A Completely Sugar Free Dessert

Continuing my quest for sweet treats made without any sugar or sweeteners that are nutritionally good for you, the next dessert I’m sharing is a recipe for dark chocolate mousse.

This amazing chocolate mousse is sweetened solely with sweet potato and you honestly won’t believe how smooth, rich and chocolatey it tastes!

Sweet potato (or kumara if you’re from NZ) is an obvious choice for a chocolate mousse because it has a lovely, naturally sweet, caramel flavour, and a soft velvety texture when roasted whole in the oven.

Why Are Sweet Potatoes Sweet?

When you heat a sweet potato, an enzyme starts breaking down it’s starch into a sugar called maltose. Maltose is made up of two glucose molecules bound together, and tastes about a third as sweet as regular table sugar, also known as sucrose. Maltose contains no fructose.

You can control the amount of maltose produced when cooking sweet potatoes by varying the cooking time. The longer and slower you cook a sweet potato, the more maltose is formed and the sweeter it will taste. So if you want a much less sweet potato try steaming it, or cut it into small pieces and roast on a higher heat.

Benefits of Sweet Potatoes (aka Kumara)

Sweet potatoes have so many amazing nutritional qualities. They’re very high in beta-carotene which gives them their orange colour. Beta-carotene converts to vitamin A in the body which is a powerful antioxidant linked to anti-ageing, maintaining eye sight and disease prevention.

They’re a great source of vitamin C which is another powerful antioxidant, as well as manganese, magnesium, potassium, copper and vitamins B3, B5 and B6.

Sweet potatoes rate low on the glycemic scale due to their high fibre content. Fibre slows the absorption of the maltose making them a great choice for anyone watching their sugar intake or on a sugar free diet.

For a more in depth article and a list of 10 incredible health benefits of the sweet potato, check out this post by the Food Revolution Network.

How To Create A Sugar Free Chocolate Mousse

The main challenge with this recipe was being able to add enough ingredients to the sweet potato to make it taste and look like chocolate mousse, without diffusing out too much of the natural sweetness, leaving it tasting of bitter cacao.

I decided to cook the sweet potato in the oven as this method creates the least amount of water. Too much water of course, will ruin the mousse texture and dilute the sweetness further.

Once I had my cooked sweet potato I then added raw cacao powder to create the rich chocolate flavour as well as a little cacao butter to enhance this, while also provide a setting quality.

Next I needed a liquid to adjust the consistency, so I chose coconut milk because it has a naturally sweet flavour. When choosing your coconut milk be sure to get the full fat variety that comes in a can as this tastes the sweetest! You could also use a nice sweet coconut water such as coAqua.

Lastly, I added a little vanilla powder and Himalayan pink salt to balance the flavour.

After a little trial and error with quantities (and a LOT of chocolate mousse eating), I had to the winning combination for this sugar free, sweet potato chocolate mousse!

Now I should warn you, this is a very rich, dense type of chocolate mousse, as opposed to a light and airy one. But it definitely won’t disappoint, and will certainly satisfy any chocolate cravings!

Could This Sweet Potato Chocolate Mousse Be The Perfect Dessert?

This sweet potato chocolate mousse is so good that it rivals my all time favourite raw chocolate avocado mousse recipe! I did previously say my avocado chocolate mousse was the perfect guilt-free dessert, but I think this sweet potato mousse recipe might even top that, especially if you’re after a dessert that’s so low in natural sugars it can be classified sugar free.

I’ve also included a second version of this recipe below which is slightly sweetened because I realise not everyone’s tastebuds are accustomed to completely sugar free desserts. So if you make the original completely sugar free version and find your tastebuds can’t handle it, rather than throw it try adding a little unrefined sweetener such as pure maple syrup, raw honey or rice syrup.

I hope you love this vegan, sugar free sweet potato chocolate mousse recipe!

When you make it I’d love to hear from you – share any questions or comments in the section below.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Chocolate Mousse (Sugar Free)

Servings: 6-8
Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes

Approximately 2 large (500g) cooked orange sweet potato
3/4 cup (70g) raw cacao powder
3/4 cup (190g) coconut milk
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
1/4 tsp pink Himalayan salt
4 Tbsp (65g) raw cacao butter, gently melted

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Wash the sweet potato to remove any surface dirt, prick a few times with a fork and place on a lined oven tray in the centre of the oven. Roast for approximately 30-45 minutes (depending on size). When you can easily slide a knife into the centre they’re done. Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven and allow to cool. The skins will steam themselves off, so when cool enough to handle you should be able to easily peel the skins off with your hands.

While the sweet potato are cooling, melt the cacao butter by placing it in a heat proof bowl set over a pan of steaming water with the heat turned off. This ensures the cacao butter temperature doesn’t go above 46ºC and it retains all it’s raw antioxidant properties.

Measure out 500g of sweet potato and place into a food processor or high speed blender (note: a blender works best as it gives you the smoothest texture). Add the cacao powder, coconut milk, vanilla powder and salt and blend until smooth. If using a high speed blender you’ll need to use your blender stick to get keep things moving as it’s quite thick at this stage.

Pour in the melted cacao butter with the motor running and blend for about 30 seconds until you have a smooth chocolate mousse. When using a high speed blender keep using your stick to keep things moving until it goes completely smooth.

Scoop the chocolate mousse into serving dishes and serve immediately or place in the fridge to chill until required. This mousse will keep in a sealed container for up to 5 days in the fridge.

Sweet Potato Chocolate Mousse  (Slightly Sweetened)

Servings: 6-8
Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes

Approximately 2 large (500g) cooked orange sweet potato
1 1/2 cups (140g) raw cacao powder
2 Tbsp (40g) pure maple or rice syrup
1 cup (250g) coconut milk
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
1/4 tsp pink Himalayan salt
6 Tbsp (95g) raw cacao butter, gently melted

Same method as above, simply add the sweetener to the blender with the sweet potato and raw cacao etc.

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