Tag Archive: chocolate liquor
Chocolate Liquor vs Chocolate Liqueur (Plus A Bonus DIY Recipe!)
April 5, 2022
I know I’ve told you before that my favorite chocolate drink is a rich and creamy hot chocolate… but what I haven’t told you is what I’m saving for special occasions (or bad days!) which is the star of today’s show – chocolate liqueur.
First, let’s clear the air. What is chocolate liqueur and how is it different from chocolate liquor?
Chocolate Brandy Cream
October 10, 2012
Here is an honest-to-goodness cream recipe. It involves two ingredients that hold a special place in my heart, chocolate and brandy. The luscious taste of chocolate, vanilla, and brandy all combined is totally head-tilting good.
This rich-flavored chocolate brandy cream recipe will definitely sweep you off your feet. It has the mouth-watering taste of chocolate mixed with a little vanilla essence and, of course, brandy. Then the chocolaty mixture folds into a rich cream and is chilled to perfection.
You can use this as a garnish for your favorite cakes or pies. Kick your favorite dessert’s goodness up a notch!
Read more
Chocolate Categories and Pairings
August 30, 2011
Over the last couple of centuries, the cacao bean been has been used in many different ways such as medicine, as money, etc. But today, we eat it almost exclusively for pleasure.
There are different varieties of cacao beans and it has been said that each strain has been significantly changed due to its tree’s ability to naturally cross-pollinate, not to mention all the intended hybridization of the cacao bean for the past centuries.
Cacao beans go through a lot of processing to produce the chocolate we all love. They are harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, and ground to make chocolate liquor, which is then further processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter.
Read more
The Fineness of Grind
November 18, 2010
Why does one brand of chocolate bar feel so velvety smooth in your mouth but the next one feel so rough?
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? (pun intended!) It all depends on particle size, or the fineness of grind.
When cocoa beans are shelled and roasted, the nibs are ground up and heated to form fluid chocolate called chocolate liquor, cocoa mass, or unsweetened chocolate. When chocolate liquor is then blended with other ingredients like sugar and milk powder, the resulting paste is ground up even further. This process is called “refining.”
Read more
Terrific Tannins, Terrible Tannins
November 4, 2010
Tannins are astringent, bitter compounds found in plants. Tannins cause your mouth to feel dry and pucker up. The manipulation of tannin concentration plays an important role in aging of wine and ripening fruit.
Tannins are also important to the flavor development and health benefits in chocolate...
Chocolate liquor contains about 6% tannins, significantly contributing to the bitterness of chocolate. “Bitter” as a flavor descriptor is not always a bad thing. It is true that sometimes bitter can refer to negative characteristic coming from improper fermenting or roasting. But normal amounts of tannins intensify chocolate flavor, especially at the finish.
Read more
Green and Black’s Dark 70%
October 4, 2010
Green and Black’s chocolates are some of my favorite chocolates. Not long ago I reviewed several flavors from their box of miniature bar collection.
Read more
Chocolate Label – What Does It Mean?
September 16, 2010
I am a label reader. In fact, I judiciously read labels because it is a matter of life or death for my daughter who has serious food allergies. But just because I read labels doesn’t mean I understand everything on them!
Luckily, I have experience understanding what’s on a chocolate label. When I was developing product for a large chocolate manufacturer, part of my job was to create the labels that went on our chocolates.
So, what exactly are things like “chocolate liquor,” “cocoa butter,” “soya lecithin,” or “butter fat” (by the way, isn’t butter fat a bit redundant)?
Read more