Get Ready for Valentine's Day Chocolate Guide

Valentines Day is upon us and as far as I’m concerned that means it’s time to talk about chocolate.

Now, I would love to be the professional writer who gets an assignment like - taste all the premium chocolates on the market and write a nifty little article about the best ones.
I’m not a professional writer, and I don’t have an editor to give me a great assignment like that but hey- as my valentine to you, let me tell you what I’ve discovered in just a little searching.

Chocolate comes from the cocoa tree, it starts as a bean and is fermented, dried, pounded and made into a paste. Apparently the first chocolaholics were the Maya. Everyone, rich and poor, drank chocolate- the trees grew in the Maya region. They mixed the cocoa paste with chili peppers, cornmeal and other spices. They didn’t have sugar, so their cocoa was a bitter spicy drink.

Then the Aztecs arrived on the scene and took cocoa beans home. Because it was a fancy import, only the rich drank cocoa. Montezuma was reported to drink 50 cups a day, and his court consumed about 2000 cups a day! (How do those smarty pants archeologists know that?) The Aztecs drank their cocoa paste with vanilla and black pepper- they called it chocolatl.

Enter the Spanish who took the drink back to Spain, threw out the spicy stuff and added sugar and cinnamon. Remind me to call Haagen Dazs, their incredibly delicious special edition chocolate cinnamon ice cream should be called Spanish Chocolate, not Mayan Chocolate!

The Spanish seemed to have kept the lid on the cocoa for quite a while, but eventually Europe got wind of it and started making their own "white bread version" with sugar and milk. Chocolate snowballed from there, countries planted cocoa plantations and the industrial revolution made manufacturing easier. Now of course the next part of the chocolate revolution is occurring as science proclaims dark chocolate good for you and designer chocolates are being made in small shops all over the world.

Chocolate has signified devotion, passion, and health for centuries, and I think that does make it the perfect way to say I love you, to your self or someone else. To assist you in choosing just the right way to say I love you with chocolate, I’ve compiled this guide of my personal favorite ways to eat chocolate. Please Plagiarize!

When it comes to plain chocolate, I like the 70% cocoa, get into the 80-90% and I find it a little bitter. For a reasonable price, I think Lindt is one of the best. Compared to the 70% bars, milk chocolate and things like mass produced “chocolate” bars with fillings and crunchy things added are like eating a big block of sugar. The real chocolate flavor is lost, so why bother?

I love chocolate ice cream, and Haagen Dazs rules. Don’t boo! Let me explain! They make a killer Mayan Chocolate and the Chocolate Caramel swirl is pretty darn good to. Now, I know you all are gonna say Ben and Jerry’s, but they put to many chewy things in the ice cream. If God meant ice cream to have chunks in it cream would naturally freeze into cubes. Ok, Ok, I know some of you are thinking Blue Bell, but that’s hard to get in some places, and I’m sure there are other regional favorites as well, but I have to say, as much as I like homemade, I don’t think anyone does creamy chocolaty like Haagen Dazs.

When it comes to chocolates- meaning gobs of sweet stuff covered with chocolate, it’s Godiva all the way. Their Key Lime Truffles are the best, followed by any of their fruity in the center chocolates. I can do with out the chocolate on chocolate (to boring) and the chocolate on nut cream filling (their most popular, but in my book to bland.) Their hot chocolate is nothing to sneeze at either.

Now if you want to make your sweetie a chocolate surprise, make a cake. I will tell you how to make it with a dash of something extra that will warm the heart and lift the libido – does this sound like a scene from that movie Chocolat? Which, by the way is the perfect movie to share with your sweetie on Valentine’s day- that movie, a box of chocolates, a glass of a good spicy red wine and you will be set for an evening of romance!

Yes, I’m going to share the secrets to an extraordinary chocolate cake.
#1 Use only the best 70% or higher chocolate. Scharffen Berger is a good one; you can buy it in a block and grate it.
#2 - Red chili. Yes, red chili, preferably Hatch New Mexico hot. For all you Yankees reading, I’m not talking about chili with tomatoes, beans, meat and (GASP!) rice and a dash of chili seasoning. I’m talking about pure red chili pods dried and ground into powder.

Chili brings out the warm, earthy, raw flavor of the chocolate. Red chili, as the Mayans knew, and New Mexicans know, warms the heart and attracts love and passion. Try adding a few tablespoons of it to the cake batter and the frosting as well, you will see what I mean. If you follow this advice and use the best chocolate and red chili, it doesn’t really matter what cake recipe you use, your cake is gonna be the best your sweetie ever tasted.

Hope you get a bunch of chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Chocolate still signifies devotion, passion and health, and these are all wishes that should come from your self to your self . If you also get chocolate from a sweetie, well that’s just icing on the cake.