Gorgeous Chocolate!

The Chocolate Connoisseur February 28th, 2007

During the Columbian Exposition in 1892, the chef of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago invented the brownie. Bertha Palmer wanted a dessert that women could eat without getting their hands dirty when put into box lunches. Sears and Roebuck published the first chocolate brownie recipe in their 1898 catalogue.

Just the mention of chocolate or a chocolate brownie has most people’s faces light up and their mouths water. Often referred to as ‘America’s favorite dessert’, chocolate brownies, named after their rich brown color, are popular not only across America but are known and eaten around the world. Many like their chocolate brownies covered with fudge icing, or with chips such as chocolate, peanut butter or butterscotch, while others prefer nuts or a combination of both. People also love fresh, hot chocolate brownies served with toppings such as vanilla ice cream, fresh whipped cream or hot fudge. In most fine dining establishments, country diners or other restaurants, brownies are often the most popular dessert item.

For people that love to cook, there are thousands of recipes for chocolate brownies, which are available in cookbooks, magazines and on the internet. You can even experiment to create a chocolate brownie recipe all your own or try different ingredients in a recipe you already have. Here is a brownie recipe with nuts that is not only delicious but also easy to make.

Ingredients

· One cup flour
· One cup sugar
· One cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans etc.)
· One teaspoon vanilla
· One teaspoon baking powder
· One quarter cup of cocoa
· One stick or four ounces of butter or margarine
· Three eggs

On low heat, melt cocoa and butter in a small saucepan and then remove this from the heat. In a bowl, beat the eggs until foamy and then slowly add in sugar and the melted cocoa and butter mixture. Sift together the baking powder and flour, and add half of this into the cake batter. Mix the nuts into the remaining flour mixture and then add this to your cake batter, being sure to blend it together well. Stir in the vanilla and then spread the batter evenly into an 8 x 8 inch greased and floured baking pan. Place this into a preheated 350-degree oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes.

You can make a quick and easy chocolate icing by sifting two cups of powdered sugar and four tablespoons of cocoa together. Add one teaspoon of vanilla and stir in enough half-and-half or heavy cream, until you get the desired spreading consistency. Make sure the brownies are cool and then apply the icing.

Taking a delicious plate of chocolate brownies to any gathering is sure to be a big hit. Be sure to make lots, as it is almost impossible for most people to eat only one chocolate brownie.

• Chocolate Recipes , Chocolate Desserts
• Comments(0)

The Chocolate Connoisseur February 27th, 2007

Discovered over two thousand years ago, the Aztec and Maya people made chocolate from the pod seeds of the cacao tree, which they created into frothy, spicy, bitter drinks. In both Aztec and Maya religious and royal events, chocolate played an important role as priests offered cacao seeds to the gods during sacred ceremonies and served chocolate drinks. Spanish explorers discovered this Aztec custom and shipped cacao tree seeds back to Spain. Chocolate was an expensive import, so for the next three hundred or so years it was an elite beverage enjoyed only by the upper classes of Europe. They designed luxuriant silver and porcelain serving cups and pieces for drinking chocolate that represented symbols of the power and wealth of society’s upper crust. In the mid seventeen-hundreds, after hundreds of years of remaining relatively unaltered, new chocolate making innovations changed the very future of chocolate. In the industrial age new machinery was able to mass produce solid chocolate making this wonderful treat affordable to just about all of the general public.

Early in the seventeen-hundreds a Frenchman invented the hydraulic machine, followed by another French inventor who developed the steam-driven chocolate machine. This steam-driven mill allowed mass-production of huge amounts of chocolate quickly and inexpensively. With these new machines chocolate was no longer an oily, gritty paste but became a creamier, smoother chocolate. In 1828, the cocoa press, invented by a Dutch chemist named Coenraad Van Houten, was able to make powder or cocoa by squeezing out all the cocoa butter, thus making the cocoa uniform and far less expensive to produce. To powdered chocolate, Van Houten also added alkaline salts, making it mix with water better and giving it a milder flavor and darker color. In 1875, Henri Nestlé and Daniel Peter joined forces and combined chocolate and condensed milk, creating a creamy, smooth milk chocolate. It did not take long for this to become increasingly popular.

As culinary experimentation continued, instead of just using chocolate in hot drinks and candy bars, people started using cocoa powder in desserts, cakes and other foods. In North America, around the American Revolution, the Bakers Chocolate Company began manufacturing chocolate on a huge scale, while the Dutch produced a fine-grained powder, which they called the ‘Dutching’ method and which is still popular today with chocolate connoisseurs. They soon began making chocolate into such things as various types of candies, moldable treats, baked goods and chocolate truffles. The first recipe for brownies, published toward the end of the nineteenth century in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue, is still a beloved American baked good. Chocolate has continued to increase in popularity over the years, with the average Swiss adult eating approximately twenty pounds and the Americans eating approximately twelve pounds of chocolate annually.

• History of Chocolate
• Comments(0)