On a cold, rainy day, when you are feeling blue, or lonely, what could be a better fix than to simply indulge in chocolate? You can bake a cake, cookies, or fudge, or even simpler, open up a box of mixed chocolates, unwrap a candy bar, or have a cup of hot cocoa.
You might prefer to just meld some chocolate and then dip fresh fruit in it.
Any way you do it, the doldrums will disappear.
There are many different varieties of cocoa beans.
The best chocolatiers blend them, roast them, shell them, and then crush them until a thick liquid forms.
This chocolate liquor is made up of creamy cocoa butter and chocolate solids.
Unsweetened chocolate is bitter, and can't be eaten as is.
But added to batter, it becomes delicious brownies or chocolate cakes.
With just a bit of sugar, vanilla, and cocoa butter, it becomes semi sweet, like those wonderful chips in chocolate chip cookies.
Semi sweet, sweetened dark chocolate is what is usually used for fondues and for the dark chocolate covered candies and candy bars.
Milk chocolate, the most popular form found in candy bars and bonbons is really just sweetened dark chocolate that has condensed milk or milk solids added.
White chocolate is not really chocolate, since none of the chocolate liquor is in it.
It is made from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, with no chocolate solids whatsoever.
When you are indulging in chocolate by baking or cooking with it, never substitute one chocolate in a recipe for another.
The flavors and even the textures will be different.
Chocolate chips have very little cocoa butter in them, because you want them to maintain their shape, rather than melting into the other ingredients.
Chocolate is by far the most favored of candies and treats.
While the Europeans are famous for their fancy desserts filled with creamy chocolate, their fluffy mousses, and their frostings and ganaches, the United States has its share of candies, fudges, and so on to be proud of.
Not only can you buy chocolate in any number of specialty shops, in every grocery and quick stop convenience store, and in vending machines, but it is also easily available online in all its shapes and forms.
Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas wouldn't be the same without chocolate.
Peanuts, caramel, coconut, and peanut butter would be lost without their coating of dark or milk chocolate.
Marshmallows that could no longer be wrapped or bathed in chocolate would have no alternative but to expire in the flames of your campfire.
S'mores would become sowhats! So go ahead...
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