Last Easter I shared some information about commercial chocolate products and offered a few alternatives for parents who wanted to offer better options to their children. I thought with Christmas coming up that this would be a great opportunity to share some more of those ideas. 

Dress Up Your Store Bought Chocolate Bars:
What's more exciting than finding a chocolate bar in your stocking? Finding an adorable hand-wrapped one, of course! 
There are free printables like this or this. You can even purchase some really cute printables from places like Etsy. 
If you're looking for a more hands on project you could try something like these DIY reindeer candy wrappers.

Be sure to choose a healthier and cleaner chocolate option.. free of GMOs and other nasty ingredients. 
This is my favorite chocolate bar.. but they have many other flavors. They also offer minis that are already wrapped in a snowflake wrapper. These are seasonal so they are only available during this time of the year.

Another really great chocolate that I would recommend is Good Stuff Cacao. They are a Michigan based company and their chocolate probably has the best ingredients I've ever seen. It's made from 100% raw organic cacao and raw honey. Their chocolate comes in "pieces" rather than a solid bar. Because of the unique packaging, a DIY wrap (such as the reindeer above) would probably work better than a printable that is made for a standard size chocolate bar. 

Make Your Own Chocolate:
Making your own chocolate is fun and super easy. With a recipe like this or this you can have some delicious chocolate in no time! Pour your homemade chocolate into a fun mold like this. If you don't have time to make chocolate from scratch you could melt down some chocolate chips (like these) in a double boiler instead.

Here are a few other DIY chocolate candy ideas you could make:

• Salty And Sweet Almond Butter Cups
  
• Marlo’s Chocolate Crunch Bars
  
• Paleo Chocolate Caramels
  

Other Christmas Candies:
Here are some cleaner candy suggestions that are not chocolate related.

• Candy Canes
  
• Peppermint Swirls
  

Do you have other ideas and tips to share? Please leave your suggestions and thoughts in the comment section below.

Just the other day I came across a cute, innocent and delicious looking milk chocolate candy for Easter. It looked a little something like this:

Then I flipped to the other side of the box and it wasn't cute, innocent or even delicious. 

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, milk, soya lecithin, PGPR (emulsifiers), vanilla, salt

Okay, I'm not even going to pick on the sugar, milk, vanilla, soy or salt.. even though those ingredients probably came from bad sources and some of them are most likely to be GMO. These ingredients alone make me not want to eat this little treat.. but the ingredient that scares me the most: PGPR.

What the H-E double hockey sticks is a PGPR? The acronym is short for Polyglycerol polyricinoleate. Can you say that 5 times fast? I can't even say it one time slow. PGPR is a cheap chemical substitute for cocoa butter. Grosssss.

I first noticed PGPR a few years ago after purchasing my favorite chocolate bar (at the time).. the beloved Hershey's bar! After biting into it I noticed it tasted.. different. Maybe I bought a bar from a bad batch? I looked at the packaging (this was way before I became obsessed with reading labels) and noticed PGPR as one of the ingredients. The whole list looks like this: Milk chocolate (sugar; milk; chocolate; cocoa butter; lactose; milk fat; soy lecithin; PGPR, emulsifier; vanillin, artificial flavor). There's quite a few fake food ingredients in that chocolate bar.  

So what is a mom to do during Easter? I've gone through lots of different organic chocolates, and unfortunately the ingredients aren't always much better. I don't trust a label because it's organic. Ingredients are more important to me than an organic label. I've only found one brand of chocolate without these weird fake food ingredients.

They have so many delicious flavors, but the one pictured above is my favorite. The ingredients look like this: *Organic Raw Cane Sugar, *Organic Cocoa Butter, Organic Whole Milk Powder, *Organic Chocolate Liquor, Organic Caramel (*Organic Raw Cane Sugar, Organic Whole Milk Powder), *Organic Unrefined Whole Cane Sugar, Sea Salt, *Organic Ground Vanilla Beans

Wow - a chocolate bar WITHOUT weird chemical ingredients. Imagine that!

Other varieties of their chocolate bars include: coconut, raspberry, almonds, hazelnut, mint, orange, lemon ginger (see a complete list here). I've checked ingredients on all their chocolate bars, and none of them include soy. Unfortunately, some of their other candies, like the peanut butter candy bar *do* contain soy. This is why I always, always, always read labels.. even if I think I can "trust" a certain brand. 

So here's how you can take this chocolate and make it "Easter worthy." 

1. You could buy their chocolate Easter eggs. They are out of stock on their website, though. :( I've been looking for them locally but have not found them. I'll definitely keep them in mind for next year and order early.

2. You can buy a chocolate bar and dress them up in these super cute candy bar wrappers from Today's Creative Blog.

3. You can buy some cute silicone molds like these, or these.. or these and either melt one of the flavored bars or some chocolate chips (I like these) and make your own Easter shaped chocolate candies. 
You could alternatively use your own homemade chocolate to make these as well. There are two great recipes here and here.

Those are just a few solutions I've come up with on my own. If you have any Easter candy solutions please feel free to share them in the comments section below. :)

I love hibiscus tea! In fact, I've been drinking it all winter. But now that the sun is shining and the temperatures are rising, I'm not really in the mood for hot beverages anymore. Instead of shoving the box back into a corner until colder days, I decided to turn it into a refreshing summer drink! In this recipe I've added some green tea just for a little pick me up. Feel free to experiment with different teas (black, white, etc..) or just make it with only hibiscus for a caffeine free version.

Make a couple batches to bring to your next summer get together -- it's guaranteed to be a big hit! 

Hibiscus Green Tea

• 3 bags of green tea (buy online)
• 4 bags of hibiscus tea (buy online)
• Juice of 1 lemon*
• 3-4 teaspoons of raw honey* (buy online)
• 7 mugs of filtered water*

( * = see notes below )

1. Boil your 7 mugs of water. I use 2 different pots (4 mugs in one pot, 3 mugs in the other). You could boil all your water in one pot -- I'm just weird. :)
2. Once water is boiling, shut off heat and steep tea bags. 
3. While the water is still warm, add in your raw honey. 
4. Let tea cool down. Add in your lemon juice.
5. Pour into a glass pitcher (like this one) and refrigerate. 

After the tea has chilled, enjoy it over ice! :)

NOTES:

• The amount of lemon you use is dependant on your taste. I like 1 juiced lemon in mine. You can add more, less or omit. 
• The amount of honey you use is dependant on your taste. I like 4 teaspoons in mine. You can add more, less or omit.
• When I'm making tea, I measure my water by "mugs." 1 regular coffee mug is the ideal size to brew 1 tea bag in. 1 mug of water = 1 tea bag.