Any suggestions for a good variety? I usually use Ghirardelli (either
unsweetened cocoa or the hot cocoa mix) with a 50-50 combination of
water and milk. Right now, I'm out and it's time to buy more.

I'm in the NY Metro area, if that matters for availability.

On a related note, this summer I drove cross-country, and by
happenstance, pulled into a rest stop along 80/90. I came across a stand
for the "South Bend Chocolate Company" and tried a hot chocolate.

It was *very* good; more akin to a hot, melted milk chocolate bar than
hot cocoa (too rich for regular consumption, I'm afraid). Anyone
familiar with this?

--
to respond (OT only), change "spamless.invalid" to "optonline.net"

<http://www.thecoffeefaq.com/>

My mother used to make an excellent hot chocolate by stirring Droste cocoa
into sweetened, condensed milk, then adding boiling water and stirring
again. The proportions are up to you. IIRC, she used about a tablespoon of
condensed milk and a teaspoon of cocoa per teacup. (Not mug.)
"Scott" > wrote in message
...
> Any suggestions for a good variety? I usually use Ghirardelli (either
> unsweetened cocoa or the hot cocoa mix) with a 50-50 combination of
> water and milk. Right now, I'm out and it's time to buy more.
>
> I'm in the NY Metro area, if that matters for availability.
>
> On a related note, this summer I drove cross-country, and by
> happenstance, pulled into a rest stop along 80/90. I came across a stand
> for the "South Bend Chocolate Company" and tried a hot chocolate.
>
> It was *very* good; more akin to a hot, melted milk chocolate bar than
> hot cocoa (too rich for regular consumption, I'm afraid). Anyone
> familiar with this?
>
> --
> to respond (OT only), change "spamless.invalid" to "optonline.net"
>
> <http://www.thecoffeefaq.com/>

at Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:12:58 GMT in <heimdall-94B4AE.13125817012005
@individual.net>, lid (Scott) wrote :

>Any suggestions for a good variety? I usually use Ghirardelli (either
>unsweetened cocoa or the hot cocoa mix) with a 50-50 combination of
>water and milk. Right now, I'm out and it's time to buy more.

The Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa is pretty good. Michel Cluizel's cocoa is
fantastic, but expensive and only available in bulk.

One major distinction is between Dutch cocoa and Natural-process. Dutch
cocoa usually looks more purplish and will produce a darker, almost black,
paste when mixed with a little milk. Its flavour is a bit milder, with a
distinct metallic twang, and it mixes more readily with milk. Natural-
process is more of a ruddy colour, has a more powerful, but sharper
flavour, and is notoriously fussy about mixing into milk. Both Ghirardelli
and Cluizel are natural-process. Droste is the standard for Dutch-process,
and Valrhona is also Dutch-process.

There's also a distinction between high-fat and low-fat cocoa, with high-
fat containing about 24% fat, low-fat a bit below 10%. You can usually
determine what type you're getting by reading the nutrition facts label.
Ghirardelli, Cluizel, Valrhona, and Droste are all high-fat. IMHO, low-fat
cocoa tends to taste like dust, but there is a *slight* improvement on
mixing with milk.

Personally, I use all whole milk, no water. My proportions are pretty
strong: generally 4 tbsp cocoa per finished cup (i.e. you add such milk as
is necessary to end up with a total of 1 cup of cocoa). I use 1 tbsp sugar
per cup. You're probably familiar with the method: make a paste with a
little cold milk and the cocoa, then pour the rest of the hot milk on
slowly, stirring continuously. Add sugar once everything's mixed well.

You can also make hot chocolate with chocolate instead of cocoa, by grating
the chocolate finely and pouring hot milk or half-and-half over it. This is
somewhat trickier, but amazingly rich. A low-fat chocolate works best.
Ghirardelli Double Chocolate chocolate chips are good for this purpose.
Also El Rey Gran Saman.

In fact, you can go all the way and make hot chocolate by literally melting
chocolate, either dark or milk. In this case, it's inappropriate to use a
mug - instead, an espresso demitasse is a useful size.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

at Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:12:58 GMT in <heimdall-94B4AE.13125817012005
@individual.net>, lid (Scott) wrote :

>Any suggestions for a good variety? I usually use Ghirardelli (either
>unsweetened cocoa or the hot cocoa mix) with a 50-50 combination of
>water and milk. Right now, I'm out and it's time to buy more.

The Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa is pretty good. Michel Cluizel's cocoa is
fantastic, but expensive and only available in bulk.

One major distinction is between Dutch cocoa and Natural-process. Dutch
cocoa usually looks more purplish and will produce a darker, almost black,
paste when mixed with a little milk. Its flavour is a bit milder, with a
distinct metallic twang, and it mixes more readily with milk. Natural-
process is more of a ruddy colour, has a more powerful, but sharper
flavour, and is notoriously fussy about mixing into milk. Both Ghirardelli
and Cluizel are natural-process. Droste is the standard for Dutch-process,
and Valrhona is also Dutch-process.

There's also a distinction between high-fat and low-fat cocoa, with high-
fat containing about 24% fat, low-fat a bit below 10%. You can usually
determine what type you're getting by reading the nutrition facts label.
Ghirardelli, Cluizel, Valrhona, and Droste are all high-fat. IMHO, low-fat
cocoa tends to taste like dust, but there is a *slight* improvement on
mixing with milk.

Personally, I use all whole milk, no water. My proportions are pretty
strong: generally 4 tbsp cocoa per finished cup (i.e. you add such milk as
is necessary to end up with a total of 1 cup of cocoa). I use 1 tbsp sugar
per cup. You're probably familiar with the method: make a paste with a
little cold milk and the cocoa, then pour the rest of the hot milk on
slowly, stirring continuously. Add sugar once everything's mixed well.

You can also make hot chocolate with chocolate instead of cocoa, by grating
the chocolate finely and pouring hot milk or half-and-half over it. This is
somewhat trickier, but amazingly rich. A low-fat chocolate works best.
Ghirardelli Double Chocolate chocolate chips are good for this purpose.
Also El Rey Gran Saman.

In fact, you can go all the way and make hot chocolate by literally melting
chocolate, either dark or milk. In this case, it's inappropriate to use a
mug - instead, an espresso demitasse is a useful size.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

Does anyone ever try grinding chocolate nibs and brewing them in a
coffee maker? Then adding sugar and milk (or making this in conjuncton
with coffee for a choco-coffee blend)?

Alex Rast wrote:

>at Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:12:58 GMT in <heimdall-94B4AE.13125817012005
>, lid (Scott) wrote :
>
>
>
>>Any suggestions for a good variety? I usually use Ghirardelli (either
>>unsweetened cocoa or the hot cocoa mix) with a 50-50 combination of
>>water and milk. Right now, I'm out and it's time to buy more.
>>
>>
>
>The Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa is pretty good. Michel Cluizel's cocoa is
>fantastic, but expensive and only available in bulk.
>
>One major distinction is between Dutch cocoa and Natural-process. Dutch
>cocoa usually looks more purplish and will produce a darker, almost black,
>paste when mixed with a little milk. Its flavour is a bit milder, with a
>distinct metallic twang, and it mixes more readily with milk. Natural-
>process is more of a ruddy colour, has a more powerful, but sharper
>flavour, and is notoriously fussy about mixing into milk. Both Ghirardelli
>and Cluizel are natural-process. Droste is the standard for Dutch-process,
>and Valrhona is also Dutch-process.
>
>There's also a distinction between high-fat and low-fat cocoa, with high-
>fat containing about 24% fat, low-fat a bit below 10%. You can usually
>determine what type you're getting by reading the nutrition facts label.
>Ghirardelli, Cluizel, Valrhona, and Droste are all high-fat. IMHO, low-fat
>cocoa tends to taste like dust, but there is a *slight* improvement on
>mixing with milk.
>
>Personally, I use all whole milk, no water. My proportions are pretty
>strong: generally 4 tbsp cocoa per finished cup (i.e. you add such milk as
>is necessary to end up with a total of 1 cup of cocoa). I use 1 tbsp sugar
>per cup. You're probably familiar with the method: make a paste with a
>little cold milk and the cocoa, then pour the rest of the hot milk on
>slowly, stirring continuously. Add sugar once everything's mixed well.
>
>You can also make hot chocolate with chocolate instead of cocoa, by grating
>the chocolate finely and pouring hot milk or half-and-half over it. This is
>somewhat trickier, but amazingly rich. A low-fat chocolate works best.
>Ghirardelli Double Chocolate chocolate chips are good for this purpose.
>Also El Rey Gran Saman.
>
>In fact, you can go all the way and make hot chocolate by literally melting
>chocolate, either dark or milk. In this case, it's inappropriate to use a
>mug - instead, an espresso demitasse is a useful size.
>

at Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:07:54 GMT in
>, (Stuart S.
Berr) wrote :

>Does anyone ever try grinding chocolate nibs and brewing them in a
>coffee maker? Then adding sugar and milk (or making this in conjuncton
>with coffee for a choco-coffee blend)?

There are several problems with this.

First, if you grind cocoa beans in a coffee grinder, it will oil up the
grinder fairly badly because of all the cocoa butter. A cocoa bean is,
essentially, a nut, and putting nuts in coffee grinders leads to technical
difficulties. You need to have a grinder dedicated to chocolate.

Second, again, with that high fat content, chocolate is hydrophobic (repels
water). This is why mixing liquid milk with chocolate proved so difficult
for early chocolate experimenters, before they discovered that powdered
milk was much better for making chocolate bars. It's also one of the
reasons why adding water to melted chocolate is a big mistake. What this
means for "brewing" is that, unless you were to grind very fine, the
chocolate just sort of sits there and does little.

But grinding finely brings up its own issues. That starts to liquefy the
chocolate, and then you've got something close to coarse chocolate liquor -
a good drink in its own right but not necessarily what you'd want for
brewing. However, you can stir hot milk into it and this is very good.

An espresso machine could potentially extract flavour, but at the cost of
probable damage to the machine (or at least requiring major cleaning). Not
something I'd be willing to risk.

You can steep ground cocoa beans, a bit like tea, and this produces better
results because hot water will eventually soften the ground beans.

If you place ground cocoa beans in a hot slurry made with something
starchy, the starch draws out the fat and then the flavour gets better
extraction. However, most starches tend to dull the flavour of chocolate.
But it does make for another good, extremely satisfying, drink.

In general, however, using hot water with chocolate yields something that's
really pretty watery, overall. It doesn't have the kind of richness you
might hope for.

>
>>
>>...In fact, you can go all the way and make hot chocolate by literally
>>melting chocolate, either dark or milk. In this case, it's
>>inappropriate to use a mug - instead, an espresso demitasse is a useful
>>size.
>>
--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

I remember a hot chocolate drink served someplace in Spain---very thick,
almost like pudding, and taken with some kind of sweet bread for
breakfast. I don't remember the name: is there a recipe or method?

Hi Patrick,

You're remembering Chocolate a la Taza (Chocolate in the cup) which is hot
chocolate thickened with corn (or rice) flour. Here's a site with a recipe
for both the "drink" (some folks think it's too think to be a drink) and the
doughnut sticks (churros) that are traditionally dipped into the mixture.

http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m0129TH04.htm

pete

"Patrick Porter" > wrote in message
...
>I remember a hot chocolate drink served someplace in Spain---very thick,
> almost like pudding, and taken with some kind of sweet bread for
> breakfast. I don't remember the name: is there a recipe or method?
>