Archive for May, 2014

3D food Printers create Sweets and Chocolates

“Such old favorites as chocolate, candy, and pasta will take on groovier, sculptured forms when extruded from food printers, and the machines will allow the cooking-adverse to prepare “homemade” ravioli at the push of a button.” Pretty interesting, eh? Watch this video.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 28, 2014 at 9:38 am

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Health Benefits of Chocolate

Gone are the days when chocolate was synonymous to “unhealthy”. Noawadays, consumption of such in appropriate mounts can actually be beneficial for you, health-wise. Needless to say, you should have the right stuff in hand, not the sugary and not-so-healthy kind.

Contrary to our common thinking, consumption of chocolates can possibly improve cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and the risk for diabetes. It may sound contradictory but it is true according to Harvard researchers. This study involved a review of 24 studies and 1,106 participants. And the said health benefits are due to the chocolate’s content called flavonoids which are of highest levels in the dark variants.

Dark chocolates were also considered as potent antioxidants by the scientists. These antioxidants attach themselves to free radicals, which are the main cause of cell destruction, and they are flushed away through digestion and other processes. Chocolates are also found out to have what they call ORACS (Oxygen radical Absorbance Capacity Units), and its contents are higher than those of red wine’s and even green tea’s. Consumption of food rich in antioxidants cuts down the risk of having heart attacks, stroke, asthma, and even degenerative cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Yet another reason to pamper yourself with chocolate! But of course, in moderation.

Chocolate labels nowadays display the percentage of cocoa solids they contain. So, when purchasing, be sure to check it and choose those with at least 70% of cocoa and those that have minimally-processed cacao in them. Antioxidants are not the only nutritional benefit chocolate has to offer, but other stuff as well such as iron, calcium, potassium, and vitamins A, B-1, C, D and E.

Study indicates that a single 5-g square contains approximately 25 calories and 1.5 g. of fat. Thus, an entire row is about 125 calories and 7.5 g of fat.

Instead of devouring one whole bar of chocolate in one sitting, why not try consuming a single row one square at a time? This way, you can rest assured that you are eating moderately.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 27, 2014 at 9:03 am

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Couverture Chocolate Tidbits

Chocolates are always alluring and they are such a pain to resist.  How much more if they’re made out of even higher amounts of cocoa butter than the usual one? You love the mouth-feel of chocolate melting on the tongue, don’t you? Imagine that being intensified. Yes, that.

Couverture chocolate is an extraordinary type of high-quality chocolate being used by chocolate companies and chocolate makers.  It offers an even richer and creamier consistency than regular chocolate because more cocoa butter is put in. After proper tempering, you come up with a more polished and glossier chocolate with a crisper “snap” when broken. It’s ideally used for coating, molding, garnishing and dipping.

Not more than 100 companies worldwide produce couverture chocolate. Some of these companies produce only for their own private usage, while others sell their products to other chocolatiers who don’t have the capacity to make their own.

Couverture chocolate outshines the ordinary chocolate with its exceptional characteristics.
Among those is the quality. Couverture chocolate makers’ sources are the chocolate scouts who go around the world to find the best cacao beans, and careful study is being done for them to achieve the perfect bean blend for that exceptionally distinct flavor profile.

To be called as couverture, the chocolate must hold 32 to 39% of cocoa butter and the total percentage of the cocoa butter and the cocoa solids should be at least 54%.

Couverture chocolate is way too different from confectionery chocolate or compound chocolate sine these products have a much lesser amount of cocoa butter. More to these, some of them even contain vegetable/coconut/palm oil, hydrogenated fats, as well as artificial chocolate flavoring.

Couverture chocolate is suggested not to be mixed in with any other ingredients because of its high price and quality.  It is built to stand out alone as an ingredient. It is ideal for chocolate fountains since the cocoa butter acts as a lubricant to avoid clumping of the chocolate and getting stickier than what is ideal.

If you want to give it a try, you can get samples from the makers to get the flavor profile you personally like since couverture chocolates have different tastes depending on where the beans came from and the process they undergo.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 20, 2014 at 10:29 am

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Chocolate Can Kill Your Dog

Dogs don’t always know what is not good for them. Some substances they instinctively know to stay away from because of the smell and or taste. However other foods and substances may actually taste good. This article will focus on chocolate, and why it is harmful to your dog.The ingredient in chocolate, theobromine, is toxic to dog.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 15, 2014 at 9:33 am

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Why Chocolate Is Downright Alluring

You can be a self-proclaimed chocoholic and love everything chocolate. You eat chocolate, you eat foo with chocolate, you use things with labels screaming chocolate, and all that jazz. Chocolate is so loved by people that the word ‘chocoholic’ made its way into Merriam-Webster. Almost all the important celebrations call for chocolate, be it the up-and-coming Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas!

What is it, really, that people are rooting for in chocolate? Its versatility, perhaps. You see, any delectable treat can be made out of chocolate and it’s bound to end up lip-smacking good, namely cakes, ice cream, cookies, and drinks, among so many other mouth-watering sweets. It can be soft, hard, white, dark, a filling, topping, or flow out of a fountain, name it!

Or maybe, it’s the feel-good reaction we get from chocolate. Some previous studies have found out that chocolate stimulates a part of the brain which has an influence on the mood. Thus, it gives out a rather comforting feeling after consumption, a feeling which is, by some means, addicting.

It can also be the pure novelty of chocolate that makes it such a pleasure. Chocolate has long been known as a powerful gift for quite a while now and it has always been used to show affection. For centuries now, chocolate has been famous as a gift in the European royalty. No arguments about why many are lured in by such treat. Suffice it to say, chocolate is the perfect gift for any age, gender, or occasion.

Chocolate is everywhere yet it still feels extremely out of the ordinary. It draws out different pleasurable emotions. The experience you get from its elegance, richness, and variety makes it all the more enticing.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 14, 2014 at 9:02 am

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Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookie Lollipops

Lollipops are one of the best sweet treats, well loved by adults and children alike across the globe. They come in an array of colors and flavors, usually fruit flavors, but chocolate-flavored ones are also very famous.

Ir’s no secret that many of us swear by Oreo. So roll them into one and you get a perfect confection!

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 6, 2014 at 8:50 am

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Chocolate And Kissing

Passionate kisses always give a different level of excitement to the body, but so does eating chocolate. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that the feeling of having chocolate melt in your mouth is even better than those long intimate kisses.

In a recent experiment conducted, young lovers who were all in their 20s had their hearts and brain monitored. Then they had dark chocolates melt on their tongue without chewing, and kissed their partners the way they normally would.

The outcome was quite intriguing and surprising according to the researcher. They were aware of the fact that chocolate is a stimulant because of the stimulating substances it contains, but what they didn’t expect was the length of duration of the effects it had on the mind.

The researchers also compared the resting heart rates of the participants with their heart rates when they had the chocolate and kissing tests. Turns out, even the most intimate and passionate kiss didn’t compare to the buzz that chocolate can give. At the point where chocolate was melting on the tongue, the entire regions of the brain were stimulated more intensely and the effects lasted even longer than what they got from kissing. The chocolate chunks also supposedly made the heart rate go higher.

And even though women are known to have more liking towards chocolate and also more romantic in nature, both sexes yielded the same results. The chocolate was able to provide a long-lasting body and brain buzz which lasted four times as long as kissing.

Like I said, chocolate contains several highly-stimulating substances that give a natural buzz, such as theobromine, caffeine, and phenylethylamine which is elicited when we are in love.

The said experiment used a 60% cocoa dark chocolate. A spokeswoman for the chocolate makers said: “You’d think people would be shy about kissing in a laboratory, but that wasn’t the case at all. We’re not talking about a quick peck here.”

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Posted by Nikita Gould - May 5, 2014 at 8:00 am

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