Dehydrated Chocolate Orange

Dehydrated Chocolate Orange Pieces

This is so simple, yet amazingly good!

You need…

As many oranges as you can fit into your dehydrator

Equal parts coconut oil to cacao powder (about 100ml to 100g)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp maple syrup

Directions…

Slice oranges as thinly as possible and place on your dehydrator trays.
Set dehydrator to 145 °F (higher than this means it starts to lose it’s nutritional content) and dehydrate for 4-5hrs.
After this time turn each orange slice over and turn your trays around also, so they dry evenly and dehydrate for another 4-5hrs.
After this time do the same as above and dehydrate for another 4-5hrs. By this time the oranges pieces should be dry but slightly sticky still.
You can eat these as is now or store them in glass jars for many months. Or you can cover them in chocolate as below.
Melt the coconut oil in a glass bowl in a saucepan of boiling water. Once melted and the vanilla extract and maple syrup and mix. Lastly add the cacao powder and mix well again. Dip the orange piece in the chocolate and then lay out to dry on some wax paper or dehydrator sheets.
Once cooled store in a glass jar for a week or two.

Some notes on dehydrating…

Unlike cooking things in an oven, dehydrating will keep the nutritional value of the foods you use if below 145F.
You can create soooo many amazing treats and even full meals in a dehydrator. They will look and taste cooked but are classed as raw. I have recipes for pizza’s, stuffed peppers, quiche and tons more in my first book Living A Life Less Toxic.
Food will keep for many months or even a year or more if preserved this way.
A dehydrator will cost you a few hundred pounds/euros for a decent one, where as a freeze drier (which let’s be honest we all want ha) will cost around 10k for a decent one.