Chocolate Chocolate, Oh Heavens!!! Chocolate

You may ask where will this Chocolate take me today? Great Chocolate like a good guitar rift grabs hold of your emotions transporting you to the other side.

Dancing on a moonbeam straight out into the Milkyway that is where Chocolate will take you take you today.

Chocolate's flavors and textures adapt to any mood or setting your in. Dancing on top of the world celebrating success or love is colored with grandeur when Chocolate is added to the picture.

Maybe your are in an introspective mood partaking deeply of feelings and thoughts, Chocolate will guide you deeper into the rich tapestry of those feelings of those thoughts.

Experience all that life has to offer and don't forget to bring the Chocolate.

I walked toward the Brooklyn Bridge Bakery, I walked toward chocolate cake.

On the door a sign said closed for holiday, impatiently jiggling the handle I pressed my nose against the window in hope of being noticed, in hope of being noticed so an exception to the rule would be made.

For God's sake it was my birthday, every year I'd drive into the city to get my chocolate cake and make no mistake, it was my cake. A 12 layer chocolate confection, filled inside with liquid ooze so decadent, so luxurious it mashed your taste buds into submission and usually rendered you speechless.

I walked toward the bridge wondering if I might fling myself into the river. I wasn't depressed but I needed that cake, I needed to taste, to experience the overpowering delight in each bite and then fall into the arms of the Goddess that flows into your soul in subtle waves of ecstasy.

I needed to be part of something beyond my pitiful existence. I craved visiting feelings you could only find in a shangri-la of dark gooey sticky slippery velvety chocolate. I turned on my heels and headed back to the store, at least for today the demon inside would not coax me to the rivers edge.

Back at the Bakery I kicked the door muttering something about seeing them in hell and walked back to my car where I typed Ben & Jerry's, Waterbury Vt into the GPS. The factory tour would have to do for this year.

Chocolate is an extremely popular ingredient, and is available in many types. Different forms and flavors of chocolate are produced by varying the amount of the ingredients.

* Unsweetened chocolate: is pure chocolate liquor, also known as bitter or baking chocolate. It's unadulterated chocolate: ground roasted chocolate beans with no other added ingredients imparts a strong, deep chocolate flavor in all the sweets you add it to. However, with the addition of sugar, it's used as the base for American style layer cakes, brownies, confections, and cookies.

* Dark chocolate: chocolate without milk as an additive, sometimes called plain chocolate. The US Government calls this Sweet Chocolate, and requires a 15% concentration of chocolate liquor. European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids.

* Couverture or coating chocolate: is a term used for cocoa butter rich chocolates of the highest quality. Popular brands of couverture used by professional pastry chefs and often sold in gourmet and specialty food stores include: Valrhona, Lindt, Coco Barry and Esprit des Alpes. These chocolates contain a high percentage of chocolate liquor (sometimes more than 70 percent) as well as cocoa butter, at least 32-39%, are very fluid when melted and have an excellent flavor. In fact, chocolate of this quality is often compared to tasting fine wine because subtleties in taste are often apparent, especially when you taste a variety of semisweet and bittersweet couvertures with different percentages of sugar and chocolate liquor.

* Milk chocolate: chocolate with milk powder or condensed milk added. The US Government requires a 10% concentration of chocolate liquor. European rules specify a minimum of 25% cocoa solids.

* Semi-sweet chocolate: used for cooking purposes; a dark chocolate with lower sugar content.

* Bittersweet chocolate: is chocolate liquor (or unsweetened chocolate) to which sugar, more cocoa butter, lecithin, and vanilla has been added. It has less sugar and more liquor than semisweet chocolate but the two are interchangeable in baking. The best quality bittersweet and semisweet chocolate is produced as couverture and many brands now print the percentage of chocolate liquor it contains on the package. The rule is the higher the percentage of liquor the more bittersweet the chocolate will be. Generally Europeans favor bittersweet chocolate and Americans opt for semisweet chocolate which has more sugar than bittersweet chocolate.

* White chocolate: a confection based on cocoa butter without the cocoa solids.

* Cocoa powder: there are two types of unsweetened baking cocoa available: natural cocoa (like the sort produced by Hershey's and Nestle) and Dutch-process cocoa (such as the Hershey's European Style Cocoa and the Droste brand). Both are made by pulverizing, partially defatted chocolate liquor (unsweetened chocolate) removing nearly all their cocoa butter. Natural cocoa is light in color and somewhat acidic with a strong chocolate flavor. In baking use natural cocoa in recipes which call for baking soda (because it's an alkali). Combining the two creates a leavening action that allows the batter to rise during baking. Dutch-process cocoa has been processed with alkali to neutralize its natural acidity so it's darker often with a reddish cast. Dutch cocoa is slightly milder in taste and deeper in color than natural cocoa. Use Dutch cocoa in recipes that call for baking powder as its leavener (raising agent).

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