Chocolate week: Recipes and discussion

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I know, what a catchy title, took me a while to come up with it. 

 

Anyway, recipes, you have them, I want them. And anyone with recipes involving white chocolate will have amnesty from the Cocoacloaks that throng around these parts. All chocolate is worthy of devouring, we will not have discrimination here.

 

As I am sure everyone is aware of, chocolate originated in South America. The cocoa tree was first domesticated 5,300 years ago in present-day Ecuador. The seeds of the fruit of the cocoa tree are very bitter and need to be fermented before being processed.

The fruits of the three types of cocoa tree are shown above. After fermentation, the seeds are roasted and the husks of the seeds are harvested as cocoa nibs. The nibs can be ground into cocoa mass, and then liquefied by heat into chocolate liquor. The liquor can then be cooled and processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The solids are then often further treated with an alkalizing agent such as potassium or sodium carbonate to remove the acidity of the solids, which gives it a much less bitter taste. This is often called Dutch cocoa, after the pioneering chocolate maker Coenraad Johannes van Houten, who developed the technique. You can see the relative degree of Dutching by the colour of the solids. 

The darker powder on the left are Dutched solids, on the right, natural cocoa solids. Dutching also has an effect on the level of caffeine (reducing it to a third) and the anti-oxidants (reducing them by 60%) in the cocoa solids. It is interesting to note that cocoa is so high in anti-oxidants that even Dutch cocoa is considered a high anti-oxidant food. Dutch cocoa forms the basis for most modern chocolate applications. I was not going to include how chocolate is made as I thought everyone would already know, but actually after reading briefly up on it I realised that there a lot of detail there that I was completely ignorant about, so I have included the basics anyway. 

 

Everyone loves chocolate, but of course, people being people, there has to be a dark side to it as well. While the plant was first domesticated in South America, currently most chocolate is grown in West Africa. It is estimated that more than two million children are involved in the farming of cocoa in Africa, with two major concerns being human trafficking and slavery. In a Dutch program about slavery involved in chocolate a spokesperson for Nestle appeared to downplay the importance of slavery as your normal chocolate farmer was so poor, it really did not make a lot difference. Here in the Netherlands, a reporter called Teun van de Keuken, made headlines when he reported himself to the police for being an accomplice to slavery. His argument was that he knew that chocolate was produced using slavery yet still financially contributed to the process by buying chocolate. Legal experts advised that there was definitely a case to be answered under Dutch law, and Teun collected tens of thousands of signatures urging for him to be jailed. In the end, the court decided the motion was inadmissible and without denying the horrors involved in cocoa production, prosecuting Teun and the more than two thousand other chocolate consumers that came forward, was not the correct way to deal with the issue. The publicity, and a cynic might point to research that people would pay many times more for chocolate that was guaranteed to be slave free, lead to Teun's own brand of chocolate - "Tony's Chocolonely", a name thought up for a new Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream that Teun tried to pitch to that company as part of his awareness raising about the issue - has become the market leader in the Netherlands, and costs at least three times as much as Verkade, the previous market leader.

 

So that is a bit depressing. Even outside of the exploitation of the farmers, as part of Teun's programming, he traveled to Africa where the chocolate was farmed with a suitcase full of chocolate. In a village, with the Headman's permission, he distributed the various chocolate bars and sweeties out (after the Headsman had had first pick) to the villagers, none of whom had never tasted chocolate before in their lives, despite spending their entire lives farming the cocoa plant. Truly upsetting and humbling as an indication of the privilege that we have in the First World.

 

Anyway on that point, I'll open the floor to anyone else that would like to discuss anything about chocolate or share a recipe, and go look up some good recipes to share. Where is Maw Broon's cookbook now?

Edited February 11 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Cross]

look at you! doing a Brown's worth of research. nicely done! 

 

one thing i've been doing the past several years is having a cup of brewed cacao every morning. it traces back to the way the Mayan's used to have it, treating the cacao beans like coffee, roasted, brewed. its great. very bitter on its own though. 

[Elgee]

Oh my goodness, Heavy - I did not know all those things about cocao and chocolate!

I do remember reading that before Kaf ... I mean coffee became popular in England (maybe the rest of the area too?), people would drink hot cocoa first thing in the morning.

 

@Cross Could you share your recipe with us? I'd love to try doing that!

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

2 hours ago, Elgee said:

I do remember reading that before Kaf ... I mean coffee became popular in England (maybe the rest of the area too?), people would drink hot cocoa first thing in the morning.

Yes the morning chocolate was a big thing. 

 

The morning chocolate by a venetian painter in the eighteenth century. In 1662, the pope himself even declared that drinking chocolate did not break fasting. In France, chocolate is still a normal breakfast, served hot in bowls with a sweet bread or croissant to dip. 

Edited February 12 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Elgee]

They never gave ME that when I stayed in France! *mutters*

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

That is what we learnt at school anyway. And as a result when they have coffee for breakfast that is also often served in bowls to have bread products dipped in it. Maybe it is not so popular now, that was in the eighties and probably at best based on stuff a decade before that, but I would have thought it would take a long time to change such habits. 

 

Now where is that recipe book? *scratches head*

[Elgee]

2 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

that was in the eighties

 

That's when I was there.

Granted, the people I stayed with in Versailles were ... strange.

[Jeannaisais]

My fav form of dark chocolate is fudge

 

But  my body hates dairy so I use recipes similar to this one:

 

https://bohemianvegankitchen.com/classic-dairy-free-cocoa-fudge/#recipe

[Elgee]

Dark chocolate fudge? Not something I've ever tried. Nice idea!

[Jeannaisais]

1 minute ago, Elgee said:

Dark chocolate fudge? Not something I've ever tried. Nice idea!

My sister found a dark chocolate peanut butter fudge recipe for this past holiday season and omg sooooo good!! I'll look for it!

[Cross]

20 hours ago, Elgee said:

 

@Cross Could you share your recipe with us? I'd love to try doing that!

 

 

not so much a recipe as you buy the pre-roasted and ground cacao. they have seasonal flavors and variations from different parts of the world. 

 

to make it you need a french press. 

 

-measure out how much water you need for your cup, and bring to a boil (i use a kuerig) 

-put 1 tablespoon of the grounds per cup of water into the french press. 

-pour  hot water into the french press and stir

-let steep for 5 minutes, stir again

-let steep another 2 minutes and depress the press down, and pour the brewed cacao into your mug. 

-sweeten to taste. add cream if you like. 

 

 

and @Jeannaisais share that recipe!

[Elgee]

And I even have a french press! Gonna try that.

Thankee, Cross 🙂

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Is a French press a cafetiere?

And we are talking about cocoa mass here, not cocoa solids? Don't even know what that is called in Dutch. Cocoa nibs though are pretty easy to find and I have still not broken the cherry on my mortar and pestle... 

[Cross]

yeah thats it 

 

and you could use the nibs ground for it. what i get is like literally the cacao bean thats been ground. 

[Cross]

hey @HeavyHalfMoonBlade whats your favorite chocolate dish?

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

3 hours ago, Cross said:

hey @HeavyHalfMoonBlade whats your favorite chocolate dish?

In all honesty, I don't have one. I had an "incident" in my youth involving profiteroles and the very rich chocolate sauce that comes with them. I don't remember if I was ill or simply over ate, but I was very physically ill and it took literally decades for the taste, or even the thought of it, not to make me gag. So I loved chocolate, but chocolate-flavoured things could have me running to the toilet.

 

But I found my recipe book 🙂 I had done a good job hiding it, but not good enough. Chocolate does not seem to feature highly in traditional Scottish cuisine, though.

 

Chocolate Eclairs

 

2.5 oz flour

2 eggs

1 oz butter 

0.25 pint water

0.25 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch salt

1 tsp castor sugar

 

Whipped cream

Chocolate icing

 

Boil the butter and water in a pan; sift the flour and add to boiling liquid. Keep on the heat and beat the mixture until smooth and leaving the sides of the pan, stirring all the time. Allow to cool slightly then add the beaten eggs gradually. Keep beating, then add vanilla extract. Pipe finger lengths of the pastry onto a buttered baking tray. Cook in a high oven (I'm assuming that these means the same as hot, but not entirely sure, 220-230 C or 425-450 F) for about 30 minutes or until light brown. When cooked split and remove soft inside. Fill with whipped cream or pastry custard. Ice with chocolate icing.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Millionaires' shortbread

 

500g butter, softened

175g caster sugar 

600g flour, sifted

 

1 tin of condensed milk (400g)

200g 70% cocoa or good quality milk chocolate

 

The day before making, place the tin of condensed milk with a hole pierced in the top into a pan of water and bring to the boil and cook over a medium heat for two hours. Remove from the heat and leave overnight. 

Preheat the oven to 160 C/325 F. Beat together the butter and and the sugar. Beat in the flour 100g at at a time, until smooth. If the dough becomes to stiff to stir, knead in the rest of the flour with your hands. Grease and flour a shallow rectangular tin. Pour the dough in and make even with a pallet knife. Bake in a preheated over for 40 minutes at 150 C/300 F. Spread the caramelised condensed milk over the shortbread once cooled. Melt the chocolate and spread over the caramel. Slice before completely cool and then leave in a cool place for the toppings to set. 

[Cross]

3 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

 

But I found my recipe book 🙂 I had done a good job hiding it, but not good enough. Chocolate does not seem to feature highly in traditional Scottish cuisine, though.

 

 

 

so this explains your erroneous views on white chocolate 

[Elgee]

8 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Millionaires' shortbread

 

500g butter, softened

175g caster sugar 

600g flour, sifted

 

1 tin of condensed milk (400g)

200g 70% cocoa or good quality milk chocolate

 

The day before making, place the tin of condensed milk with a hole pierced in the top into a pan of water and bring to the boil and cook over a medium heat for two hours. Remove from the heat and leave overnight. 

Preheat the oven to 160 C/325 F. Beat together the butter and and the sugar. Beat in the flour 100g at at a time, until smooth. If the dough becomes to stiff to stir, knead in the rest of the flour with your hands. Grease and flour a shallow rectangular tin. Pour the dough in and make even with a pallet knife. Bake in a preheated over for 40 minutes at 150 C/300 F. Spread the caramelised condensed milk over the shortbread once cooled. Melt the chocolate and spread over the caramel. Slice before completely cool and then leave in a cool place for the toppings to set. 

 

It's that frigging easy??? And I don't know about over there, but here you just buy your caramel already done:

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

8 hours ago, Cross said:

so this explains your erroneous views on white chocolate 

I did not know that the Brown Ajah espoused dogma. Plus I never said I liked it (in small quantities, I do actually) I was merely contesting the argument that it was not chocolate. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

3 hours ago, Elgee said:

 

It's that frigging easy??? And I don't know about over there, but here you just buy your caramel already done:

 

I have never seen caramel in a tin, and I guess it is not sold here otherwise people wouldn't be boiling condensed milk. Though this recipe has a hole in the tin, I have definitely done so without any hole without any explosion, and then as the tin is still whole and sterile the caramel will keep indefinitely until you want to use it. Not sure I would recommend that though as I don't want to be responsible for exploding tins of boiling sugar around the world. It must be said though that this caramel will definitely have a condensed milk-like flavour - which is not per se a bad thing but I imagine might not fit every dish. Works great with banoffee pie though, and I have never used it for anything else. Well, except for a la spoon, though that does not really count and is fantastically unhealthy.

Edited February 16 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Elgee]

The Caramel in a tin is boiled condensed milk (the best kind, imo! you can keep your fancy "heat sugar and whatever in a pan" thing!).

 

1 hour ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Not sure I would recommend that though as I don't want to be responsible for exploding tins of boiling sugar around the world.

 

Yah. Been. There. My aunt was not happy with the state of her kitchen. Luckily my niece was the culprit and I was just the "I told you so".

[Cross]

9 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I was merely contesting the argument that it was not chocolate. 

 

 

 

 

yeah the microwaving the condensed milk thing is something i've wanted to try since i first saw it could be done. it seems like magic. have you actually done it @HeavyHalfMoonBlade?

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Microwaving? Mother's milk in a cup! Where did you see that that could be done? Housekeeping by Semirhage? Ten Things Guaranteed to Stop You Having to Clean the Kitchen Ever Again?

 

Boiling in a pan of water. Simmering, even. Lots of times, without mishap, though the hole in the tin is probably a good safety element. It does indeed seem like magic, but the sugar content is incredibly high.

[Cross]

lol uh... tv? i've seen them do it in the microwave.