Xocalatl (My Chocolate Addiction)

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	My Chocolate Addiction
Date:	20/09/01 (1101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's chocolate

Disadvantages: well, I guess if you want to lose weight it isn't really going to help

Magic, magic chocolate. It is, you know. Chocolate is comforting, warming, fun. It's image can be decadent or homely, trashy or elegant. If you're in the mood, and have enough sweeties in front of you, then it can be all of those things at the same time. Chocolate, like cheese, comes in so, so many forms, you see from the sugary dairy milk, to the bitter darkness of lindt. But it's the stuff that comes in cups, rather than pretty wrappings, that I want to talk about here. Not chocolate cup-cakes, although they are nice, but chocolate served in mugs, or cups, from drinking chocolate to 'pots au chocolat' - and the recipe for the latter, since there's no use waxing lyrical unless you know how to make the things I'm waxing lyrical about. And 'pots au chocolat' are so, so easy to make, that there's no excuse at all for not making them, even if you can't boil an egg.

Ooh, and why chocolate? Why now? Well, it's the weather. Drizzle. I hate it, you know. It's insiduous, soggy, and, well, damp. I don't know about you, but it's been drizzling in Lincolnshire for a couple of days, now, and the only thing to hearten the winds, and the sogginess, is to run, happily, to the kitchen cupboard, snuggle up on a sofa, turn on some music, and grab a cuddly toddler and a good book.

When I'm running to the kitchen cupboard, this isn't just to enjoy some bizarre game of cupboard tag, but to fish out the jar of drinking chocolate, or even just the cannister of cocoa powder. If I'm going all non-traditional, and using drinking chocolate, then it'll be Green and Blacks organic, or Whittards, or, the most lovely stuff of all, Leonidas drinking chocolate. Ooh, and then I run to the fridge to get out the cream, and the milk, and then I run to another cupboard to get out the marshmallows, or the fudge, or the smarties. I think I run off all my chocolate calories making it, you know. And I don't wo
rry too much, anyway. I theorize that one totally beautiful chocolate experience is worth three crunchie bars. It isn't the quantity, nor the size, that's important, it's the quality.

See? You can even philosophise (albeit rather badly) with chocolate. White chocolate (with it's greater proportion of cocoa butter, and lack of bitterness) must be the innocent young thing of the chocolate family, so you can melt white chocolate into dark hot chocolate to make a gorgeous combination of sweet and bitter tastes - but, before I go into massive detail, I'd better just do the dull factual thing on what drinking chocolate is, which isn't as dull as it sounds, even though I'm venturing into the precarious realms of potted history, as well as potted chocolate.

And this potted chocolate history, which is a rich one, I promise, begins with Christopher Columbus visiting the New World. He found potatoes, but missed the cocoa bean, silly man, and Europe had to wait for Cortez to look further into the concoction of 'xocalatl' - made from crushed cocoa beans and cold water whisked together. The wealthy Spanish mixed this concoction with hazelnuts, vanilla, almonds and cinnamon, to make it's bitter taste more palatable. 'xocoatle' means 'bitter water', you see, and if you think of cocoa, as a drink, then it is bitter, really.

The Mayan culture, from which we nicked chocolate, and turned it into Crunchie bars and Dairy Milk, actually worshipped the cocoa bean. The Aztecs, too :

"attributed the creation of the cocoa plant to their god Quetzalcoatl who, descended from heaven on a beam of a morning star carrying a cocoa tree stolen from paradise. " and "believed that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the cocoa tree, and also that it had nourishing, fortifying, and even aphrodisiac qualities".

Wow. Such was, and possibly still is, the power of chocolate. Eve
n when the cocoa bean was brought to the west, still the Spaniards hugged this precious secret to themselves for almost a hundred years. And, in one of those glorious twists that history springs upon us, it was a party of Dominican Friars that let the secret of 'chocolate' out. And they were again used as currency:

"Two hundred beans bought a turkey cock. One hundred beans was the daily wage of a porter, and would buy a hen turkey or a rabbit"

Hmmm, chocolate, or rabbit? I think I'll stick with chocolate. Anyway, back to the potted history. The English took a while to convert, burning a ship filled with cocoa beans thinking the ship was filled with sheep dung. Soon, however, in the mid sixteenth century, chocolate houses were emerging all over London. Poets, writers, artists, all gathered together to drink chocolate and gossip. Chocolate was cool, chocolate was trendy. But only drinking chocolate, you understand, for the fondanty concotion that are sweeties to emerge, you have to wait a while.

But drinking chocolate, that comforting beverage. Well, we still have cocoa - the original drink - powdered cocoa beans, with no additions. Simple to prepare, too. You warm milk, or milk and water - then mix the cocoa powder with a little cold milk, into a paste, and then pour over the warm milk, mixing as you go. It's bitter, is proper cocoa. Most people add sugar to it - and, like the Mayan's, you can add vanilla sugar, or vanilla essence, too. Drinking chocolate usually has sugar added, and some vanilla, and often some cocoa butter, too. If it's a good brand, then it just cuts out a few cupboard trips - if it's one of those 'all in one' instant chocolate drinks, then I think you lose the bitterness, the richness, of proper cocoa, and get a sugary concoction that's pleasant enough, but doesn't really give me that slightly bitter flavour on the back of the tongue that's 'proper' choco
late.

But it's the additions that really make drinking chocolate lovely. Melting marshmallows on top of the mug, and stirring them into the chocolate adds a sweet, slightly sticky, frothy pink and white layer to the drink. On top of the marshmallows you can grate some plain chocolate. Then, as the marshmallows melt, you can fish them out with a teaspoon, to savour the last remains of their solid existence, or you can leave them, and sip the chocolate through that sweet foam.

Cream is another wonderful addition. A big spoonful of double cream stirred into your drinking chocolate makes it even richer. If I make chocolate with very little sugar, and half-milk half water, with only a tiny drop of vanilla essence, then I like cream stirred into the cup. You get a wonderful layer of richness, with quite a bitter chocolatey taste underneath it. OOh, and try dropping smarties into the cream. They slowly melt, but some remain crunchy, depending on how hot the chocolate is, and then you get little bits of oozing melted smartie in your mouth as you sip. Chopped nuts, too. I'm not such a fan of these, but they do add texture, if you sprinkle them on top of your whipped cream blob.

If I'm sprinkling anything on hot chocolate, though, I think it has to be chocolate. I like grating white chocolate, and sprinkling that on cocoa - the sweetness and vanilla taste of the white chocolate complementing the darkness of the cocoa beneath. Similarly Whittards make a white drinking chocolate, and there's nothing nicer than grating really bitter, dark, plain chocolate on top of that.

I'd avoid the commercial 'sprinkles' though. I know you can buy them - hundreds and thousands, and so-called 'chocolate sprinkles' - but they really aren't that nice. They're basically sugar and wheat starch, with various pastel colourings, and they don't add anything in terms of taste or texture. If it's looks you're con
cerned about, then some silver dragees dropped into the top of the cream, or marshmallow, or just on the top of the drink, do look pretty. Sticking a flake bar into cocoa, too, a la 99 ice cream cornets, can be fun, as the flake slowly melts into the chocolate. Ice-cream, too - a good vanilla, can make a lovely addition to your mug full of hot drink.

Ooh, and you can add brandy, or whisky, or a teaspoon of coffee powder, too. If you add coffee powder (or 'camp' coffee essence) then you've mocha. If you add brandy, or whisky, or, presumably, rum, then you've made a really warming concoction. If you like the idea of alchoholic hot chocolate, then try drambuie, or tia maria, too.

The list goes on, and on. You can add most things to chocolate. Peppermint essence makes a peppermint flavoured chocolate drink - and then you can melt a chocolate covered mint fondant on top. Add a bit of ginger wine, and you've a ginger chocolate (complete with crystallised ginger atop the cream). You can drop fudge into your chocolate, or bits of chocolate orange. Whatever you feel like adding, really, although I wouldn't recommend adding cheese, or sardines, unless you've a very peculiar palate. Whatever you add, you'll probably need a teaspoon, too, to fish out the little melted gloopy bits that sink to the bottom of the mug, just to remind you that you've finished the cocoa, and it's time to make some more.

And, if you've teaspoons anyway, and mugs, ready, and if you've some cream, some plain chocolate, eggs, and butter in the fridge, then you could just make 'Pots-au-Chocolat', anyway. They take about fifteen minutes from start to finish, and this recipe makes four.

Ingredients:

75g (3oz) plain chocolate (use a good variety - maybe Lindt, or Green and Blacks organic?
25g (1oz) butter
3 eggs, seperated
1 tbsp warm water
75ml (3 fl oz) double cream
gratings of chocolate
to sprinkle on top, if you want to bother.

<br>Method:

Break up the chocolate, and place in a heatproof basin standing over a saucepan of boiling water (bain marie). Add butter, and leave untill they've melted together, stirring occasionally. If you've a microwave, then you can just melt the chocolate and butter in that, by zapping it on 'medium power' for about two minutes.

Beat in the egg yolks - and when the mixture is smooth, remove from heat and stir in the warm water.

Beat the egg whites untill stiff and snowy, then fold them into the chocolate mixture.

Spoon into dishes or mugs, and chill until set.

This is real chocolate luxury in a pot. Because it uses raw eggs, it does have to be avoided by the pregnant, and anyone with potential egg allergies, and this is a shame, but, so long as you're careful with your egg supplier, and use fresh eggs, there's rarely a problem. It's a shame if you are allergic to eggs. This, if you use really lovely chocolate, is a gorgeous dark, rich, sticky confection, with a smooth texture that melts, almost, in your mouth a moment before the bitter, dark chocolatey taste hits your palate. It's very rich, too. It's the sort of dessert that makes you think there won't be enough when you start eating it, but one pot is enough. It's one beautiful thing, rather than twenty ok'ish ones.

And that's it (and I do apologise for the length - I did get fascinated by the history of chocolate, and if you want to know more about it, too, then try this website:
http://www.chocolatemonthclub.com/chocolatehis tory.htm
All the above quotes are taken from it).

I'm off to fish out the cocoa from the cupboard, now. My chocolate addiction? Well, I'm hoping it speaks for itself, I suppose. I am, you know - even if I do deny it - and isn't that the mark of a true addict?

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