How to Make Mushroom Chocolate Bars

Mushroom chocolate is growing in popularity, and for good reasons! Mushroom chocolate tastes delicious, is super shelf stable, and is very easy to portion or dose anything else that’s inside, like your favorite mushrooms.

If you use high-quality cacao in your chocolate, which we definitely recommend, you’re also getting health benefits from this wonderful plant. Cacao is high in antioxidants, flavonoids, and essential vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium, iron, and calcium. Cacao supports heart health, and energetically is known as a heart opener.

Combining cacao with your favorite medicinal or magic mushrooms to make chocolate is a tasty way to support your body, mind, and soul!

By the end of this article, you will know how to make your own mushroom chocolate! You can start completely from scratch using a chocolate refiner, or we’ll also teach you a low-tech method if you just want to buy chocolate bars from a store and mix your preferred mushrooms with them.

👉 Do you learn better visually, we got you covered

Mushroom Chocolate Ingredients

Thank you to Maestro Chocolatiero, Paddy from Corazon de Cacao (Etsy shop here) for lending his expertise to this article and video!

Did you know that chocolate comes from the fruit of the cacao tree? The Mayans even used to use it as money — so back in the day, money did grow on trees!

Here’s a quick list of everything you need to make mushroom chocolate. Read on for more about proper sourcing and the process!

Everything you need to make mushroom chocolate:

• Chocolate refiner
• Cacao beans (dried, roasted, and peeled) OR high-quality chocolate bars that are 80-90% cacao
• Sugar of choice
• Powdered dry mushrooms/powdered mushroom extract
• Kitchen scale
• Spatula and spoon
• Bain-marie
• Bowls for water baths (bigger than bain-marie)
• Kitchen thermometer
• Chocolate bar mold or other container like Tupperware/baking dish
• Optional: Syringe

Sugar

We like to use panela! Panela is derived from cane sugar and is a less refined, less processed form of sugar. It’s rich in minerals and higher in fiber.

If you can’t find panela, the most important thing when making chocolate is that you use a dry ingredient — something like a muscovado sugar would be too wet, but almost any other type of sugar is acceptable, like white sugar, brown cane sugar, or coconut palm sugar.

Do not use maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar to make chocolate. Chocolate is a dry, stable product — and if that chocolate had moisture inside it, it would mold and decay.

Mushroom Powder

You will also need dried mushrooms to make into powder, or a dried mushroom extract powder.

PRO TIP: Certain mushrooms you can use dried, like Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, or Psilocybe, because they don’t contain much chitin. If you want to make chocolate bars with mushrooms like Turkey Tail or Reishi, you will need a mushroom extract powder* instead of a direct mushroom powder. Otherwise there’s too much chitin, which will give you stomach aches.

*We at Fungi Academy personally use and recommend mushroom extract powder from SuperFeast! Use code FUNGIACADEMY for 10% off your order.

If you’re starting with whole dried mushrooms, make sure to powder them first before putting them in the chocolate refiner (more on that below).

How to Make Mushroom Chocolates from Scratch

Here’s an overview if you’re interested in making your own mushroom chocolate. Cacao and chocolate refiner machines are now available all over the world, so it’s super doable with a small investment to be making your own mushroom chocolate at home.

If you want the low-tech method of making chocolate, skip to the section below!

Mushroom Chocolate Recipe

• 75% cacao beans
• 15% panela or natural sugar
• 10% mushroom powder

3. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie

Transfer the chocolate into a bain-marie and begin melting the chocolate. This can be done by holding the bain-marie over a pot of hot water on the stove and continuously stirring it until the chocolate is melted. IMPORTANT: Make sure the temperature always stays below 100° Fahrenheit.

4. Lower the temperature of the chocolate

Once the chocolate is melted, put the bain-marie inside a cold water bath and, with a rubber spatula, turn and fold and mix your chocolate. Stir and fold until it reaches 76° F.

5. Raise the temperature of the chocolate

Once the chocolate reaches 76° F, move the bain-marie to a warm water bath. You don’t want the water to be too hot — around 100 to 120° F tops. Raise the chocolate to 86° F.

6. Mix in mushroom powder

Now you’re going to mix in your mushroom powder, constantly stirring and keeping a close eye on the temperature. It’s very important that you don’t go over 88° F, because if you do, you will melt the crystals that you’ve made.

7. Pour your chocolate into a mold

Remove the bain-marie from the water bath once the chocolate is 86° F and all the mushroom powder is mixed in evenly. Pour into molds, weighing on a kitchen scale for precision. Tap the mold on the table to settle any bubbles.

8. Put your chocolate in the fridge for 20 minutes

Set an alarm so you don’t forget to take it out!

9. Remove your chocolate from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature overnight

Chocolate should stay in the molds for 8-12 hours overnight at an ambient temperature of around 60 to 70° F. You’ll know the chocolate is ready when it falls out of the mold after a little wiggling on the sides.

How to Make Mushroom Chocolates: Low-Tech Method

Good news: you can make your own mushroom chocolate without a refiner! You can just buy some really good chocolate bars and the chocolate maker has already done the hard part for you.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you buy chocolate that is 80-90% cacao for this process. If you want really high-quality and ethical chocolate, we recommend the brand Corazon de Cacao — directly traded from Guatemala, ethically sourced, and with a massive positive impact for local communities.

Once you source your chocolate (skipping Steps 1 & 2 from the full instructions above), start at Step 3 — melting your chocolate.

Knowing Your Dose

Knowing the exact amount of mushroom powder in your chocolate is much easier if you use a chocolate bar mold, but it’s possible with any kind of mold.

Make sure to use a scale when you’re pouring your chocolate into the molds, so that you know exactly how much chocolate is in each bar, and therefore, how much mushroom powder it contains.

Following the recipe, the chocolate contains 10% mushroom powder. So if you have a 50g bar of chocolate, you will have 5g of mushroom powder in each bar. Make sure to weigh and properly label your mushroom chocolate bars so you, and anyone you may be sharing them with, know exactly what’s in them.

We hope you feel empowered to make your own chocolate. Let us know how it goes!

Keep Learning & Growing

Loved making this recipe? Here’s where to go next:

• Herbal Allies for Homemade Mushroom Medicine — level up your chocolates with plant medicine combinations for body, mind, and spirit.
• The Ultimate Lemon Tek Guide — another popular method for working with magic mushrooms safely and intentionally.
• Microdosing: The Ultimate Guide — if you’re making microdose chocolates, this guide covers protocols, dosing, and benefits.
• Lion’s Mane Mushroom — Complete Guide — one of the best medicinal mushrooms to add to your chocolates, covering benefits, growing, and dosing.

Want to grow your own mushrooms to put in your chocolates? Our Online Mushroom Cultivation Course teaches you everything from spore to harvest — gourmet and medicinal species included. Or join the Mushroom Membership for monthly live sessions, expert guests, and a global community of mushroom lovers who’d love to see your chocolate creations.