The Love Of Milk Chocolate
It’s a common knowledge that some of the most loved chocolate treats are made by the Swiss. Around 1876, a candy maker named Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, was the one who “invented” milk chocolate. He had a hard time removing the water from the milk at first, since it always caused mildewing.
Thereafter, he thought of collaborating with Henry Nestle, a maker of condensed milk. They then came up with the idea of putting in condensed milk to chocolate liquor which is a nonalcoholic smooth, thick, and liquid form of chocolate. It is the ground or melted form of the cocoa nib which the purest state of chocolate. Milk chocolate became popular and a darling to many by the 1900’s, and it never ceased.
There are several forms of milk chocolate, hot cocoa can be one, and boy is it almost every chocoholic’s favorite drink! It is a cocoa powder mixed with milk and sugar and heated until hot and smooth. This popular beverage just gives you the warmth and comfort that you are rooting for. Also included in the list are liquid milk products, powdered milk products, granule and of course, chocolate bars. One can enjoy them hot or cold, hard or soft, pretty much any way you wish.
Chocolate has everyone enticed and allured for different reasons and it’s not gonna die down, at least not anytime soon. It is so special to consumers that it has become 2011’s number 1 specialty food, so to speak. And milk chocolate is the darling of the crowd when it comes to chocolate preferences as it is preferred by approximately 80% of the consumers.
If you’re creating a chocolate basket as a gift without knowing the personal preferences of the one you’re planning on giving it to, you can never go wrong if it is filled with milk chocolate treats!
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Categories: chocolate articles Tags: cocoa, milk chocolate, popular, powdered
Chocolate and Chemistry
Chocolate is out-and-out delectable and nearly every one of us aren’t precisely aware of the cause why we just can’t defy its appeal. But not the ones who create them, they practically are acquainted with why we find chocolate tempting and it all boils down to chemistry.
Chocolate may be sweet and all that but the main reason behind its unexplainable allure is the fat, according to Professor Dolores O’Riordan of University College Dublin who is based in the Institute of Food and Health. In a speech during the Science week named Smart Chemistry – Tasty Food!, she said “The melting of the fat is very important,”
According to Professor O’Riordan, cocoa butter is the most important fat in chocolate, something the chocolatier has to do some chemistry on. In the said presentation, the audience was comprised of students. Much to their delight, they were given some samples of chocolate and chanced upon some taste test
The size of “fat crystal” shaped during construction was of the essence. Every chocolate has diverse melting points, but what these chocolate makers are usually looking for is one that melts in the mouth. A large fat crystal which melts in the mouth at 33.8 degrees is the best bet.
“Essentially the food we eat is made of chemicals. We process the chemicals within the food to make them safe, to give them texture, to make them look and taste nice,” Prof O’Riordan told her audience.
Chemistry is useful in changing the aroma, color, texture, “and that all affects the food choices we make”, she added. And according to her, contrary to popular belief, additives, preservatives and artificial colors aren’t so bad. She claims that they were basically safe. Interesting enough, the love of chocolate can be passed down to your offspring as Prof O’Riordan said “Genes can also influence our preferences for food,”
There certainly is a selection of food that people are adoring, and chocolate is almost always in our list. Blame it on Chemistry.
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: behind, CHEMISTRY, chocolate facts, chocolate science, down, every, safe
Chocolate Covered Pretzels Making
The best kind of pretzel is the rod type, since it can have its original taste, while still able to blend nicely with chocolate. This treat is so easy to prepare in your kitchen. Every family member will surely love it.
The process of making them is really simple and this crispy delicacy is so easy to whip up! The ingredients involved include pretzel sticks, semisweet dark chocolate, cookie sheet, wax paper and you can even use desiccated coconut. Just have your favorite pretzel ready and melt your favorite chocolate. Take them one at a time and dip them in chocolate half way as you place them on a waxed paper. Dip it ¾ length in the molten chocolate.
Let the pretzels cool down and wait till they harden. Place the wax paper over a cookie sheet. Put the snacks in the oven while still on the paper and let them remain until the coconut browns. Then you have a perfect treat for dessert! You can store them, too. Just make sure you use tightly closed containers.
The results will be good regardless of the type of pretzel you use. You can also opt for different varieties, this is not the limitation. You can even use peanut butter on them.
All it needs is a little creativity. Squeeze out your creative juices. Get them flowing. And you will have an awesome recipe. You can use a lot of different toppings. These may include peppermint candies, crushed nuts and other crushed chocolate candies.
Chocolate As Comfort Food
We all go through tough times, we get sick, we get sad and all that. And usually, at those moments in our lives, we tend to look for comfort. Comfort food always comes in handy. They just magically make us feel all the better. What is it with these foods, really? Why do they bring such magic?
Chocolates are known to be the universal comfort food. And chocolate’s reputation as a mood-lifter makes it a frequent and cherished gift, especially to people who are particularly rolling with the punches. It gives a lift to their spirits that most of us can relate to.
The term “comfort food”, which was added to the Webster’s Dictionary in 1972, is defined as “food that gives a sense of emotional well-being,” or “any food or drink that one turns to for temporary relief, security or reward.”
Research shows that when we eat chocolate, the brain elicits feel-good hormones into the body to make up for the bad vibes that overwhelm us in our everyday life like stress and fatigue. These particular hormones are also released when we feel happy such as when we hug someone. Interesting, I know.
One’s comfort food is another’s dieting archenemy. We all know how figure-conscious people muster everything they can just to avoid a bar of chocolate. Just so you know, completely depriving yourself of the things you love will just cause you to yearn for them even more intensely. The trick to this is to not totally rid yourself of them, but just have them in moderation.
People who are very uptight with what they eat often crumble down when they just can’t take it anymore, and the result? They go overboard with eating what they have been craving. So not ideal. So yes, it still boils down to having the things you want in moderation.
These comfort foods don’t essentially have reasons why they give us comfort and boost our moods, but they do make our lives a little better and get us back to our sense of self.
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Categories: chocolate articles Tags: chocolate comfort, comfort food, gives, people, sense
How To Make Homemade Chocolate Syrup
Among the basic ingredients involved in making chocolate syrups include unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, and water. Other ingredients are corn syrup and malt. Flavorings such as vanilla extract could be used, too.
In black-and-white movies of the past, chocolate syrup was usually used to simulate blood. The reason for this is because it was safe to swallow, and it’s easy to get rid of when it gets to the clothing and also very affordable. Besides The Wasp Woman and Psycho, this chocolate syrup was used in many movies.
I can help you make chocolate syrup you can use over ice cream or use in baking chocolate syrup brownies. Very easy and you need not drain your pocket! You can even use Splenda in replacement of sugar to lessen the caloric content. If you use Splenda, you can use it as a drink mix or topping and do not bake with it. Additionally, considering it does not store very well when made with Splenda, make sure to consume within a couple days of making.
Ingredients required are 1 cup unsweetened cocoa, 2 cups sugar, or Splenda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 cups cold water, 1 tablespoon vanilla that will give a perfect chocolate syrup.
To make lindt-ish chocolate at home, you can do the following:
• Whisk together cocoa, sugar and salt.
• Whisk in cold water.
• Cook over medium-low heat, whisking to combine, until thickened.
• Let cool.
• Add vanilla.
• Store in the refrigerator
You can now make the perfect chocolate syrup and make use of it in of dishes to make them even more interesting.
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: chocolate syrup, Chocolate Syrup Recipe, cocoa, homemmade chocolate syrup, unsweetened, used
Chocolate Tree
Assumingly, you know that chocolate comes from the cacao. Here are some interesting infos about the “tree of life” of all the chocophiles out there.
Cacao trees are small evergreen trees measuring around 6 meters tall. Such trees are producing fruit and flowers all throughout the year and are farmed in countries within 10 degrees North and 10 degrees South of the Equator in which the climate is best for the growth of these cacao trees given that they need a warm and humid environment. More to these, cacao trees require soil that is fertile and well-irrigated, plus regular rainfall, for their optimum growth.
Cacao trees normally grow in rainforests. Shades of heavy canopy fall on them and they use it to their benefit since they grow best when covered with some sort of shade.
In the wild, these trees grow underneath the larger evergreen trees and are often seed along rivers.
Just so you know, cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia now in Mexico, Central America and South America. The leading suppliers of cacao are Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Indonesia.
It takes around five years for a cacao tree to yield its first crop. It becomes an adult plant come year ten. It yields between 300 and 1000 pounds of cocoa per acre for approximately 50 years.
The seed pods grow directly off the trunk of the tree, instead of the ends of the branches. Every pod is the size of a pineapple measuring between 5 and 12 inches long and between 3 and 5 inches wide. It usually has about thirty to fifty seeds inside. It takes around 400 to 500 seeds to come up with a pound of chocolate. Cocoa beans, which are used in making chocolate, are the dried and fully fermented fatty seeds of the cacao tree.
Actually, cacao flowers are not pollinated by bees or butterflies like most flowers, but by forcipomyia midges which are like tiny flies. And just a fun fact, these midges have the fastest wing-beats of any creature on earth, about 1000 times per second!
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Categories: chocolate articles Tags: best, Cacao Tree, chocolate tree, cocoa, flowers, takes, Theobroma Cacao
Dark Chocolate Proven To Enhance Mood
A recent study done in Australia shows that dark chocolate can boost one’s mood via giving calmness and a sense of contentment. How is that even possible? It all lies in the polyphenols that cocoa is packed with.
Naturally, polyphenols are abundant in plants and almost always included in the human diet. These compounds are known to decrease oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is linked to a lot of diseases. More to these, polyphenols allegedky have outstanding psychological effects.
“Anecdotally, chocolate is often linked to mood enhancement,” Matthew Pase, a PhD candidate at the University of Swineburne in Melbourne and lead author of the study, claims. “This clinical trial is perhaps the first to scientifically demonstrate the positive effects of cocoa polyphenols on mood.”
This study was based on a randomized study which involved 72 healthy men and women aged 40-65 years. Each participant was given a dark chocolate drink mix standardized to have either 500mg of cocoa polyphenols, 250mg of cocoa polyphenols or none.
These people were then given the drink mixes in the same packaging for the investigators and participants to be unaware of which treatment they were being provided with. They drank their assigned drink once a day for 30 consecutive days.
30 days following this, those who got the high dose concentration of cocoa polyphenols said they had much more calmness and contentedness than the one who got either of the other drink mixes.
The researchers didn’t come up with any evidence that cocoa polyphenols hugely enhanced cognitive performance, though. Only participants who ingested the highest amount of polyphenols reported any remarkable or drastic positive effects. Those who were given a moderate amount (250 mg a day) claimed to have no dramatic effects.
Everybody gets stressed out at one point or another. It’s typical because of our job, but it could be for other personal reasons, too. Chocolate never fails to help some people. How about you? How do you take all the stress away?
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: cocoa, dark chocolate, either, mood enhancer, people
