Tehina Chocolate Spread Recipe. All Nut Variations
Tehina Chocolate Spread
In this amazing Chocolate Spread, sesame paste, or Tehina, costars beautifully with chocolate. Sort of a new age Nutella, only much less sweet and much healthier!
1-2-3 Recipe: 3 ingredients total!
How delicious is it? See what Reader Yehudis wrote in the comment section: “It should be illegal!”
The Nutella Factor
The big darling has recently tinkered with their formulation yet again: it now contains 58% sugar and only a paltry 13% nuts, and the rest (29%) hmmm, a bunch of highly processed commercial ingredients. Forgive me for arguing with success here, but frankly: who needs it?
There’s nothing you would do with Nutella that you couldn’t do with my Tehina Chocolate Spread! And with a small fraction of sugar. Much more of the good stuff, much less of the sugar! A most welcome edible gift with all kids big and small! This is healthy enough to go into the school lunch box!
Tehina often plays second fiddle to other, more muscular ingredients, hummus being the most ubiquitous, followed by sauces and dips. Actually it is the main ingredient in Chalva, but most commercial Chalva errs hopelessly on the sweet side (not so my Quick Chalva, loosely inspired from its cloying counterpart, and nutritionally correct), so it hardly counts except as a guilty splurge.
Tehina: The Wonder Seed
Here I am using poetic license with Tehina, sesame seed paste, and using it here just as I would use a nut butter. Tehina feels perfectly at home, not only in savory dishes
Tehina co-stars on equal terms with the mighty chocolate, and stands up to it fearlessly, elevating the humble paste beyond its wildest dreams in terms of flavor and texture. Nutella was the dessert comfort food of my expat student years ages ago, so of course I think of it very fondly, but I never buy it as it is loaded with sugar. So I make my own spread, and please forgive this bit of swagger: My Tehina Chocolate Spread blows Nutella and many other chocolate nut butter spreads out of the water. Super Delicious, Super Nutritious and Super Natural, it gets whipped up in a couple minutes. So healthy you could even use it for breakfast! One more thing: It is Super versatile, and you can take it places, as you will see below: Scroll down for all variations.
Sweetener in Tehina Chocolate Spread
The amount I use is very reasonable; no wonder it is so delicious: more room for the good stuff! The amount of sweetener I use is way below the amount used in commercial spreads, naturally and deliciously augmenting the ratio of Tehina and chocolate per serving.
Sugar Restricted Friends: Tehina Chocolate Spread is For You Too!
Use erythritol. Replace the maple syrup or silan with 2/3 cup erythritol mixed with 1/4 cup boiling water. You need the sweetener to be liquid so the tehina chocolate spread mixes to a spreadable paste.
How About Honey, Honey?
This may surprise you, but honey is not my first choice for this spread. It adds a very good but somewhat unwelcome layer of flavor in the spread. It is also thicker than maple syrup or date syrup. Stick with the neutral-tasting thin sweeteners I am listing.
See all Nut Variations and Uses!
This is a nice large recipe, and will yield you about 2 pints. It won’t last you too long: it’s that good! Here’s a perfect way to satisfy your craving, the superfoods, gluten-free, dairy-free, low-carb, natural and delicious way. What more could you possibly ask for? You’re welcome!
Dips, bars, fillings, toppings, and nut variations on the basic sesame spread: Scroll Down, it’s all there!
Ingredients
- 2 cups pure pourable tehina paste
- 2/3 cup pure cocoa powder
- 1 cup pure maple syrup or pure date syrup (silan), or honey (honey being my last choice as not neutral enough). Only if you like it a little sweeter, add 1-2 tablespoons, no more. Taste it before adding.
Instructions
Put all ingredients in a food processor, and process a full minute. You can also mix it with a fork, just as long as the tehina has no clumps.
Pour into clean glass jars. The mixture will firm up to a thick spreadable consistency. Store in the refrigerator. It’s OK to leave it out at room temperature, if you are using it in the next couple weeks.
It will last you a good few weeks. If desired, freeze the part you might want to use later.
Makes about 3 cups
Variations:
Suggesting just a few, and then you can get creative with your own ideas.
- Chocolate Hazelnut Butter: Substitute 3 cups toasted hazelnuts for the Tehina, but process them thoroughly in a food processor before adding the remaining ingredients. You might want to use other toasted nuts as well: Peanuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, pecans, even roasted chestnuts (even though it's not a nut). Proceed just as instructed here.
- Cake Topping: Add 2-3 tablespoons rum or brandy to the mixture, and use it as top layer to ice cream cake (the rum will prevent it from freezing solid). Likewise, use it as topping or filling to any cake, like a ganache. If you need to thin it, mix in a little full fat coconut milk.
- Tart Filling, Truffles: Add some chopped toasted nuts, or toasted sesame seeds, or grated unsweetened coconut, and a little coconut milk to thin the mixture, and use as a filling for a tart (bake the crust all by itself, then fill it and chill). Or shape the mixture into little balls, and roll in cocoa powder or grated coconut.
- Bars: You could also combine the mixture with 3 cups Granola or Rice Crispies, pat the whole mixture firmly into a pan, chill, then cut into squares or bars.
- Dip: Slather on apple, pear or banana slices, or on berries.
I was so eager to make this for shabbos (and forever) that I took my food processor outdoors so as not to wake my sleeping children :) yes I looked weird, but now we have delicious chocolate techina spread! I enjoy so much to use nutritional powerhouses for ingredients, which in turn, combine into such heavenly experiences. This combo should be illegal, but in fact, it’s quite an open channel for all happiness to enter :)
Yehudis Haha, I second that, wholeheartedly!