Maca root, a staple food in Peru and a superfood that comes to us from the Incan culture, is well-known as a potent adaptogen and long-reputed to increase libido and fertility.

Thing is, as perhaps the most potent radish on the planet, it has a distinctive and highly dominant flavor that can be challenging to add to recipes. It goes well with chocolate, though, so I set out to create a sweet “MacaNut” recipe that would enable the tasty enjoyment of maca as a food rather than via a supplemented capsule. Am happy to report my son’s review of the MacaNuts: “Tasty and delicious!”

This recipe for “pecan turtles” uses raw cacao powder, raw honey, and cacao butter — and a few other goodies — and whips up very quickly into a delicious superfood snack with the health benefits of maca.

And if you don’t have maca on hand, you can also make it. You can also make the pecan/maca mixture and layer it on top of a raw chocolate mousse tart instead of covering the pecans in chocolate. Would make a delicious dessert for a raw pot luck! And you can dehydrate the pecans without the chocolate, until nice and crisp!

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Recipe for: ”Maca-Nuts”

Sweet, Raw Chocolate-Covered Pecan “Turtles” With The Power of Maca Root

Make the pecan mixture…

• 1 tablespoon raw honey
• 1 teaspoon raw maca powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon quality natural salt, such as Himalayan Crystal salt
• 1/2 teaspoon organic almond extract
• 1 cup raw pecans

Combine all ingredients except the pecans until you have a uniform paste. Then add the pecans and mix until they are well-coated.

At this point, you can:

1. Use the pecans as a topping for a Chocolate Mousse Tart or other similar raw chocolate dessert.

2. Pop into the dehydrator and dehydrate until crispy.

3. Proceed with making a raw dark chocolate glaze, and “turtle-ize” them.

To Make Pecan Turtles with Raw Dark Chocolate Glaze:

Form the pecans into little bunches of around 3-4 pecans each and put on a plate that will fit into your freezer.

Then combine the following:

• 1/2 cup chopped cacao butter, melted (melt half over heat, then remove from heat to finish the melting)
• 2 heaping tablespoons raw honey
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder
• a couple dashes quality natural salt

Drizzle the chocolate glaze over the clusters and put the clusters into the freezer for a few minutes to solidify the chocolate. You will have about half of the chocolate glaze mixture left.

After a few minutes, remove the clusters, use a spatula to scrape each cluster off the plate and turn upside down, molding any loose chocolate around it. Then drizzle the remaining chocolate over the clusters. Use up all the chocolate. Put back into the freezer until firm.

Then remove the clusters from the plate and put into container you can store in the freezer. You will have bits of chocolate glaze left over on the plate — scrape these off and put into the same or a different container. They are delicious! Absolutely melt-in-your-mouth yummy. Waste not want want!

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