I am pretty sure this was an Australian thing, but it’s something that was at almost every school tuckshop/canteen/kiosk. I can’t remember what got me into them, but I remember being drawn to the name when I saw it printed on the canteen menu, and then seeing a box of them labelled “carob buds”.

They were little yellow flat circles, like giant Smarties or M&Ms, with a vague “droplet” shape, but with a flat bottom. Carob buds were made from carob powder from the carob tree, the tree’s pulp as sweet as, and similar in flavour to, chocolate. I found personally that they had a milky sort of taste, a bit like white chocolate.

I didn’t think they would be so tasty when I first saw them. They just looked like they might taste a bit sweet, like caramel… but they were so, so yummy. I haven’t always been a huge fan of chocolate (I like dark chocolate though), as it often made me sick from the sugar levels being too much for my liking. It wasn’t until my vegan friend in high school told me that it was vegan-friendly and gluten free, that I became obsessed with looking for carob buds again.

I’m not sure why, but I go a bit nuts over them because chocolate alternatives really make my eyes glaze. Not just chocolate alternatives, but delicious, sweet treats that are not purely chocolate. Like jersey caramels. Or fudge. Mmmmmmmm. When Nick and I went to Hunter Valley last month, I jumped at the sight of carob buds in the chocolate factory (I didn’t buy any though).

So yeah, carob buds are amazeballs. They are also low in fat, high in fibre, and caffeine-free. And since I haven’t been drinking coffee lately either, this sounds great. In the future I will probably try and cook something with carob buds in place of chocolate, too.

Photograph of carob buds from Naturalicious.