Artisan Brownies

When Heather visited a few weeks ago, we made a pound of cocoa liqueur from some Barinas cocoa beans that I had roasted up a couple of days earlier. As I did not have my CrankandStein mill yet, we just ran the whole cocoa bean through the Champion, letting it separate the husk. The resulting cocoa liqueur I poured into 1" x 1" ice cube trays. This gave me 16 very convenient cubes of "baker's chocolate". That is all cocoa liqueur really is. So, for those of you not ready to jump into full Artisan Chocolate, might I suggest just making up your own varietal baker's chocolate and using it where ever you would use that stale bitter stuff from the store. I and my daughter did just that last night for a nice batch of brownies. She even tasted the mix before the sugar was added. I warned her it was not sweet yet. (Remember how bad it was when you did that as a kid :-(  It was fine. She said "It's ok papa (patting my arm), it's good". There you have it, from the mouth of babes. Give it a try.

Artisan Brownies

3 oz Cocoa liqueur 1/2 c butter 1 c sugar 3 eggs 1/2 t vanilla 3/4 c flour 1/4 t salt 1/2 c walnuts

Melt the cocoa and butter in a saucepan. Mix in all the other ingredients.

Pour into a buttered 8" square pan. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. Enjoy.

Chocolate Syrup

I have just verified that it is a breeze to make chocolate syrup for use in whatever you might use chocolate syrup for. Personally I am stirring a spoonful into my morning coffee for an instant REAL mocha. Just take the cocoa beans through the process of getting to cocoa liqueur (roast, crack and winnow (optional), and grind in the Champion). I pour this up into ice cube trays for convenient 1 oz portions.

Chocolate Syrup

4 oz Home made cocoa liqueur from fresh cocoa beans 1 cup sugar 2 cups water dash of vanilla extract if you wish

Bring the water and sugar to a boil to make a sugar syrup. Turn off the heat, add your cocoa liqueur (4 cubes) and let it melt. Whisk it all smooth once it is melted and refrigerate.

Like many fresh products, this is not going to be just like Hershey (gods, I hope not :-). It may separate a little (a little lecithin in the cocoa may help this, more testing later) from day to day and is definitely going to taste stronger. Just give it a quick stir before using.

Finally, please experiment with the proportions. One person has reported using no sugar at all for a great unsweetened chocolate milk. I think the next batch I make I will double the cocoa.

Happy Valentine's Day - Chocolate Cherry Dessert

In honor of Valentine's Day, I was requested to make a chocolate dessert. Having just roasted up four pounds of beans the night before (starting work on a husk vs no husk experiment), I decided to pull out my Champion Juicer and make a quick chocolate sauce for some cherries we picked and preserved this year.

I measured out a small amount of roasted beans, about 10 oz. I sent them through the Juicer, collecting what flowed through the lower juice screen, and returning the husk and other cocoa from the spout back to be ground again. After two more quick passes, I had about ½ cup of cocoa liqueur, and a tablespoon or so of husk that I threw away.

I added an equal portion of "raw" sugar to the cocoa, mixed well and sent it through the Juicer. First lesson. Use powdered sugar, or pre powder it in a blender before you use it to make chocolate. It just did not work well. The particles stayed to large. For tonight it worked out just fine as I was already planning to add a liquid (milk of some type) so I knew this would dissolve the sugar. Indeed it did. After collecting the sweetened cocoa, I mixed this with about an equal portion of milk. Now, remember, I was making a dessert, not eating chocolate. Anyway, as I fully expected, the addition of a liquid to the warm chocolate made it want to seize up. I passed this through the Juicer, and wow, I almost stalled it. I took it very slow and added a little more liquid and passed it through one more time. This time, with the liquid out massing the chocolate, a smooth rich milk chocolate sauce poured forth.

I heated this gently on the stove top, and then poured it over the warmed spiced cherries. Even though the cocoa only made up 20% or so of the mixture, it was a strong deep, smooth chocolate flavor.

So those of you not quite ready for chocolate making, might I suggest just making your own baking and cooking chocolate. The whole endeavor took maybe 20 minutes and I could see it taking even less the next time. If you are one to cook from scratch, as I am, this extra step of grinding the cocoa you need on the spot is not difficult at all and well worth the effort.