Chocolate: A Healthy Treat

Here’s some good news for all you chocoholics – eating chocolate is good for you! Well, hang on a minute; let’s not get too excited just yet. I’m not saying that you can clear all the fruit and vegetables out of your cupboards and fill them with oversized chocolate bars and biscuits. ‘Everything in moderation’ as they say. ‘You can have too much of a good thing’ but ‘a little bit of what you fancy does you good’. Enough of the sayings and phrases and let’s talk facts.

Cocoa contains an antioxidant called flavanol and it’s this little component that could potentially have health benefits such as lowering blood pressure. As this is contained in the cocoa itself, you should obviously choose a chocolate bar with a high cocoa solid content, specifically dark chocolate. Dark chocolate generally has a much higher cocoa content than milk chocolate and the milk itself will dilute the effects of the flavanols. As white chocolate often doesn’t contain any actual cocoa, this won’t have any effect.

The downside is that as chocolate is high in both fat and calories, it’s difficult to really balance out the benefits compared to the fat intake and there’s a very fine line between the two. The obvious solution is to just have a small amount and that way; you’re getting a sweet treat but not over indulging. If only I could follow my own advice – I find it very difficult to open a bar of chocolate and just limit myself to a couple of squares. It doesn’t tend to last very long I’m afraid but maybe the answer is to just buy a very small bar, really enjoy and then know it’s gone. If there’s opened chocolate hanging around, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

Chocolate in Alcohol

As we’ve learnt, cocoa is a pretty versatile ingredient. As it’s naturally bitter in flavour it can be adapted for use in all kinds of food and drinks and can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. It can also be turned into an alcoholic drink. Liqueurs often tend to be sweet and many brands tailor to the sweet tooth. They are drunk as a short drink so a sweet, syrupy consistency actually works well, particularly at the end of a meal.

There aren’t many chocolate liqueurs on the market and these are the traditional thick, syrupy drinks. You’ll more commonly see a drink called crème de cacao. This is pretty self explanatory, as it’s made using cocoa flavouring. Despite its chocolately connotations this punchy beverage tends to be almost clear in colour, so if you’re expecting a glass of liquid, alcoholic chocolate, you might be setting yourself up for initial disappointment. However, take a sip and you’ll get a real cocoa hit. There’s also a dark version called, unsurprisingly, dark crème de cacao and this has more of a traditional chocolate brown colour. Seriously, try one of these next time you go out for dinner. If you’re a chocoholic, it really hits the spot. It’s flavoured with vanilla as well (just like chocolate bars) so there’s an extra sweet, perfumed taste.

As well as drinking these as a liqueur, they’re great added to cocktails and work well in drinks like the chocolate Martini or the Grasshopper.

Drinking Chocolate

Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate, a nice cup of cocoa – call it what you will but people have been enjoying the benefits of liquid chocolate for thousands of years. It was the ancient Mayan and Aztec civilisations that first discovered this drink, although, of course, it was rather a bitter concoction back in those days. No sugar to sweeten things up then. In fact, it was far more of a fiery brew than the sedate bedtime drink of today, as they added chillies and peppers to their drinking chocolate. It was probably the modern day equivalent of knocking back a couple of triple espressos.

Hot chocolate is typically made with a cocoa powder base, which is topped up with hot milk or water. However, there are plenty of variations. One of my favourites is the Italian drink that is basically melted chocolate. It’s so thick you practically need a spoon to consume it but it’s absolutely delicious and gives you a real chocolate hit. I remember sitting outside a café in Venice thinking all my Christmases had come at once as I was presented with one of these. I’ve also come across a novel version of hot chocolate that’s basically a mug of piping hot milk with a small chocolate bar placed in the centre. This slowly melts into the milk creating an increasingly chocolately drink. Other versions include flavourings such as vanilla or cinnamon that add a spicy note. So it’s not just a case of spooning some cocoa into a cup and waiting for the kettle to boil – there are all kinds of ways to enjoy chocolate as a drink.

Cooking Chocolate

Come on, admit it; who hasn’t been tempted to raid the baking box when the biscuit tin is empty and a swift chocolate fix is required? I’m not going to answer this one myself but suffice to say I don’t keep cooking chocolate in the house any more unless a baking session is imminent.

So, what exactly is baking chocolate and is it so very wrong to snap off a square or two in desperate times? Well, the truth is that cooking chocolate is pretty interchangeable with regular chocolate in that there are lots of different styles and qualities available. If you’re making crispy cereal bars with the kids, chances are you don’t want to splash out a fortune on a top quality bar. However, if you’re creating a rich chocolate mousse or chocolate fondants for a posh dinner party then you might want to push the boat out and treat your guests to something a little more decadent. Generally, cooking chocolate has quite a high cocoa solid content in order to still get a substantial flavour once the other ingredients have been added.

I suppose it just comes down to the wording – ‘cooking chocolate’ doesn’t exactly conjure up images of romance, decadence or even a treat. It reminds me more of being a student and checking out the cheap aisles at the supermarket, in search of a bargain. However, wording is often just wording and cooking chocolate doesn’t necessarily imply an inferior product. Smother that chocolate over a cake or pour it into a ramekin and you’ve got the stuff of dessert dreams.

White Chocolate

Many chocolate aficionados don’t class white chocolate as being chocolate at all. Why, I hear you shout? Well, it’s a pretty persuasive argument I suppose. The fact is that white chocolate doesn’t actually contain any cocoa solids. It has cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids but no cocoa solids. I suppose it comes down to technicalities and what you consider to be the main components of a good chocolate bar. Cocoa butter is derived from the same tree, same pod and even the same beans as cocoa solids but it’s certainly not the benchmark by which quality chocolate bars are measured. I’m sure people will be wringing their hands in horror to even see the words ‘white chocolate’ mentioned on these pages but let’s give it a fair chance – it does have a role to play in the world of chocolate.

Some milk chocolate brands contain very little in the way of cocoa solids so we shouldn’t really push all the blame for poorer quality chocolate onto the white variety. I suppose the argument is that is should be called a sweet instead of chocolate but it’s only a name. Those people in the know will choose only the best dark chocolate and will check labels and do their research; those who just want a quick sweet fix aren’t really going to be bothered about whether there’s a cocoa solid in sight. Right, I’m off to the shops!