Trader Joe's Belgian 72% Dark

My blog's languished these past couple of weeks not for a lack of interest, but simply for a lack of time. Already in danger of being heaved out the office window for insufficient focus on fast-approaching events, I've decided now is not the time for afternoon excursions in search of my Holy Grail. So for the moment I'll continue testing different brands of chocolate at home.

This past week, I tried Trader Joe's Belgian 72% Dark, which comes in a whopping pound brick.  I'd used TJ's Belgian many years ago, before moving on to finer chocolates, but it was worth giving it a try again.  At first, when the chocolate mixture thickened into pudding-like consistency in the pot, I thought EUREKA! I've found my chocolate! I could stand a spoon upright in it--just like the St. Gines chocolate in Madrid!

But the flavor disappeared almost the second it hit my tongue--a brief hit of chocolate flavor that quickly dissipated, leaving behind a slightly bitter after-taste.  Very disappointing.  And now I've got this huge chunk of leftover TJ's chocolate. Sigh.

Trader Joe's does, however, make a nice cocoa powder they call "Drinking Chocolate." It comes in a brown tin and creates a tasty hot cocoa--a good alternative when you're looking for a warming drink that's not quite as labor intensive or rich as hot chocolate.

Since it's Easter, I looked into some Easter chocolate history and learned that the first chocolate Easter eggs appeared in Germany and France around the 1800s. The eggs were solid until modern machines allowed the eggs to be molded hollow and mass produced. Not what I'd actually call progress.  

"The modern chocolate Easter egg with its smoothness, shape and flavour owes its progression to the two greatest developments in the history of chocolate - the invention of a press for separating cocoa butter from the cocoa bean by the Dutch inventor Van Houten in 1828 and the introduction of a pure cocoa by Cadbury Brothers in 1866. The Cadbury process made large quantities of cocoa butter available and this was the secret of making moulded chocolate or indeed, any fine eating chocolate.  " (The Chocolate Traveller)

Until the next time, Happy Sippers--

DRINK CHOCOLATE