Maple Peanut Nougat Chocolate Clusters
There are a number of relatively unprocessed and raw chocolates out there. Do your research and find the one that you are comfortable with and when in doubt, check the ingredients list and look for ones with minimal ingredients (preferably one that doesn’t have lecithin in it, an emulsifier that probably doesn’t qualify for the “unprocessed” tag). You can use any nut butter (your own homemade kind or a quality store-bought one) and your own choice of nuts in this cluster, but I went old school with the peanuts because I thought they were a classic flavor. I did use two whole vanilla beans in this recipe. I know vanilla beans are expensive but I was trying to keep it to whole ingredients as much as possible. If you don’t want to splurge on two beans, just substitute in 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract in place of each bean. Finally, though it probably goes without saying, don’t use pancake syrup, but use real maple syrup. But you already knew that, right?