unstuck the bites and piled them on a serving plate….ready for the bin. Then I tried one and nearly died…of happiness.

OMG! I couldn’t believe how good they were! They were just sweet enough, no stevia after taste or erythritol coolness, no weird texture, the peppermint flavour was spot on. And if that wasn’t enough, munch monster ‘s comment was “Wow. They taste just like Viscounts”. I nearly passed out with joy.

70 little sugar free minty chocolate bites. 2 people. Lasted 4 days. I think the munch monster and I definitely went way over our carb limits while these beauties were around, despite their low carb count.

And the best part is that each one of these gorgeous mouthfuls has just 1/2 a gram of carbs. Complete success!

So here we are, ladies and gentlemen. If you love Viscount biscuits, Aeros, or mint chocolate, you’re in a for a real treat.

N.B. If you have a peanut allergy, you may want to replace lupin flour for almond flour – just in case.

Enjoy!

SUGAR FREE MINTY CHOCOLATE BITES

Author: Antya

Nutrition

Yield: 70

Serving: 1
Calories: 38

Fat: 3g
Net Carbs: 0.5g
Protein: 1g

Recipe type: Sweet Bites

Cuisine: Ketogenic. LCHF. Sugar Free. Low Carb. Grain Free. Gluten Free.

Prep time: 60 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 1 hour 40 mins

Unbelievably good and very close to Viscount biscuits, these yummy, low carb and sugar free morsels will be devoured in no time.

Ingredients

For the chocolate bites

70g fine almond flour (U.S. option HERE)
60g lupin flour (U.S. option HERE and world-wide delivery option HERE - use code QUEENKETO5 for discount at checkout)
25g unsweetened cocoa powder (U.S. option HERE)
3 tbsp erythritol (U.S. option HERE)
½ tsp pure stevia powder (U.S. option HERE)
½ tsp baking powder
pinch of fine Himalayan pink salt (U.S. option HERE)
60g melted butter
2 small eggs
1 tsp sugar free vanilla paste or extract (U.S. option HERE)

For the mint chocolate coating:

80g unsweetened 100% dark chocolate (U.S. option HERE)
40g sugar free milk chocolate (U.S. option HERE)
35g cacao butter drops (U.S. option HERE)
1 tsp pure stevia (U.S. option HERE)
1 tbsp powdered erythritol (U.S. option HERE)
2 tsp peppermint extract (U.S. option HERE)

Instructions

Chocolate bites:

sift and mix dry ingredients.
add wet ingredients and mix with a fork.
continue to mix by hand until everything is well combined.
pre-heat oven to 100°C fan (110°C static).
lay parchment paper over 2 oven trays.
place pastry between 2 large sheets of parchment paper and roll out until very thin (2-3mm).
cut out shapes about 4cm diameter and place on your baking trays with a little space between each.
use remnants to reshape and roll out again, repeating until all pastry has been used up.
bake for 40 mins, then turn off oven and open the door slightly to let moisture escape, leaving the biscuits inside to dry out for about 10-15 mins.
once at room temperature, transfer to the freezer while you prepare the chocolate coating.

Mint chocolate coating:

put chocolate and cacao butter in a small pyrex bowl or similar microwave proof container.
microwave on low setting until most of the chocolate has melted; stir to melt any remaining lumps.
add erythritol, stevia, peppermint extract and stir well.
place parchment paper over a couple of trays or chopping mats.
take the biscuit bites out of the freezer (they need to be very cold for the chocolate coating to solidify quickly) and submerge them one by one into the chocolate sauce.
let excess chocolate drip off and place on your trays or mats.
refrigerate until chocolate coating has set.
detach from parchment paper and serve or store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Notes

Powdered erythritol is obtained by simply grinding erythritol in a coffee grinder or similar for a couple of seconds, in quick bursts; let the powder sit in the grinder for 5 minutes to avoid a cloud escaping as you remove the lid.

For the chocolate coating, the bowl should be fairly deep but not too wide as you will need enough depth to submerge the bites into the chocolate sauce (I used a Pyrex bowl 13cm diameter - 8 cm height).

Metric kitchen scales are an inexpensive yet invaluable gadget to enable accurate measurement of ingredients. Store them upright in a cupboard or over your worktop and they'll only take up a tiny bit of space. Click HERE for the ones I use in the UK. For U.S. option click HERE.