You might not know that dark chocolate Magnum ice lollies are one of my weaknesses! Not so for the taste alone but for the satisfying sensation of biting through the thick frozen chocolate coating – like in the famous Magnum moments advert.
Eating is a pleasure that combines all sensations, after all!
A few years ago, I decided to create these home-made Magnum ice lolly substitutes with a thick dark chocolate coating and a filling made with dates, tahini, cinnamon and turmeric.
These were made and loved by many attendees of my cook-alongs during the pandemic. This is the first time I’ve published the recipe. I hope you like them.
INGREDIENTS
Makes around 6 depending on the size of your moulds.
For the melted chocolate:*
50 g cacao paste buttons
50 g cacao butter buttons
1 heaped tbsp blackstrap molasses (or use honey, maple syrup or coconut nectar)
Pinch of salt
For the filling:
6 pitted dates, chopped
2 tbsp tahini**
¼ tsp each of cinnamon and turmeric powder***
7 tbsp warm water
* You can also just use 150g of shop-bought dark chocolate instead of making your own. 85% cacao chocolate has been shown to improve the diversity of the gut microbiome as well as mood1, so go for higher percentage as often as you can.
** You can also experiment with other seed and nut butters, I like sunbutter and almond butter or a mixtuer of those with tahini.
*** Or use any other spices you like.
METHOD
1.Melt the chocolate ingredients (or shop-bought chocolate) in a bain-marie (i.e. heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water) or in a microwave oven (in 30 sec increments, stirring in-between). When melted, mix well.
2.Pour enough melted chocolate into 6 muffin “cups” of a silicone mini muffin mould* to coat the bottoms using half of the melted chocolate, then place the mould on a metal tray in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
3.In the meantime, process the filling ingredients apart from water into a rough paste in a small food processor. Start adding the water little at the time until you have a soft paste than is easy t to spoon into the moulds.
4.When the first layer of chocolate has frozen solid, add the paste on top of these the frozen disks and place the tray back in the freezer for half an hour.
5.Pour the rest of the melted chocolate on top of the filing and pop them back in the freezer for 1-2 hours before serving.
Notes:
*You can also use a metal mini muffin tray with paper muffin cases. Paper cases can be also used with the silicone mould, if you wish.
Make sure you have a free shelf in your freezer to put your tray onto, so it lays flat on the shelf.
To speed things up, you can also spoon all the layers in one go and freeze for 2 hours, although this may not produce distinct layers.
