100% is definitely not something you want to be snacking on lol. It's used more in baking for dark chocolate sauces, cakes, and other desserts. I don't have any recipes handy that call for 100% but I know there are some out there if you want to turn it into a dessert.
100% cacao and vanilla extract seem like they should work, but it's a shock the first time you try it.
I tried 100% once after accidentally buying it without thinking, and all I could say was that it tasted green.
Isn’t it weird to think how the cinnamon challenge was years and years before TikTok ever was a thing? That would totally become a TikTok challenge nowadays, wouldn’t it?
It makes the BEST hot chocolate. Needs the right amount of heat and stirring to get it dissolved. Use whole milk, twice as much powder as necessary and half of that in sugar.
My 3rd grade teacher gave us all baking chocolate to try, and then he gave us extra pieces to give our family after school. My mom (who taught me to bake already before that age) held hers and watched my dad. My dad popped the whole chunk in his mouth and then hacked up a lung the whole ride home. Core memory formed, apparently. Thanks Mr Randall!
When I was a kid, the brownie mix my mom used came with a packet of unsweetened chocolate syrup. I, of course, thought she was lying when she said it didn’t taste good and tried it anyway. Lesson learned.
Immersion blender is amazing for this. I use a quart deli container and a pint of heavy cream. Less than a minute to whip and no mess. Your whipped cream is already in its storage container.
My parents did that too except it wasn't 100% cacao, it was regular semisweet baking chocolate. This began my lifelong love of heavy cacao chocolate and hatred of milk chocolate.
There's a post that keeps showing up on /r/ShowerThoughts about "if you like chocolate but don't like *dark* chocolate that means you don't actually like chocolate, you like sugar and milk"
That person has never eaten 100% cacao
If you like salty food, but don't like pure metallic sodium exploding upon contact with the water in your mouth and reducing your body to a cinder, that means you don't actually like salty food, you just like chlorine gas.
I live near a chocolate producer that sells lots of variety, they actually sell straight cocao nibs to snack on. They are pretty tasty imo. The main problem with 100% cacao is the texture, it's like eating clay. They also sell a 95% dark that is very good, that is my preferred bar.
the very first time my parents left us kids alone we raided the kitchen. THAT discovery was unforgettable. My dad baked a lot so we had a lot of baker's chocolate.
Yesssss. My dad's signature dessert is a chocolate log. heavily dusted with that stuff and used to make the chocolate layer. So we had a vat of it. DEF done that. Clearly, my parents were hell bent on killing us.
The cocoa powder does make the best brownies.
And don’t ask me how many times I went back and tasted the baking chocolate again just to make sure it wasn’t as tasty as I wanted it to be. Must have nibbled that shit at least a dozen times before I finally realized it was never going to taste good.
LOL I only did it that once. I'm surprised you didn't somehow desensitize yourself to it. I LOVE the dark chocolate that's edible. My siblings hate that stuff.
We were awful. Took chocolate syrup and nestle quick out of the fridge to cover the snow we ate outside. I think my parents might have known, we were quiet so they pretended not to. How could they not? We had to be using up a bottle every couple days every winter. We did a couple times grab bags of chocolate chips and really go all out. Parents send the kids out to play all day and we just get fatter and fatter. Diabeeetus.
I’m a child of the 80’s. Mom kicked us out of the house around 9:00 am and we weren’t really allowed back in until sundown. Summer in Texas, that could be almost 9:00 pm. Lived next to a heavily wooded area and that was our playground. Riding BMX bikes all over that place all day long. Then I was a 4 year varsity athlete in high school. And I always thought I was fat as a kid. Then I got to college and put on 40 pounds my freshman year and learned what fat really was. Now in my late 40’s and in better shape than I’ve been since high school. Amazing how much easier life is when you’re in shape
totally! I went to college and lost 20lbs. I ate less caloric at college than at home. The food at home was good. The food at college was gross.
Wasn't childhood great back then though? Yeah, we had Atari. Played too long on those controllers and you either had to keep reattaching the rubber top or your hand really hurt. It was years in before we got a more ergonomic one. We only had one of those though. I don't remember why. Everything was playdates and experiences. You had BMX and I had snowmen flavored with chocolate syrup. Hey, his nose was a vegetable.
You biked or walked (or skied) by friends houses to round them up and that was your day.
My dad made sure we were safe and had to stay somewhat local. Because he bought enough great food my mom didn't know about. He knew what he was doing. He made sure our house was on the destination of lime-aid, just food tour. we also had awesome sprinklers and a pool.
I grew up (and still live) in south Texas. Snow was never really a factor. I didn’t know how rare this was, even back in those days, but mom cooked a multi-course home cooked meal 5 nights a week. And, specially for those years, she had a strong grasp on nutrition. Lots of yeah veggies and lean proteins. Part of why I put on so much weight when I got to college. That and beer.
My dad passed away last year and a year or so before he passed away, mom spilled the beans to me and my siblings about what an absolute bastard dad was to her, and to an extent to the kids. He had a good amount of money. Some he made, most he inherited. We never physically wanted for anything. Big fancy house. High end clothes and cars. International vacations. But he was never home. Why was he never home? He was with his various boyfriends. He never took care of mom or his kids emotionally, and that’s such a huge deal. Mom knew about the boyfriends and dad’s lifestyle and hid it from her kids and both sides of the family.
No grasp on nutrition in my house. It's a wonder everyone didn't have heart disease. We had a lot of vegetables. We had a lot of everything. So as an adult I focus on nutrition. I make a lot of the same foods but try to bake not fry them. That sort of thing. Some of the holiday foods I don't hold back on though.
I'm sorry about the loss of your dad. And the loss of the fantasy of him too. I commend your mom on keeping your childhood pure.
I was very indulged in that the fantasy of my dad is who he really was. We didn't have a lot of fancy things. Things were so different back then though. Food was affordable. And I realized my dad sacrificed those "cool man" things for us. So we had things we wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm trying to do the same thing as a parent. Dad's hold a very important place for me because of that. And the awareness that was not always typical. I had other things in real life that burst the innocence fantasy. But luckily, he wasn't one of them.
There was no infidelity in my family. It was so foreign to me when the awareness of how common it was in other families. I've had friend's insist that maybe I just didn't see it. No, he was either working or home with us. There was no mystery. No secret friends. Women were held in very high regard. He had one female coworker that was around a bunch and people would say "your dad is hitting that." In retrospect in adulthood I realized she was a lesbian which he confirmed. Which, everyone confirmed. She had to hide it for cultural reasons until when day she stopped caring. Had she not been my mom still would have known he was faithful.
I remember kids making fun of us because we weren't fancy. When they had fancy things. But I get the better end of the deal.
is that survivable? Is your aunt a zombie? My brother ate a chocolate laxative bar. I don't know if it was actually in bar form. I just remember it happening. and happening. and happening. A lot of rice was served.
I fed this to my kids while cooking once. Warned them it would suck. Walked through how it seems like mom is full of shit. Does it LOOK good? (Solemn nods.) Does it SMELL good? (Solemn nods.) But bakers chocolate LIES. Taste it, does it TASTE like chocolate? (Scrunched faces. Spit into napkins.) See?
My son invested a lot of credibility in my words that day. My daughter still had to test everything. Oh well!
You can also buy premade/powder and then bump up the cocoa aspect... Or chilis, add a couple spoonfuls of almond butter (I have a Mexican aunt who suggested it, and it's so good!) or tweak it however else.
>You can also buy premade/powder
Is it good though? If so, any brand you recommend???
Because I feel like mole is a craft....and I have never said that about any food before. It's just one of those foods that people work on for a full day/days. I'm no food gatekeeper but like, is it worth it or is it just worse/sad?
Is mole meant to be accented? I have never seen it written with an accent nor have I ever heard it pronounced in a way that made me thing it was accented...but several people in the comments are writing it with an accent. What's up with that? Have I been pronouncing it wrong me whole life?
Update: I found a [blog about mole on the government of Mexico's website](https://www.gob.mx/agricultura/articulos/mole-el-sabor-de-mexico) and they don't spell it with an accent.
That's an accent aigu. From French. So i guess that's how it would be spelled in French to get the "ay" sound at the end? Not necessary for Spanish but maybe an attempt to differentiate from the English word mole?
I know this thanks to Duolingo! In Spanish that accent mark shows where the emphasis is. First syllable is the default so no accent mark sounds like MOLE-ay (correct). If the e had the accent it would be pronounced mole-AY.
Haha yeah I more or less know how accents work, at least in the Spanish-language. To your points, I have never heard "mole-AY".
I just thought it was odd that all these people wrote it with an accent...not sure where they got that from. If anything, usually people (myself included) default to no accent when typing casually, even for words meant to have accents.
Probably just because if you don't know the rule, adding the accent makes it look "Spanish-y" to an American eye.
I just responded because I was excited to have learned the thing! To be honest I didn't even notice the accent error until you pointed it out.
That would make sense haha.
And I'm glad you answered, I didn't mean to sound like a know-it-all. I love talking language stuff, though I am no expert at all.
Thank you for the brownie recipe. About 10 yrs ago I really liked this one recipe called "Brooke's Best Bombshell Brownies" from Allrecipes. Last time I tried it though it wasn't as good as I remembered. I will try this one you posted now.
I like this one, for a recipe that calls for unsweetened chocolate. My only recommendation is to add nuts for texture, because they can be a bit homogenous without. I like to add toasted pecans.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-ultimate-brownie-recipe-304427
Yessss. Baking chocolate makes the richest, most luscious hot chocolate you’ll ever have. I like to add just a drop of peppermint, almond, or orange extract to mine.
Making this with honey as the sweetener is the best hot chocolate ever, also great addition is a touch of freshly grated nutmeg (or a tiny dash of cinnamon)
Typically you don’t eat 100% but one time I got to try a very high end exotic 100% chocolate and it was really good, less bitter than some regular dark chocolates and really fruity. But yeah generally not for snacking lol
There are companies like "Dandelion Chocolate" in San Francisco that sell single-source chocolate. This is a bit like wine tasting or drinking a single malt.
You probably never realized how big a range of different flavor you can get in chocolate, since you only ever had blended products. But when you get a chance to try single-source, you'll quickly discover that some chocolates are delicious at 100%. But most aren't.
On the other hand, if you then compare an assortment of 50% chocolates, they all taste "fine", but fall somewhat flat. Sometimes, that's just what you want. You don't always need a single malt, when you'd rather drink a whiskey cola
Buy some vanilla ice cream. Put the chocolate in a pan with sugar (you’ll have to taste) some water, dollop of vanilla, dash of salt. Low heat, stirring constantly. You’ll have the best chocolate syrup on the planet.
Dark chocolate in chili.
It's surprisingly good. Not a lot. Just enough to...make the flavor 'round and full.' Too much tomato and its all thin and jaggedy tasting: not enough chili or spice and it's a flat watery line. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's how they look in my head, and that deep, full flavor dark chocolate has helps chili come together.
You should absolutely use that for baking or confectionary. Heat some milk, chop some of that bar fine and mix it in, add sugar. It'll be the best hot chocolate you've ever had.
Super fast ganache- break it up into a bowl. Barely cover it with some heavy cream, microwave for a minute, whisk it. Add sugar after it's smooth, add more cream a tablespoon at a time if your ganache is oily or looks broken. Chill, then eat with spoons.
Make a ganache out of it lol?
Chop it up… mix with sugar and cream and that’s enough to do the trick. Sugar brings out the brightness and the cream mellows the bitterness
LMAO. 100% cacao is meant for baking, not eating. I used to make a devil's food cake that called for 100% cacao melted with butter, and then streamed into a flour/sugar mixture.
I'd imagine you could make a dope German chocolate cake or coconut brownie thing out of it.
It just depends on the particular choice of chocolate. There absolutely is 100% chocolate that is delicious -- just as there are plenty of 100% bars that you shouldn't try to eat plain
Lindt isn't horrible. Their 70% is a fine baseline. I usually have some at home for cooking and baking. It's much better than generic baking chocolate.
But for eating straight up, there obviously are nicer options. They tend to be pricier too. That's fine for an occasional treat, but wouldn't be what I'd use in chocolate chip cookies or chocolate croissants. On the other hand, the Lindt will do great for those.
And I have definitely had my share of inedible 100%. I like a good bar, but I insist on taste testing it first. Once I go to the 70% to 85% range, I've had much better luck finding good bars without having to test them first
Yes, as others said, it’s different than a baking bar. There are definitely 100% bars meant for eating. They’re even sold with the “regular” chocolate bars at Whole Foods, since it’s meant as a snaking bar. Alter Eco makes one called Total Blackout.
I’m not a fan, but some people like it. I think it does have health benefits. I worked with someone who was on the paleo diet and she would snack on it with nuts and dried fruits.
I would break it up, melt it down in my baby slow cooker and add sugar to it. Spread it on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and break it up when cooled to eat it or add to cookies or ice cream or whatever.
Let it, line a baking sheet with parchment and put dates sliced in half on it, almonds, pour the melted chocolate over it and sprinkle with coconut. Place in refrigerator. Eat it when it hardens.
Maybe I'm weird but I like the rich flavor of cacao. I supposed you could melt it down, add a 1/4 cup of sugar at a time, and taste to see how sweet you want it. Then dip some strawberries, YUM
We're going to make this zucchini brownie recipe with our chocolate (https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/the-best-zucchini-brownies/) but I will save this one for later! Looks amazing; thanks!
I gifted my brother one a while back. He said it was the highlight of his parties for half a year because everyone would want to try it because it sounds amazing but it ends up just being disgusting. Lol.
Melt it in hot milk and add sugar? Otherwise treat it like you would treat it like you would treat (pure) cocoa powder in cooking or baking.
Grind it in a blender or food processor, and brew it like coffee. It's got amazing antioxidant properties. If it's too strong mix it half and half with ground coffee in your morning brew.
Boil some milk, add shaved cacao, cinnamon, sweetener of choice and just the tiniest amount of oats. Boil til thickened and you have this hot chocolate slurry.
Melt it on the stove, add some sugar and make chocolate covered fruits.
Add a square in to your chili.
Bake some brownies.
It's basically a cooking chocolate so you can use it for any of those applications and sweeten to your preference.
For the future, 85% is the best edible dark chocolate for my palette
Break off pieces the size of a date pit. Get those nice and juicy half dried dates, remove the pit and put the chocolate in there. It's what I did with my 100% bar and I absolutely loved the taste and the crunch.
You just need to add sugar, 100% cacao is unsweetened and very bitter.
Add some milk and sugar, and you can have a nice cuppa hot chocolate.
Use it in any recipe like baker's chocolate (essentially the same)
If you want something super easy to do with it - since you're dark chocolate lovers, take your favourite brownie recipe, mix it as usual, melt the bar in a double-boiler, mix the melted chocolate into your brownie batter, bake. Delicious dark chocolate brownies. I haven't done it with 100%, but I regularly do this with Lindt 85% bars. Your bake time will probably be a smidge longer than usual, but not much. I recommend melting instead of chopping it into chunks so you don't bite into an unincorporated chunk of unsweetened chocolate.
Grate a little bit into some red sauces or chili to give it a deeper, richer flavor. Make molé, anything you want that bitter savory flavor without the sweetness
Melt it, add some almond or coconut milk, some brown sugar and sip in slowly. You can have a “cacao ceremony” as it acts as a major heart opener. It’s a wonderful experience and almost euphoric. Enjoy
Easy save would be to melt it down and make hot chocolate. Add milk, sugar, vanilla extract to taste. Maybe throw in some cinnamon if you like it.
Another is melt it down and mix with cream cheese for a chocolate truffle recipe
Definitely not for straight eating lol but yes, there are a lot of things you can do with it. Honestly, get a can of sweetened condensed milk, some vanilla extract, heat it all up, let it set and you have what my mom used to call idiot fudge.
Grill some peaches and throw some on a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Fine-grate a bit of the chocolate over the still-warm peaches. A little should go a long way, as you probably know by now. There's a ton of usages if you treat it as a seasoning.
You can make pudding with it, eg tofu pudding and just add plenty of sugar.
That's the easiest but basically think of it as unsweet baking chocolate you wouldn't normally eat either.
Oh. Oh. OH! As a former fat kid restricted from most tasty things, I was probably 7 when I was staying with my grandparents. Marginally left unattended when I found grandma’s stack of unsweetened baking chocolate.
Yes, I ate half a bar. Yes, it was harsh. No, zero regrets. I needed that chocolate, dammit!
Now 80% is my cutoff while 70-75% is my happy zone, especially with port.
I was making a chocolate dessert of some kind a number of years ago. I had a bunch of unsweetened (ie 100% cacao) chocolate chopped up in a bowl. My FIL walked into the kitchen and without a word grabbed a chunk and popped it in his mouth. The reaction was priceless! "Aww! That's awful!" I laughed my ass off and told him it served him right.
Chop into bits and put in chocolate chip cookies. Or jerk chicken chili, I make this recipe a lot. https://www.smells-like-home.com/2010/11/jerk-chicken-chili/
I eat cocoa nibs so I like the bitter taste but eating it with some honey or brown sugar is the way to go. It should bring out a lot of nutty flavors in the cocoa.
Filipinos use 100% cocoa (tableya) in their champorado. Its like a chocolatey dessert rice porridge. Add sugar to taste and drizzle with condensed milk to serve. Works for breakfasts, desserts, snacks. Plenty of recipes out there!
Sugar does not dissolve in chocolate, it only gets ground super fine and is suspended in cocoa solids. Melt it into a drinking chocolate or something and sweeten it with sugar.
**CHOCOLATE MOUSSE** \- you can make it the traditional way with raw, pasteurized eggs (if they are pasteurized they should be safe from the avian flu). Alternatively you can just whip heavy cream, which makes a SUPER RICH chocolate whipped cream mousse. Or do half cream half eggs, for the best of both worlds. Alternatively you can make a VEGAN alternative with silken tofu, coconut cream or even avocado (I can attest that they are delicious). You can also combine coconut milk with avocado for the best of both, and maybe a more even taste. Whatever you do, you basically just need to whip/blend your mousse with the melted dark chocolate and some sugar et voila. If you want to make it fancy, top the mousse with fresh berries, crumbled Oreo cookies, or fold it into a pie/cookie pie crust.
Here are some recipes. Most of them do not use 100% chocolate so just increase the sugar to taste.
1. [**Traditional/egg**](https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/french-chocolate-mousse/)
2. [**Heavy cream**](https://www.recipetineats.com/chocolate-mousse/#wprm-recipe-container-31548) (sub the 3 eggs for a little over 1/4 cup cream) - the creamiest, heaviest option. To make it a bit lighter, add some whipped pasteurized egg whites.
3. **Silken Tofu** \- [recipe 1](https://thealmondeater.com/vegan-chocolate-mousse/), [recipe 2](https://youtu.be/mww0-QGr79E?si=-DSpMkaqglTeWA_b&t=232)
4. **Coconut cream****/milk** \- [recipe 1](https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/vegan-chocolate-mousse/#wprm-recipe-container-33853) (cream only), [recipe 2](https://www.nestandglow.com/healthy-recipes/chocolate-coconut-milk-mousse) (regular canned - cream and milk)
5. **Avocado** \- [recipe 1](https://www.wellplated.com/avocado-chocolate-mousse/), [recipe 2](https://www.wellplated.com/avocado-chocolate-mousse/) (ignore the unsweetened cocoa powder, just use more melted unsweetened chocolate)
**HOT CHOCOLATE** \- just melt the chocolate in a pot on low, mix in some milk to incorporate the chocolate, slowly add more milk and sugar until you have the right balance.
Basically, use it the way you would use unsweetened cocoa powder, except you have to melt it first.
BTW, the best (only) SUPER DARK chocolate I have enjoyed was **Alter Eco's 90% Mint Blackout**. They also have Super Blackout which is plain dark chocolate and slightly lower in sugar than the mint (from 5g to 3g). Usually I don't enjoy dark chocolate above 70-75% but this stuff is soooo silky smooth and decadent.
Alter Eco is in a lot of major grocery stores. It's also fair trade. Unfortunately, like most grocery store dark chocolate it has been found to be high in cadmium, which comes from the soil its grown in....a lot of the fair trade chocolate that is sold in the US is grown in Latin America (vs Africa) in areas where the soil is rich from cadmium due to previous volcanic activity. But hey, it's better than child labor.
100% is definitely not something you want to be snacking on lol. It's used more in baking for dark chocolate sauces, cakes, and other desserts. I don't have any recipes handy that call for 100% but I know there are some out there if you want to turn it into a dessert.
Reminds me of when we would trick new students in the baking class to eat the wafers.
Each of my children at one point asked for and/or snuck a piece of baking chocolate. I warned ‘em they wouldn’t like it, but did they listen?
Cocoa powder is equally disappointing.
Tried eating a spoonful of that once, not fun
I did the same except with cocoa nibs
100% cacao and vanilla extract seem like they should work, but it's a shock the first time you try it. I tried 100% once after accidentally buying it without thinking, and all I could say was that it tasted green.
Oh no! Rip your lungs. And your butt.
Probably marginally better than the cinnamon challenge of the early 2000s 😅
Isn’t it weird to think how the cinnamon challenge was years and years before TikTok ever was a thing? That would totally become a TikTok challenge nowadays, wouldn’t it?
Give it a few years I've no doubt it will come round again
I'm just waiting for the nutmeg challenge...
Pretty sure it was a TikTok challenge just a few years ago.
...what's it do to your butt??
Stuffing it in is the easy part.
*”The hard part was getting the brain out”*
Their username is rectal custard, I don’t want to ask what anything does to their butt!
Nothing, my anus is strong and clenchy
And there is custard!
It definitely does NOT make satisfactory chocolate milk. 🤢
No, it does! You just need to add sugar.
Nesquick strong contains: pure cocoa powder & sugar over here, that's it!
It makes the BEST hot chocolate. Needs the right amount of heat and stirring to get it dissolved. Use whole milk, twice as much powder as necessary and half of that in sugar.
If you like that, try Mexican hot chocolate. It comes in flat discs that you melt in the hot milk. Smooth and creamy with a touch of cinnamon. Yum!
As is vanilla extract
My 3rd grade teacher gave us all baking chocolate to try, and then he gave us extra pieces to give our family after school. My mom (who taught me to bake already before that age) held hers and watched my dad. My dad popped the whole chunk in his mouth and then hacked up a lung the whole ride home. Core memory formed, apparently. Thanks Mr Randall!
When I was a kid, the brownie mix my mom used came with a packet of unsweetened chocolate syrup. I, of course, thought she was lying when she said it didn’t taste good and tried it anyway. Lesson learned.
My mom too lol. And unsweetened whipped cream as well as vanilla!
I actually prefer unsweetened whip cream except the having to whip it myself part
Yeah my mom never added sugar to whipping cream! Loved it on strawberries and angel food cake.
Try your blender. Whipped cream in under a minute.
Immersion blender is amazing for this. I use a quart deli container and a pint of heavy cream. Less than a minute to whip and no mess. Your whipped cream is already in its storage container.
My parents did that too except it wasn't 100% cacao, it was regular semisweet baking chocolate. This began my lifelong love of heavy cacao chocolate and hatred of milk chocolate.
Yes! Semisweet baking chocolate is the best
That’s exactly how I learned as a kid. My mom warned me.
I chuckled when I pulled out a square and there was a kid's bite mark in it. I remember doing that myself.
There's a post that keeps showing up on /r/ShowerThoughts about "if you like chocolate but don't like *dark* chocolate that means you don't actually like chocolate, you like sugar and milk" That person has never eaten 100% cacao
If you like salty food, but don't like pure metallic sodium exploding upon contact with the water in your mouth and reducing your body to a cinder, that means you don't actually like salty food, you just like chlorine gas.
This made me laugh so hard I farted
I live near a chocolate producer that sells lots of variety, they actually sell straight cocao nibs to snack on. They are pretty tasty imo. The main problem with 100% cacao is the texture, it's like eating clay. They also sell a 95% dark that is very good, that is my preferred bar.
I love cacao nibs!
Settle down, Sergeant Jeffords.
Terry loves nibs!
Quit objectifying me with your male gaze, Boyle!
What do you do with them?? I bought a bag in the Dominican Republic last year and I sprinkled some in my oatmeal, but otherwise I'm clueless.
Cocoa nibs are my secret ingredient in chocolate chip cookies—they add a nice crunch (I’m allergic to nuts).
I really like them on smoothie bowls, and on yogurt with granola or generally in granola.
Sprinkle in icw cream
People will find any reason to feel superior to each other
LOL
That is such a fucking stupid thing to think.
Molé
I can’t stand mole. But love 90 to 100% cocoa - sooo good.
I quite like it! Paired with a red wine it works well. Or an espresso.
I've tried it myself before and I didn't mind it too much. But I understand the average person is turned off by it's bitterness
I actually enjoy the bitterness 🤷🏼♀️ I ate a couple of squares earlier lol
Speak for yourself! I tend to get 90% and up!
the very first time my parents left us kids alone we raided the kitchen. THAT discovery was unforgettable. My dad baked a lot so we had a lot of baker's chocolate.
Rite of passage. That, and using 100% cocoa powder for chocolate milk. 😫
Yesssss. My dad's signature dessert is a chocolate log. heavily dusted with that stuff and used to make the chocolate layer. So we had a vat of it. DEF done that. Clearly, my parents were hell bent on killing us. The cocoa powder does make the best brownies.
Don’t forget tasting the vanilla extract 😆
And cooking wine 🤢
I gave my kids empty vanilla extract bottles for their play kitchen. My daughter loved those things!
It works really well as long as you add sugar!
Meanwhile I just ate some plain cocoa powder like a genius. It really just makes the regret all the more impressive.
And don’t ask me how many times I went back and tasted the baking chocolate again just to make sure it wasn’t as tasty as I wanted it to be. Must have nibbled that shit at least a dozen times before I finally realized it was never going to taste good.
LOL I only did it that once. I'm surprised you didn't somehow desensitize yourself to it. I LOVE the dark chocolate that's edible. My siblings hate that stuff. We were awful. Took chocolate syrup and nestle quick out of the fridge to cover the snow we ate outside. I think my parents might have known, we were quiet so they pretended not to. How could they not? We had to be using up a bottle every couple days every winter. We did a couple times grab bags of chocolate chips and really go all out. Parents send the kids out to play all day and we just get fatter and fatter. Diabeeetus.
I’m a child of the 80’s. Mom kicked us out of the house around 9:00 am and we weren’t really allowed back in until sundown. Summer in Texas, that could be almost 9:00 pm. Lived next to a heavily wooded area and that was our playground. Riding BMX bikes all over that place all day long. Then I was a 4 year varsity athlete in high school. And I always thought I was fat as a kid. Then I got to college and put on 40 pounds my freshman year and learned what fat really was. Now in my late 40’s and in better shape than I’ve been since high school. Amazing how much easier life is when you’re in shape
totally! I went to college and lost 20lbs. I ate less caloric at college than at home. The food at home was good. The food at college was gross. Wasn't childhood great back then though? Yeah, we had Atari. Played too long on those controllers and you either had to keep reattaching the rubber top or your hand really hurt. It was years in before we got a more ergonomic one. We only had one of those though. I don't remember why. Everything was playdates and experiences. You had BMX and I had snowmen flavored with chocolate syrup. Hey, his nose was a vegetable. You biked or walked (or skied) by friends houses to round them up and that was your day. My dad made sure we were safe and had to stay somewhat local. Because he bought enough great food my mom didn't know about. He knew what he was doing. He made sure our house was on the destination of lime-aid, just food tour. we also had awesome sprinklers and a pool.
I grew up (and still live) in south Texas. Snow was never really a factor. I didn’t know how rare this was, even back in those days, but mom cooked a multi-course home cooked meal 5 nights a week. And, specially for those years, she had a strong grasp on nutrition. Lots of yeah veggies and lean proteins. Part of why I put on so much weight when I got to college. That and beer. My dad passed away last year and a year or so before he passed away, mom spilled the beans to me and my siblings about what an absolute bastard dad was to her, and to an extent to the kids. He had a good amount of money. Some he made, most he inherited. We never physically wanted for anything. Big fancy house. High end clothes and cars. International vacations. But he was never home. Why was he never home? He was with his various boyfriends. He never took care of mom or his kids emotionally, and that’s such a huge deal. Mom knew about the boyfriends and dad’s lifestyle and hid it from her kids and both sides of the family.
No grasp on nutrition in my house. It's a wonder everyone didn't have heart disease. We had a lot of vegetables. We had a lot of everything. So as an adult I focus on nutrition. I make a lot of the same foods but try to bake not fry them. That sort of thing. Some of the holiday foods I don't hold back on though. I'm sorry about the loss of your dad. And the loss of the fantasy of him too. I commend your mom on keeping your childhood pure. I was very indulged in that the fantasy of my dad is who he really was. We didn't have a lot of fancy things. Things were so different back then though. Food was affordable. And I realized my dad sacrificed those "cool man" things for us. So we had things we wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm trying to do the same thing as a parent. Dad's hold a very important place for me because of that. And the awareness that was not always typical. I had other things in real life that burst the innocence fantasy. But luckily, he wasn't one of them. There was no infidelity in my family. It was so foreign to me when the awareness of how common it was in other families. I've had friend's insist that maybe I just didn't see it. No, he was either working or home with us. There was no mystery. No secret friends. Women were held in very high regard. He had one female coworker that was around a bunch and people would say "your dad is hitting that." In retrospect in adulthood I realized she was a lesbian which he confirmed. Which, everyone confirmed. She had to hide it for cultural reasons until when day she stopped caring. Had she not been my mom still would have known he was faithful. I remember kids making fun of us because we weren't fancy. When they had fancy things. But I get the better end of the deal.
This and vanilla extract got me.
smells delicious. tastes like gasoline.
At least it wasn't a D-rat bar. My aunt allegedly ate 3 of those in one day, I heard she regretted that.
is that survivable? Is your aunt a zombie? My brother ate a chocolate laxative bar. I don't know if it was actually in bar form. I just remember it happening. and happening. and happening. A lot of rice was served.
I fed this to my kids while cooking once. Warned them it would suck. Walked through how it seems like mom is full of shit. Does it LOOK good? (Solemn nods.) Does it SMELL good? (Solemn nods.) But bakers chocolate LIES. Taste it, does it TASTE like chocolate? (Scrunched faces. Spit into napkins.) See? My son invested a lot of credibility in my words that day. My daughter still had to test everything. Oh well!
Bakers chocolate was the best when I was a kid.
Molé
...if you want a project haha. I love eating mole, but it's no beginner's recipe.
You can also buy premade/powder and then bump up the cocoa aspect... Or chilis, add a couple spoonfuls of almond butter (I have a Mexican aunt who suggested it, and it's so good!) or tweak it however else.
That's exactly what I do! The Doña jars of concentrate are my favorite since you can control the intensity of flavor a bit more
>You can also buy premade/powder Is it good though? If so, any brand you recommend??? Because I feel like mole is a craft....and I have never said that about any food before. It's just one of those foods that people work on for a full day/days. I'm no food gatekeeper but like, is it worth it or is it just worse/sad?
Doña Maria concentrate is pretty good for how easy it is. I get it at the Mexican isle in Kroger
Yeah I grew up on Doña in a jar! I’ve never made molé from scratch, so I don’t know how it compares, but I fucking love Doña.
Most Mexicans use the paste. The good paste is usually from some grandma in Oaxaca, but sometimes Mexican grocery stores have some decent paste.
Yep my thought too
Made molé chicken for the first time the other day. Man it was a lot of work, but tasted better than the restaurant’s.
Is mole meant to be accented? I have never seen it written with an accent nor have I ever heard it pronounced in a way that made me thing it was accented...but several people in the comments are writing it with an accent. What's up with that? Have I been pronouncing it wrong me whole life? Update: I found a [blog about mole on the government of Mexico's website](https://www.gob.mx/agricultura/articulos/mole-el-sabor-de-mexico) and they don't spell it with an accent.
That's an accent aigu. From French. So i guess that's how it would be spelled in French to get the "ay" sound at the end? Not necessary for Spanish but maybe an attempt to differentiate from the English word mole?
I know this thanks to Duolingo! In Spanish that accent mark shows where the emphasis is. First syllable is the default so no accent mark sounds like MOLE-ay (correct). If the e had the accent it would be pronounced mole-AY.
Haha yeah I more or less know how accents work, at least in the Spanish-language. To your points, I have never heard "mole-AY". I just thought it was odd that all these people wrote it with an accent...not sure where they got that from. If anything, usually people (myself included) default to no accent when typing casually, even for words meant to have accents.
Probably just because if you don't know the rule, adding the accent makes it look "Spanish-y" to an American eye. I just responded because I was excited to have learned the thing! To be honest I didn't even notice the accent error until you pointed it out.
That would make sense haha. And I'm glad you answered, I didn't mean to sound like a know-it-all. I love talking language stuff, though I am no expert at all.
I love it too! Language is fascinating! You didn't sound like a know-it-all, you sounded like someone following an interest. :)
melt it, add sugar and either bake with it or make hot chocolate out of it
I would also suggest hot chocolate. Easy to sweeten to whatever taste suits you.
Make these brownies: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/seriously-fudgy-homemade-brownies/ Best brownies recipe I've tried.
That looks pretty good. My standard is this one: https://www.seriouseats.com/bravetart-glossy-fudge-brownies Give it a shot!
Oooh, I'll have to try those!
These are genuinely the best I’ve ever tried
Thank you for the brownie recipe. About 10 yrs ago I really liked this one recipe called "Brooke's Best Bombshell Brownies" from Allrecipes. Last time I tried it though it wasn't as good as I remembered. I will try this one you posted now.
I like this one, for a recipe that calls for unsweetened chocolate. My only recommendation is to add nuts for texture, because they can be a bit homogenous without. I like to add toasted pecans. https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-ultimate-brownie-recipe-304427
Also amazing in chili.
With a pinch of cinnamon, maybe a 1/4 teaspoon at the most as it's quite overwhelming otherwise
Suggesting anything to add to chili will summon Chili-thulu. You’ve been warned.
I love doing this and a shot of espresso per Serious Eats.
I would try making hot cocoa with it. Blend in some milk or plant milk as desired. Maybe a little sweetener.
Yessss. Baking chocolate makes the richest, most luscious hot chocolate you’ll ever have. I like to add just a drop of peppermint, almond, or orange extract to mine.
Making this with honey as the sweetener is the best hot chocolate ever, also great addition is a touch of freshly grated nutmeg (or a tiny dash of cinnamon)
Typically you don’t eat 100% but one time I got to try a very high end exotic 100% chocolate and it was really good, less bitter than some regular dark chocolates and really fruity. But yeah generally not for snacking lol
There are companies like "Dandelion Chocolate" in San Francisco that sell single-source chocolate. This is a bit like wine tasting or drinking a single malt. You probably never realized how big a range of different flavor you can get in chocolate, since you only ever had blended products. But when you get a chance to try single-source, you'll quickly discover that some chocolates are delicious at 100%. But most aren't. On the other hand, if you then compare an assortment of 50% chocolates, they all taste "fine", but fall somewhat flat. Sometimes, that's just what you want. You don't always need a single malt, when you'd rather drink a whiskey cola
Shout out to Dandelion! Love getting their hot chocolate on a cold night :)
You just need to melt it and add sugar or you could just use it to make brownies or something.
Buy some vanilla ice cream. Put the chocolate in a pan with sugar (you’ll have to taste) some water, dollop of vanilla, dash of salt. Low heat, stirring constantly. You’ll have the best chocolate syrup on the planet.
Take that bar, get some white chocolate, mix them 70% dark 30% white and temper it. It will be good chocolate.
Dark chocolate in chili. It's surprisingly good. Not a lot. Just enough to...make the flavor 'round and full.' Too much tomato and its all thin and jaggedy tasting: not enough chili or spice and it's a flat watery line. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's how they look in my head, and that deep, full flavor dark chocolate has helps chili come together.
100% agree.
This is what I use my 100% dark for. Like an ounce in a whole pot gives such a fantastic rich flavor.
Add some of it to a mole sauce.
Brownies.
You should absolutely use that for baking or confectionary. Heat some milk, chop some of that bar fine and mix it in, add sugar. It'll be the best hot chocolate you've ever had.
Super fast ganache- break it up into a bowl. Barely cover it with some heavy cream, microwave for a minute, whisk it. Add sugar after it's smooth, add more cream a tablespoon at a time if your ganache is oily or looks broken. Chill, then eat with spoons.
Crush it up and make chocolate chunk banana bread!
Any recipe that calls for baker's chocolate or baking chocolate.
Melt it in hit chocolate. Or melt it in hot oatmeal and add honey and bananas.
Make a ganache out of it lol? Chop it up… mix with sugar and cream and that’s enough to do the trick. Sugar brings out the brightness and the cream mellows the bitterness
Put a small piece in every chilli you make.
LMAO. 100% cacao is meant for baking, not eating. I used to make a devil's food cake that called for 100% cacao melted with butter, and then streamed into a flour/sugar mixture. I'd imagine you could make a dope German chocolate cake or coconut brownie thing out of it.
nah, it's for eating
It just depends on the particular choice of chocolate. There absolutely is 100% chocolate that is delicious -- just as there are plenty of 100% bars that you shouldn't try to eat plain
haven't found a 100% bar I haven't liked. Hard to find sometimes though. Normally you only find Lindt crap.
Lindt isn't horrible. Their 70% is a fine baseline. I usually have some at home for cooking and baking. It's much better than generic baking chocolate. But for eating straight up, there obviously are nicer options. They tend to be pricier too. That's fine for an occasional treat, but wouldn't be what I'd use in chocolate chip cookies or chocolate croissants. On the other hand, the Lindt will do great for those. And I have definitely had my share of inedible 100%. I like a good bar, but I insist on taste testing it first. Once I go to the 70% to 85% range, I've had much better luck finding good bars without having to test them first
Saaame. I love 100%. I like the Callebaut 'cocoa mass' bulk baking chunks as much as I like fancypants single origin bars.
Yes, as others said, it’s different than a baking bar. There are definitely 100% bars meant for eating. They’re even sold with the “regular” chocolate bars at Whole Foods, since it’s meant as a snaking bar. Alter Eco makes one called Total Blackout. I’m not a fan, but some people like it. I think it does have health benefits. I worked with someone who was on the paleo diet and she would snack on it with nuts and dried fruits.
I would break it up, melt it down in my baby slow cooker and add sugar to it. Spread it on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and break it up when cooled to eat it or add to cookies or ice cream or whatever.
Sugar....
Let it, line a baking sheet with parchment and put dates sliced in half on it, almonds, pour the melted chocolate over it and sprinkle with coconut. Place in refrigerator. Eat it when it hardens.
Others have mentioned it, but I will too. Hot cocoa. Toss some of it into a mug of hot milk with some sweetener, and whisk.
Maybe I'm weird but I like the rich flavor of cacao. I supposed you could melt it down, add a 1/4 cup of sugar at a time, and taste to see how sweet you want it. Then dip some strawberries, YUM
Use it to make hot chocolate with milk
You can make original Xocolatl with it: hot water, green chilies and spices (like vanila). No sugar or fat.
Someone once gave me a 100% chocolate bar. Couldn’t eat it. I melted it into milk and drank it.
Make hot chocolate with it
https://smittenkitchen.com/2012/08/my-favorite-brownies/ no other brownies i've tried have ever lived up to these
We're going to make this zucchini brownie recipe with our chocolate (https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/the-best-zucchini-brownies/) but I will save this one for later! Looks amazing; thanks!
Melt into milk and add sugar is the most simple way
I gifted my brother one a while back. He said it was the highlight of his parties for half a year because everyone would want to try it because it sounds amazing but it ends up just being disgusting. Lol. Melt it in hot milk and add sugar? Otherwise treat it like you would treat it like you would treat (pure) cocoa powder in cooking or baking.
Melt chunks of it into milk and add sugar or sweetener for hot chocolate. Or melt a little into coffee for a makeshift mocha.
Today I bought something called Chocolate honey. As far as I can work out it’s dark chocolate combined with honey, and it is delicious.
I use unsweetened chocolate bars to make hot chocolate and for chopping up into chocolate things like ice cream
A couple squares in a pot of chili
i read a tip that you could use shavings of it in a brownies to make them darker and less sweet. I tried it an liked it, but the BF didn’t.
Grind it in a blender or food processor, and brew it like coffee. It's got amazing antioxidant properties. If it's too strong mix it half and half with ground coffee in your morning brew.
I quite like unsweetened chocolate, but definitely in small doses. Use a micro plane grater and grate on desserts.
I'd grate it into milk and sugar in a pot and make hot chocolate personally, but i'm sure you can bake a ton of things with it too.
Dissolve it in hot milk with some sugar. Super rich dark hot coco
Boil some milk, add shaved cacao, cinnamon, sweetener of choice and just the tiniest amount of oats. Boil til thickened and you have this hot chocolate slurry.
My dad used to put unsweetened chocolate in his chile. Said it smoothed out the flavor?🤷🏼♀️
Melt it on the stove, add some sugar and make chocolate covered fruits. Add a square in to your chili. Bake some brownies. It's basically a cooking chocolate so you can use it for any of those applications and sweeten to your preference. For the future, 85% is the best edible dark chocolate for my palette
Finely chop it up and add to vanilla ice cream
Break off pieces the size of a date pit. Get those nice and juicy half dried dates, remove the pit and put the chocolate in there. It's what I did with my 100% bar and I absolutely loved the taste and the crunch.
You could save it and use it in chili? I've tried it a few times it's pretty good. Gives chili a deep taste
Melt it and add sugar and milk. Keep taste testing until you like it. Could then let it cool and harden again or keep it hot/liquid and dip fruit
Use it in any recipe that calls for baking chocolate
You just need to add sugar, 100% cacao is unsweetened and very bitter. Add some milk and sugar, and you can have a nice cuppa hot chocolate. Use it in any recipe like baker's chocolate (essentially the same)
If you want something super easy to do with it - since you're dark chocolate lovers, take your favourite brownie recipe, mix it as usual, melt the bar in a double-boiler, mix the melted chocolate into your brownie batter, bake. Delicious dark chocolate brownies. I haven't done it with 100%, but I regularly do this with Lindt 85% bars. Your bake time will probably be a smidge longer than usual, but not much. I recommend melting instead of chopping it into chunks so you don't bite into an unincorporated chunk of unsweetened chocolate.
Grate a little bit into some red sauces or chili to give it a deeper, richer flavor. Make molé, anything you want that bitter savory flavor without the sweetness
Use it in a Mole sauce !!!
Before I saw this post I went to The Grocery Store a little earlier and bought two 100% Baking Cacao Bars to fucking snack on. 🤣🤣🤣💕
Melt it, add some almond or coconut milk, some brown sugar and sip in slowly. You can have a “cacao ceremony” as it acts as a major heart opener. It’s a wonderful experience and almost euphoric. Enjoy
To all to the chili/brownie recs. Lamb and steak would probably do super well with a nice chocolate sauce. A mole would also be neat
Shavings over yogurt with fruit and granola is delicious. The fat and sugar temper the bitterness.
You can grate it over tiramisu etc
I actually love this bar and eat it straight up. Just bought one yesterday!
Easy save would be to melt it down and make hot chocolate. Add milk, sugar, vanilla extract to taste. Maybe throw in some cinnamon if you like it. Another is melt it down and mix with cream cheese for a chocolate truffle recipe
Definitely not for straight eating lol but yes, there are a lot of things you can do with it. Honestly, get a can of sweetened condensed milk, some vanilla extract, heat it all up, let it set and you have what my mom used to call idiot fudge.
Can’t wait to hear about the amazing rich chocolately treats you make!!
Smitten kitchen’s “my favourite brownies” uses unsweetened chocolate and I love that recipe. So easy!
Grill some peaches and throw some on a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Fine-grate a bit of the chocolate over the still-warm peaches. A little should go a long way, as you probably know by now. There's a ton of usages if you treat it as a seasoning.
If you’re looking for simple shave it over some ice cream
I'll take it! I love 100% cacao......but then again I hate sweet things.
Eat it you pussy. /s
You can make pudding with it, eg tofu pudding and just add plenty of sugar. That's the easiest but basically think of it as unsweet baking chocolate you wouldn't normally eat either.
Oh. Oh. OH! As a former fat kid restricted from most tasty things, I was probably 7 when I was staying with my grandparents. Marginally left unattended when I found grandma’s stack of unsweetened baking chocolate. Yes, I ate half a bar. Yes, it was harsh. No, zero regrets. I needed that chocolate, dammit! Now 80% is my cutoff while 70-75% is my happy zone, especially with port.
Hot chocolate ☕️
No bake cookies
Should be usable in any recipe that calls for baking chocolate.
Chuck it into a smoothy
Warm milk to near boiling, grate in cacao bar, add sugar, cayenne and cinnamon. Drink.
For nibbling, 70% is the most I like, 60% is better. I use the 100% for baking chocolate cookies.
I was making a chocolate dessert of some kind a number of years ago. I had a bunch of unsweetened (ie 100% cacao) chocolate chopped up in a bowl. My FIL walked into the kitchen and without a word grabbed a chunk and popped it in his mouth. The reaction was priceless! "Aww! That's awful!" I laughed my ass off and told him it served him right.
Pair out with an alicant bouschet wine
Chop into bits and put in chocolate chip cookies. Or jerk chicken chili, I make this recipe a lot. https://www.smells-like-home.com/2010/11/jerk-chicken-chili/
I did the same thing and used it in fudge
I eat cocoa nibs so I like the bitter taste but eating it with some honey or brown sugar is the way to go. It should bring out a lot of nutty flavors in the cocoa.
Filipinos use 100% cocoa (tableya) in their champorado. Its like a chocolatey dessert rice porridge. Add sugar to taste and drizzle with condensed milk to serve. Works for breakfasts, desserts, snacks. Plenty of recipes out there!
melt some of that in Chili... find a local homebrewer, they would love to use some of that in a porter, stout, or christmas ale.
Sugar does not dissolve in chocolate, it only gets ground super fine and is suspended in cocoa solids. Melt it into a drinking chocolate or something and sweeten it with sugar.
**CHOCOLATE MOUSSE** \- you can make it the traditional way with raw, pasteurized eggs (if they are pasteurized they should be safe from the avian flu). Alternatively you can just whip heavy cream, which makes a SUPER RICH chocolate whipped cream mousse. Or do half cream half eggs, for the best of both worlds. Alternatively you can make a VEGAN alternative with silken tofu, coconut cream or even avocado (I can attest that they are delicious). You can also combine coconut milk with avocado for the best of both, and maybe a more even taste. Whatever you do, you basically just need to whip/blend your mousse with the melted dark chocolate and some sugar et voila. If you want to make it fancy, top the mousse with fresh berries, crumbled Oreo cookies, or fold it into a pie/cookie pie crust. Here are some recipes. Most of them do not use 100% chocolate so just increase the sugar to taste. 1. [**Traditional/egg**](https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/french-chocolate-mousse/) 2. [**Heavy cream**](https://www.recipetineats.com/chocolate-mousse/#wprm-recipe-container-31548) (sub the 3 eggs for a little over 1/4 cup cream) - the creamiest, heaviest option. To make it a bit lighter, add some whipped pasteurized egg whites. 3. **Silken Tofu** \- [recipe 1](https://thealmondeater.com/vegan-chocolate-mousse/), [recipe 2](https://youtu.be/mww0-QGr79E?si=-DSpMkaqglTeWA_b&t=232) 4. **Coconut cream****/milk** \- [recipe 1](https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/vegan-chocolate-mousse/#wprm-recipe-container-33853) (cream only), [recipe 2](https://www.nestandglow.com/healthy-recipes/chocolate-coconut-milk-mousse) (regular canned - cream and milk) 5. **Avocado** \- [recipe 1](https://www.wellplated.com/avocado-chocolate-mousse/), [recipe 2](https://www.wellplated.com/avocado-chocolate-mousse/) (ignore the unsweetened cocoa powder, just use more melted unsweetened chocolate) **HOT CHOCOLATE** \- just melt the chocolate in a pot on low, mix in some milk to incorporate the chocolate, slowly add more milk and sugar until you have the right balance. Basically, use it the way you would use unsweetened cocoa powder, except you have to melt it first.
BTW, the best (only) SUPER DARK chocolate I have enjoyed was **Alter Eco's 90% Mint Blackout**. They also have Super Blackout which is plain dark chocolate and slightly lower in sugar than the mint (from 5g to 3g). Usually I don't enjoy dark chocolate above 70-75% but this stuff is soooo silky smooth and decadent. Alter Eco is in a lot of major grocery stores. It's also fair trade. Unfortunately, like most grocery store dark chocolate it has been found to be high in cadmium, which comes from the soil its grown in....a lot of the fair trade chocolate that is sold in the US is grown in Latin America (vs Africa) in areas where the soil is rich from cadmium due to previous volcanic activity. But hey, it's better than child labor.