Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: sixtieschick
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 11:39 AM

Here are two recipes from Scharffen Berger Chocolate Company using their fabulous products. They are as good as it gets. For Mexican chocolate, try Ibarra brand, available in supermarkets in Southern California, if no where else.

http://www.scharffenberger.com/article_info.php?articles_id=39&template_file=recipes.php

http://www.scharffenberger.com/article_info.php?articles_id=38&template_file=recipes.php

Miriam

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 11:53 AM

There is a wonderful book called 'The Discovery of Chocolate' by James Runcie - published by HarperCollins.

It's fiction but has some wonderful old chocolate recipes in it... including mole (pronounced mol-ey), some great 'meetings' with various chocolate magnates and one Godawful pun that's worth the whole book!

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 12:26 PM

3¼ years, and it goes on as if it were new! I TRULY wish Pene Azul would put in a feature that puts in a big, red note saying
THIS THREAD HAS BEEN REFRESHED

when it is more than, say 6 months old.

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 12:29 PM

That's because chocolate is always worth repeating... (I was going to say bringing up again but decided it wasn't quite the thing...)..

And who says chocolate is BS anyway?!

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 12:47 PM

j0hn, says it, I guess...*grin*....and it is...chocolate is BeautifullySatisfying

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 12:55 PM

Recipe from Green and Blacks
put milk, cream and 2 cinnamon sticks into a pan and slowly bring to boil turn off heat and infuse for 10 minutes. Mix cocoa with a splash of milk to form paste, sieve milk mixture and pour and blend with paste. add sugar to taste - alternatively substitute cardamom for cinnamon.
AND - most important - eat with freshly made churros

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: sixtieschick
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 01:20 PM

LTS, I always enjoy your posts. However, I beg to differ with you about the James Runcie book. It's highly inaccurate, which I suppose is okay on one level if it's fiction. However, I wish the author had done just a tiny bit of homework. He has the characters picking nutmeg and cinnamon, if I remember correctly, in the jungles of Mexico. Those spices aren't indigenous to the region. I also don't love books in which some uptight white man means an exotic woman with dark skin who sets him free emotionally and sexually. It's a sexist and racist fantasy in my book. Even worse, it's hackneyed. Gaugin and Rina the bird girl have that one covered already (although not with each other). Sorry--had to get my two cent's worth of chocolate chips in on this topic!

M.

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 05:24 PM

Best ever hot chocolate has got to have been approx 4 in the morning @ stanford in the vale folk festival circa 1990 with the remaining members of staff with their feet in a large galvenised bath. With hot water supplied by Johnny Collins who plyed us with Midnight Specials:-
Recipe :- Hot chocolate & Southern Comfort!
Skipy (wrapped around a can of strongbow - in date!).

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 05:35 PM

Yeah, but did you get the pun?

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 05:41 PM

Some of us have never heard of Rina the bird girl.. I'm intrigued....

Do elucidate please?

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 06:32 PM

Must disagree w/ Green and Blacks, in regard to the order in which they assemble ingredients.

Tryng to mix cocoa powder with milk, cream and other stuff, and then later adding "sugar to taste," is a sure recipe for LUMPS. The trick is to mix dry cocoa with sugar first, stirring thoroughly to break down all lumps in the cocoa while it's still dry. The sugar should be granulated, with nice sharp corners on every grain; powdered (confectioner's) sugar won't do the job as well.

Then add, and do, whatever you please.

Slight topic shift: The Mexican "hockey-puck" chocolate that I've seen (complete and pre-mixed solid stuff, to be dissolved in hot milk) is called "Abuelita" brand ~ Espanol for "Grandma's" ~ and the yellow-and-red package has a picture of Grandma right on it. Great stuff!

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,Fuck your chocolate
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 07:14 PM

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: sixtieschick
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 07:20 PM

To LTS: I made a mistake. The bird girl's name is Rima, from "Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest" by W. H. Hudson. It's a classic.

Some editor's comments from amazon.com:

The modern classic tells the compelling story of Rima, a strange birdlike girl of the jungle, and Abel, the European who falls in love with her. The book owes much of its popularity to the mystic, near-religious feeling that pervades the story and the beauty of Rima's halting, poetic expressions. The author's knowledge and understanding of nature, the jungle and grasslands lend special authenticity to this captivating fantasy. A master of natural history writing, W. H. Hudson forms an important link between nineteenth-century Romanticism and the twentieth-century ecological movement. First published in 1904, Green Mansions is a poignant meditation on the loss of wilderness, the dream of a return to nature, and the bitter reality of the encounter between savage and civilized man.

Not a lot to do with chocolate...but there you have it.

Sixtieschick

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 03:21 AM

Chocolate should either be very hot (with marshmallows) or cold.

I always put my chocolate bars in the fridge first. They taste better cold.

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: open mike
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 03:53 AM

THIS THREAD HAS BEEN REFRESHING

and i like chocolate mint cocoa...by Stephens or Mrs. Fields'

I usually put a scoop of it in my coffee...

great way to start the day..

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 11:36 AM

Lovely thread.

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Peace
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 12:37 PM

Haven't heard from the 'chocolate is better than sex' crew yet. (I always wondered about that--means ya need a better sex life, IMO.) Anyway . . . .

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 01:46 PM

Or else you're just eating the wrong kind of chocolate!

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 02:08 PM

chuaochocolatier.com
They are based in Encinitas, CA.
See if you can order the 'spicy maya'.
This is an approximation of the drink espoused in 'Chocolat'

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 11:58 PM

I buy dutch cocoa in bulk. Mix it with equal parts of sugar and then gradually add the hot water. I like it best with marshmallows.

This thread is very informative. I have a friend who is thinking of starting a cocoa shop...raw cocoa beans and assorted cocoa related items. As we toyed with the idea, I said that maybe there wasn't an established cocoa culture yet. Maybe I'm wrong.

Would you like to be able to purchase different kinds of cocoa beans sort of like buying coffee beans from Starbucks? It would also feature a few ethnic items from parts of the world that grow cocoa. Of course mugs would be for sale as well as all kinds of cocoa products.

What do you think?

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 04:37 AM

dianavan - I could bankrupt myself in such a shop!

Want a tester at all?

LTS

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,Keef
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 06:58 AM

Sex
Chocolate
Blonde
Mars Bar
Police

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 06:27 PM

How about white hot chocolate? Thats pretty good too.
And cadbury drinking chocolate.
and marshmallows, whipped cream, amoretto, flake, sprinkles - i recently tried very dark hot chocolate with a spoon of vanilla ice-cream in it - mmm mmm mmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmm!
yummy! :-)

xLx

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 08:45 PM

Keep the ideas coming!

Certified, organic cocoa beans seem to be selling for about $13.50 U.S.

The thought of freshly roasted, cocoa beans makes my mouth water.

Have you ever tried Mole? Yum! Its amazing how versatile these little beans can be.

So far the concept includes freshly roasted cocoa beans and related products. Of course there would be a bar for cocoa drinks as well. I like the idea but it would be a risk. The woman who wants to start the business is only 22 so she has time on her side. She might fail or she might make it big. I'd like to see her give it a try. It might be too pricey for most folks but if they can sell coffee for outrageous prices, why not cocoa?

Subject: RE: Complete BS (Hot Chocolate)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 03:12 AM

As long as none of your products are passed through other animals in the manner of civet or weasel coffee.... like this.... or covering small, dangerous arachnids like these , then we should all be happy!

LTS