Decadent Dark Chocolate

I have always been a chocolate loving girl. A classic picture of me as a child is sitting in an amusement ride at Hershey Park with my face smeared with remnants of Hershey Kisses. My parents made the mistake of offering me chocolate flavored Ovaltine when I was only a toddler. After tasting the sensual flavors that tickled my taste buds, I refused to drink any glass of milk without my delectable chocolate. Since then the love affair has never ceased.

For a long time, my preference was always milk chocolate. The milkier, the better, I always thought. I held this belief up until the day of my chocolate tasting assignment for my Professional Chocolatier Certification Program. I had hand picked my chocolate choices from the local Whole Foods Market, with a wide range of dark specialty couvertures.

My test subjects ranged in couvertures from France, Belgium and Venezuela. The first one from Venezuela, named El Rey, was especially potent in bitterness. I had mistakenly picked up bittersweet dark chocolate and my taste buds were not accustomed to the strength of flavor. However, the texture was certainly an even melt in your mouth feeling. And the aroma was so strong; my test subjects all could smell the powerful aroma before I even moved the test pieces into the room they were sitting.

Next, the Belgium favorite, Callebaut was passed around. This time I had chosen right, and it was the semisweet dark chocolate I had intended on getting. The flavor reminded me of upscale chocolate chips from the grocery store. The taste though was truly delicious. The complexity of dark chocolate was starting to become clear as I ventured to roll the chocolate with my tongue.

Finally, Valrhona, the exquisite and legendary couverture from France made way to the table. The scent was not quite as forthcoming as the previous ones, however the texture once inside my mouth could only be described as silky. The way the chocolate melted was so even, that while rolling my tongue with the chocolate it seemed as though I had an even stream of sensuous liquid cascading inside my mouth. This semisweet chocolate was so delicious, I had to have a second piece. Later I used the rest of the pieces to whip up some mint truffles, which needless to say were truly phenomenal.

Why did I experiment with couverture chocolate? Picking the gourmet, more expensive chocolates was to be sure I was getting the best quality for my money. The more cocoa butter in chocolate, the higher the quality.

Now, dark chocolate not only makes for great truffles, but can also enhance your health. According to http://www.wikipedia.com/:

Dark chocolate, with its high cocoa content, is a rich source of the flavonoids epicatechin and gallic acid, which are thought to posess cardioprotective properties. Cocoa possesses a significant antioxidant action, protecting against LDL oxidation, even more so than other antioxidant rich foods and beverages. Some studies have also observed a modest reduction in blood pressure and flow mediated dilation after consuming approximately 100 g of dark chocolate daily.

Now for those of you out there looking for an excuse to eat chocolate, you have one right here. Stick to dark chocolate though and remember anything is good but only in moderation!