Best chocolate for preventing disease

Research has shown that chocolate contains a significant amount of catechins, the same antioxidants that make green tea useful in fighting against heart attacks and cancer. While green tea (and black tea, for that matter) provide antioxidants, it can't hurt to add a little Godiva chocolate into your regular health regimen. For maximum benefit choose darker varieties, as they have been proven to be the best chocolate in terms of catechins.

Make Chocolate Hearts Last

Take advantage of discounted chocolates after Valentine's Day. As long as you don't eat them all yourself, the delicious chocolate hearts candy will still be good for a few months. Store the chocolate in air tight containers at room temperature. Freezing the chocolate will cause the chocolate to loose its flavor and profile.

Keeping Chocolate Under Wraps

The beautiful sheen you see when you unwrap a fine chocolate indicates that it has been “tempered” correctly. Tempering chocolate is a process of melting and cooling chocolate at certain temperatures to stabilize its ingredients. This allows the cocoa butter to solidify as a suspension, so the chocolate hardens properly and develops a gloss. It then needs to be stored properly to protect the temper.

The beautiful sheen you see when you unwrap a fine chocolate indicates that it has been “tempered” correctly. Tempering chocolate is a process of melting and cooling chocolate at certain temperatures to stabilize its ingredients. This allows the cocoa butter to solidify as a suspension, so the chocolate hardens properly and develops a gloss. It then needs to be stored properly to protect the temper.

Chocolates that are left unwrapped will lose their stability and ‘bloom' when in direct contact with moisture, light or cold temperatures. The bloom looks like a light colored film or streak on the outside of the chocolate. That's the cocoa butter separating from the rest of the chocolate. And, as it separates, it floats to the surface of your chocolate, discoloring it. This happens because cocoa butter is a fat, and fat absorbs heat at a different rate than the other ingredients in chocolate.

Another reason to keep your chocolates under wrap is because they absorb external odors and tastes. Dark and milk chocolates contain some anti-oxidents that slow down the absorption process, but white chocolate does not contain anti-oxidents and so are more sensitive to odors and tastes.

Chocolates should always be stored in a cool dry place away from light and air to prolong their shelf life. According to finedarkchocolate.com, the ideal temperature for storing chocolate is between 54 and 68 degrees. To protect them against moisture, store them where the maximum humidity is 70 percent.

Bittersweet (Semisweet) Chocolate

Eating or cooking chocolate enriched with cocoa butter and sweetened with sugar is called Bittersweet (dark) or Semisweet Chocolate. The ratio between the amount of sugar and the amount of cocoa butter is often given - 88% to 90% cocoa butter is seriously dark chocolate, 70% is a pretty standard percentage. 60% is generally called Semisweet. True chocophiles prefer the higher percentages - like the Dolfin 88% dark chocolate bar. Semisweet chocolate is also available as chips for cooking or mixing into trail mix.

White Chocolate

Good white chocolate is made with pure cocoa butter and sugar, powdered milk and sometimes vanilla. The only thing missing is the cocoa liquor. But be careful and read labels - there is lots of white junk being sold that is not made with pure cocoa - instead coconut oil or vegetable oil are used. These can taste just fine - but shouldn´t be called white chocolate!

Chocolate Heritage

The road from cocoa bean to chocolate bar is a long and complicated one. Cocoa beans are found inside pods that grow on the cocoa trees of South and Central America, Africa, and Asia. After the beans have been harvested and dried, they are sent to a factory where they are meticulously cleaned and then roasted at over 250 degrees Fahrenheit. After the beans cool, their shells are removed and disposed of by another machine called a "cracker and fanner." With their shells now gone, the beans are crushed by large grinding stones until they are completely liquefied. The liquid, called chocolate liquor, can then be poured into molds and allowed to solidify. It is then sent to be made into either cocoa powder or chocolate candy.

Cocoa powder is created by pressing cocoa butter from the chocolate liquor with a large hydraulic press. The resulting dense cake is then crushed into powder and sifted. It is now ready to be packaged and sold.

Chocolate for eating is made by adding cocoa butter to chocolate liquor. This creamy mixture is combined with a variety of different ingredients depending on which type of chocolate is being made. At this point, the mixture is ground into a smooth paste by heavy rollers until it is smooth. After a process called “conching” in which the mixture is kneaded for up to several days, the chocolate is almost ready. It is tempered by periodic cooling and reheating until it is finally ready to be molded into popular shapes such as chocolate hearts, chocolate coins, and chocolate bars. The chocolate is cooled until firm, wrapped by machines, and packed for distribution.

The best chocolate recipes

Of course, the best chocolate recipe is the one you like the best. In order to find that out, you should try as many top-rated chocolate recipes as you can. Several cooking Web sites and Web sites of individual chocolate makers provide top ten lists of chocolate recipes that are rated by casual cooks and experts alike. For those of us who prefer to leave the cooking to the others a trip to the Godiva chocolate shop is the best chocolate strategy.

Chocolate Candy Coins for Chanukah

Understanding the meaning of the Chanukah custom of giving chocolate coins to children enriches the tradition. Although the earliest sources of the Chanukah gelt custom are unknown, there are several reasons why coins and Chanukah go together.

Chanukah gelt in part symbolizes the gift of learning. Linguistically, the word Chanukah is related to the Hebrew word hinnukh, meaning “education.” In the 18th century, rabbis would visit villages during Chanukah to promote study of the Torah. After a while, grateful villagers began to offer the rabbis gifts of coins in addition to food, whisky and honey. More recently, parents have chosen to give teachers bonuses around the time of Chanukah and also reward children at this time for their diligent studies.

Another value represented by Chanukah gelt is Jewish freedom. The descendants of the Maccabees minted coins embossed with temple images to celebrate their autonomy. In the 20th century, the Maccabees' struggle to reclaim the temple gained greater significance as a desire for a Jewish state grew. Parents would give coins to their children during Chanukah while retelling this important story.

Chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil are a reminder of a rich and significant Jewish culture.

Best chocolate recipe substitutions

Because different types of chocolate have different chemicals in them, it's always best to follow your chocolate recipes exactly. But if you get halfway through a recipe and realize you don't have the exact ingredient, don't panic. The following combinations can be substituted for each other for similar effect:

One square of unsweetened baking chocolate
One packet of pre-melted chocolate
Three tablespoons of cocoa powder mixed with one tablespoon of oil

Chocolate wedding roses

Put a smile on the faces of your wedding guests when they sit down to their tables and see a bouquet of chocolate roses. To make, place two wrapped Hershey's kisses end to end and wrap with red cellophane. Without puncturing the chocolate, insert a florist wire, bamboo skewer or green pipe cleaner into the cellophane. Tape together with green florist tape and continue wrapping the tape around until it covers the wire. Decorate with a bow or silk rose leaves. Let the guests each take one home as a wedding favor.

Best chocolate for dieters

With sugar-free varieties of chocolate getting better and better all the time, people with special food restrictions, such as diabetics and low-carb dieters, no longer need to worry about giving up their favorite treat. Dark chocolate, which is higher in chocolate liquor and lower in sugar, is also a good choice for dieters as long as it's eaten in moderation.