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I have a confession to make. I’m a bit addicted to conversation hearts. I never grew out of the straight sugar candies.
Naturally, conversation hearts are everywhere during the time around Valentine’s Day. It’s easy to want to share my love of conversation hearts with my kids but do I really want them eating them? No. I do not want them growing up with the same horrid sweet tooth that their mama has.
What does this natural mama do? I make my own healthy version! I originally wanted to call these Healthy Conversation Hearts but… I didn’t put any words on them.
I could I suppose but I didn’t really want to dig out my stamps and natural food dyes. Making these hearts was already enough work. So they aren’t technically conversation hearts. Instead, we will call them what they are: coconut berry hearts.
There are just 2-3 ingredients in this recipe. Nice and simple. There really isn’t too much work.
Piping out the hearts is the hardest part and it really doesn’t take that long. It’s the dehydrating that takes a long time but the perk of having a dehydrator is that you can just sit back and relax while it’s running.
The berries you choose will influence the color of your hearts. Strawberries gave me the nice pink that you see in the pictures. Blackberries actually gave me the red hearts which I was not really expecting. I wanted to do blueberries which I assume would give a nice purple but alas, I was out of blueberries.
Coconut Berry Hearts
1 cup berries
1/2 cup coconut butter – softened
1/32 tsp of stevia powder (or 1-2 tbs of your favorite sweetener) – optional
Directions:
Place all ingredients into a food processor and whirl away.
Mixture should be thin enough to pipe into hearts.
If mixture is not thin enough, warm up in a pot. Just a bit. You do not want it too thin; just thin enough to pipe.
Once mixture is thin enough, transfer into a pastry bag with a tip (or ziplock bag with a small snip in the corner).
Pipe mixture into heart shapes on fruit leather dehydrator sheets.
Turn on dehydrator to 130 degrees. Dehydrate for 4-6 hours. Halfway through flip the hearts over very carefully.
Once the hearts have dried out, you can store in an air tight container.
Love that these take simple ingredients and yet turn out so cute!
Awww I love these coconut berry hearts! I can imagine myself snacking on these during the dehydrating process – “testing” to see if they are ready 😉
Hi Brittany,
I love you simple healthful recipe> These look delicious and a great Valentine’s Day treat for kids or adults.
I remember those candied heart when we were a kid that we thought were so great, If only I would have known how many chemicals I was eating I never would have touched them. I still see kids eating them today and wonder why their parents are letting them eat all those toxic ingredients – dyes, preservatives, processed sugar – nothing in them that is healthy at all.
Thanks for sharing on Real Food Fridays. Pinned & tweeted!
Cute!
Very cute! Thanks for sharing on the Homestead Blog Hop!
Hi Brittany,
Just a note to let you know that I have chosen your post as one of my features for this weeks Real Food Fridays blog hop. that goes live every Thursday @ 7 pm EST. Thank you for sharing and being part of Real Food Fridays mission.
Hi Brittany – Thanks so much for sharing with the Let’s Get Real party.
They look delicious and so pretty!! Thank you for sharing at my craft party!! Be sure to link up again every Thursday at 7pm EST. I’ll pin every instructional post!
These are so fun! I used to love those conversation hearts as a id too. These are so much better! Thank you for sharing this with us at Savoring Saturdays linky party. Hope you’lll join us again.
Wonderful idea! Pinning so I can find it when I need it. These will be fun to make with the grandkids who are old enough to start learning how to pipe. They’ll have a blast. Thank you.