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I’ve browsed the net looking for a chocolate recipe that would be the best, all-time, holiday chocolate recipe and after several hours of choosing from the many chocolate recipes, I finally settled for the one I feel most deserving to be hailed as, “The Best Holiday Chocolate Recipe” and it’s the Chocolate cookies recipe. You can have chocolate cookies for Easter parties, Halloween, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas eve dinner, and even on New Year’s Day! They are certainly an all-time favorite, from toddlers to teens to grown-ups.

Here is a simple but wonderful Chocolate Cookies recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups of chocolate chips (choose semi-sweet chips)
2 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 large eggs
5 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup of nuts, preferably walnuts, chopped

The first step in making this wonderful chocolate recipe is to preheat your chocolate cookie-making oven to 350F. Put in a cup of chocolate chips and the 2 tablespoons of butter in a microwave-proof container, preferably a transparent bowl, and heat it up until it melts. Mix the mixture well until it smoothens. After that, put the 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a mixing bowl and mix them together. Be careful when mixing as not to whisk the mixture too hard or you will waste some.

Using a kitchen mixer or just by hand, beat the 2 large eggs and when done, add in the 5 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and mix well. Add the melted chocolate chips mixture you’ve previous heated up in the oven bit by bit into the mixture of eggs, brown sugar and vanilla. Next add in the dry ingredients and don’t forget to add as well the 1/2 cup of chopped nuts and the other cup of chocolate chips.

After mixing all the ingredients, you will have a dough. Take a scoop of the dough and place it onto a baking sheet at about 2 to 3 inches apart. If you want to make the dough firmer, refrigerated it for about an hour or more. Bake it for 10 to 15 minutes while rotating the cookie sheet every once in a while until your wonderful chocolate cookies are a little shiny and cool them completely on the baking sheets.

To make your chocolate cookies suit more into the holiday season, decorate it with sugar or butter cream icings. Enjoy your best holiday chocolate recipe!

Dark chocolate has been reported to carry a lot of health benefits – that’s why it has become quite popular in the recent years. If you’re not a chocolate connoisseur or expert, you may think that dark chocolate is simply that which appears in the darkest color of them all. But there are other factors to look for to ensure you are getting the best of its type.

First and obvious of all, it has to be dark. Cocoa content in dark chocolate is the highest, so it should appear in a very dark shade of brown or even near black. It should contains no milk at all, and most only come with sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and sometimes with vanilla to add some flavour.

For dark chocolate to carry the benefits, it has to have at least 70 percent cocoa content. It’s better when cocoa content is even higher. The flavonoids in cocoa are rich in antioxidants, and the higher cocoa percentage goes, the more bitter it gets.

Together with its dark looks, the chocolate has to smell dark, too. But how can anything smell dark really? The real dark variety with high cocoa content comes with a distinct pungent and fruity smell. Cocoa comes from the cacao plant which is classified as a fruit, and this distinct smell comes like a slight stench of the fruit about to go bad. If you’ve picked chocolate that comes with this distinct smell, then you’ve made the right choice.

Lastly, the best way to find out if you’ve chosen the right type of dark chocolate is to taste it. Buy a small piece to test it out. Some chocolate shops even offer free samples to their customers. Look for one that comes bitter without the sweetness. The best ones come with a slightly sour taste that blends with the bitterness.

It is hard to imagine that anyone would resist chocolates. I will go to the extent of saying that everyone loves the bittersweet taste of chocolates and love getting them even as gifts. This is why chocolate gift baskets are highly popular when it comes to giving gifts. There are many varieties of chocolates out there. You may want to try some gourmet chocolates today. They are exquisite and make the perfect gift basket.

Gourmet chocolates are superior in terms of taste compared to all other types of chocolates. Owing to the high quality and taste of gourmet chocolates, they make a genuine ideal choice for creating a chocolate gift basket. In fact, “gourmet” enhances the special nature of your gift and will definitely put a smile on the face of the recipient. These chocolates can be found in most chocolate stores or supermarkets. While choosing chocolate for a gift, you may want to purchase an assortment of milk, dark or white chocolates, just to add variety to your chocolate gift basket.

Before choosing any gourmet gift, Let us look at a few facts here: What is the recipient personal taste, preferences, and are there any dietary or medical restrictions? For example, when presenting chocolates to someone who is diabetic, you would want to ensure that the gourmet chocolates you choose are not just sugar-free but also have a low glycemic (index) value. If you personally know the recipient, it should be quite easy to tailor the gift basket to meet their specific need. It is very easy to purchase a ready made chocolate gift basket online. Most online chocolate vendors provide customized options for choosing specialty chocolates like Hershey’s and Lindt.

Choose quality superior chocolates and a nice basket. The last thing you do not want is to let yourself down by putting superior gourmet chocolates in a cheap looking basket. Just look for a basket which will further enhance the gift making it exceptionally special. Whether they are homemade or ready made Gourmet chocolates, they are ideal for anyone and for all occasions… Be it Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Birthdays, Valentines Day, chocolate gift baskets will never fail to make that special person day. So, get started and choose the ideal chocolate and basket. Go out and make someone very happy today.

It’s a real mystery!

I’ve been collecting Basil for a little over 2 years and have over 60 different varieties in my own personal collection. I have fallen in love with growing, caring for, and cooking with fresh Basil. I also love chocolate, so when I learned that there was a Chocolate Basil, I just had to have it in my collection. This should be easy…just go to a nursery and purchase. Not! No seeds are available online either.

So I started my search. I started researching Basil. At first I thought there were only 100 different varieties of Basil, but now I know that there are over 1,000! Scientifically there aren’t over 1,000, but by the time, growers rename the Basil, and the different countries take ownership of the basil, you can see where 100 turns into over 1,000.

Each basil has it’s own unique appearance, aroma, and taste. You can grow basil plants in your garden as a companion to tomato plants. It is said that the basil will enhance the tomato flavor, (makes sense, you use basil in homemade pasta sauces) and it will keep away some of the pests that will kill your tomato plant. You can use basil as a landscaping plant. Basil has beautiful delicate flowers, ranging from little white flowers, to purple flowers. Basil plants come in a variety of different styles too, some with big green shiny leaves, others with ruffled purple leaves. The lovable basil plants also come in different heights and shapes too.

Can you imagine cooking with Chocolate Basil, adding just a hint of chocolate flavor, without the sinful calories? Can you imagine walking by a whole row of Chocolate Basil planted in place of a flower garden and smelling a faint aroma of chocolate? Or can you imagine, soaking in a bubble bath with floating Chocolate Basil and relaxing to the soothing aroma of chocolate? I just have to find it!

The Internet is where you can find out almost any information. So surely I should be able to find information about Chocolate Basil.
I was almost convinced it is a myth that there is Chocolate Basil. Since basil is a relative of the Mint family I came to the conclusion that folks were mistaking Chocolate Mint for Chocolate Basil. I could understand that since I am also familiar with Chocolate Mint.

But then I skimmed over an article that was written in a large national newspaper where a lady grows Chocolate Basil! I tried to contact the lady, but without any success. I have had several people email me at my blog, telling me they heard that so and so told them where to get this Basil, and they even gave me the sources of where to purchase. When I called they were all out, but thought they had some last year. There are so many sightings of Chocolate Basil, but there are no pictures of it, and I wonder if there are any actual plants in existence.

The Chocolate Making Process

Chocolate is a good as it raw ingredients. If you get some of the world class renowed chocolatiers with the same ingredients you will get the same chocolate.

The main basic ingredient to any chocolate is cacao. Then will come sugar, butter and milk. For organic chocolate production no additives, colourings and emulsifiers are used and usually costs more.

Texture – the smoother the more refined a chocolate brand is in appearance.
People have different palate so no two people can taste the same chocolate alike.

Some people cannot tell the difference between these two terms: cacao and cocoa.

What is the difference between cacao and cocoa?
Sometimes “cacao” and “cocoa” are used interchangeably. However, technically, “cocoa” should be used in reference to the powder product, while “cacao” should be used when referring to the bean, which yields the cacao components, that are chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and funnily enough – cocoa powder.

Chocolate is made in a more or less the same method. Some manufacturers may add or decrease some parts of the process according to their desired product.

How Chocolate is Made
Step 1: Selecting the Bean
After the cacao beans have been sourced from different or a specific country, these pass through a bean cleaning machine that removes extraneous materials.

Different bean varieties are then precisely blended to produce a distinct flavour that sets the brand apart from another.

A formula is worked to blend the beans, this is both an art and science of chocolate making. Serious chocolate companies reject some of the beans as these do not meet their flavor standards. This ensures that every chocolate bar and novelty products tastes the same.

Roasting the Bean
After the selection and cleaning process is done, the beans are roasted to develop the desired chocolate flavor. They are roasted in large rotary cylinders.

Depending on the varieties of the beans and the desired end result, the roasting lasts from 30 minutes to two hours at very high temperatures.

During roasting, the bean color changes to a rich brown, and the aroma of chocolate comes through. After roasting, the bean shells are cracked and removed, leaving the essence of pure chocolate called the “nib”. For Dutch-processed cacao, a solution is added to produce nibs that are darker and less acidic in flavor. The more a bean is roasted the most intense is the flavour.

Milling the Liquor
The roasted nibs are milled through a process that liquefies the cocoa butter in the nibs and forms “chocolate liquor.” Chocolate liquor is non-alcoholic and simply refers to the chocolate liquid. The chocolate liquor can either be pressed for cocoa butter and cocoa powders, or molded and solidified to make unsweetened chocolate.

Cocoa Pressing
The cocoa press takes a portion of the cocoa butter from the chocolate liquor, leaving “cocoa cakes.” The cocoa butter is used in the manufacture of chocolates; the remaining cakes of cocoa solids are pulverized into cocoa powders.

Refining
Ingredients such as chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, and milk powder, in quantities that make up the different types of chocolate, are blended in mixers to a paste with the consistency of a dough. Chocolate is refined by going through a set of rollers which crush the paste into flakes that are significantly reduced in size. This step is critical in determining how smooth chocolate is when eaten.

Mixing
Different manufactures refine their chocolates to different degrees, mostly commonly is 40 microns. Any higher refining gives the chocolate an extremely smooth texture with no “graininess”.

Conching
Conching is a process to develop the flavour of chocolate, during which the chocolate is put under constant agitation. These machines have large paddles that sweep back and forth through the refined chocolate mass. This process can take a few hours to several days.

Conching reduces moisture, drives off any lingering acidic flavors, and coats each particle of chocolate with a layer of cocoa butter. The resulting chocolate has a smoother, mellower flavor.

Tempering and Molding
The chocolate then undergoes a tempering process where it is heated and coooled. This creates small, stable cocoa butter crystals in the fluid chocolate mass. It is deposited into molds of different forms: chips, chunks, wafers and bars. Proper tempering creates a finished product that has a glossy, smooth appearance.

Cooling and Packaging
The molded chocolate enters controlled cooling tunnels to solidify the pieces. Depending on the size of the chocolate pieces, the cooling cycle takes between 20 minutes to two hours. From the cooling tunnels, the chocolate is packaged for delivery to retailers and ultimately into the hands of consumers.