Bird in Hand Farm

Bird in Hand Farm is an imaginary place.


Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Mine does't look like that.

Photo from the Givers Log
Givers Log has an incredibly beautiful post about hot chocolate on a stick.  I love hot chocolate and on these cold dark winter days, a warm cup is a blessing.  Benjamin Franklin said: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  I think he is wrong.  Chocolate is proof that God loves us.  Anyway, the Giver's Log's basic recipe has 4 ingredients.  I can make that.  At least I thought I could.
We had all the ingredients in the house and I had the bright idea to use candy canes for the sticks.  Except, when I unwrapped them, I found out that lots were broken.  I didn't want to go buy Popsicle sticks so I decided to use some leftover plastic spoons.  I thought putting marshmallows on the ends would be cool. When I pushed the marshmallow through it left white sticky stuff all over the spoon handle.  I ended up cutting them and squishing them around the handle that way.  I must have still had some cocoa powder on my hands because some of them look pretty grubby.
The Farmer and I melted the chocolate over a double boiler without difficulty.  I sifted in the powdered sugar and coco powder and the stuff stiffened up and got really dry.  We stirred and stirred; which was really hard because it was so thick.  Finally, we added more chocolate and a little oil to get it to the right consistency. 
On the Giver's Log she spent a lot of time talking about quality chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa butter.  Now I know why.  Wegman's semi sweet chips apparently are not up to snuff.

We put it into the bag and when I squeezed it to get it to pipe into the ice cube tray, the bag broke.  Getting it into the tray at all neatly was a challenge.  The bag broke two more times.  Eventually, we got it in there and shoved the spoons and canes in.  We made a terrific mess.
It looks a little better coming out of the ice cube tray, but not much.  The candy canes broke even more, so they were pretty much a total bust.

And yet, who care what it looks like? What really matters here is how it tastes.  After a long wait for the kettle whistle, we plunked them on out mugs.  They don't melt quickly or smoothly.  We let them sit for about 5 minutes and then stirred.  A lot.  I added some half and half to make it creamy.  It looked better with mini marshmallows on top.  The kid apparently got a hold of the bag while I was not looking and topped hers off.  It is good cocoa.  The best ever?  I don't think so.  But it is  better than the stuff that comes out of little white envelopes.

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