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[1] Chocolate Chip Mint ice cream cone (photo © Hannah Kaminsky | Bittersweet Blog).
[2] A cup of mint tea with a piece of chocolate (photo © Lindt).
[3] Thin mint cookies. Here’s the recipe from The Food Charlatan.
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February 19th is National Chocolate Mint Day.
What is it with these government bodies that are holiday-granters? Didn’t they notice that last week, February 11th, was Peppermint Patty Day (the food, not Charlie Brown’s gal pal)?
We love chocolate and peppermint…but why pile up all the wealth in the space of 8 days? Nevertheless, we’ll respond with recommendations for the best chocolate mint yummies:
Mint hot chocolate. Smash the stems of a few sprigs of fresh mint, and add them to the hot chocolate as it cooks. Strain before serving, and add a fresh sprig to garnish. If you don’t have fresh mint to infuse in the milk when you heat it, use a few drops of peppermint oil. You can stir your cocoa with a peppermint stick, too.
Mint chocolate sauce: Try Robert Lambert’s fabulous Mojito Mint Chocolate Sauce on vanilla ice cream, pound cake, or straight from the jar on a spoon. For a stronger mint infusion, try the Mint Chocolate Sauce from The King’s Cupboard.
Ice cream: Try mint chocolate chip ice cream from an artisan creamery, like Boulder Ice Cream Company or its Colorado neighbor, Spotted Dog Creamery.
Chocolate bars: Try the indulgent, layered Mint Symphony chocolate bar from Coco’s Chocolate Dreams. That’s dark chocolate with fudge mint shortbread and mint butter cookies and…be sure to order more than one. Or, try a straight but fabulous chocolate mint chocolate bar from Divine Chocolate, and support a great Fair Trade co-op of small cacao bean farmers in Africa.
Chocolate bark: heck out our favorite chocolate peppermint barks.
Cookies: Try the great chocolate mint cookies from Sugar Flower Bakery. You’ll never eat another Girl Scout cookie again.
Whoopie pies: Go retro with Chocolate Mint Whoopie Pies from Wicked Whoopie Pies.
Mint Lava Cake: Bake up this recipe for a Chocolate Mint Lava Cake.
Chocolate mint soufflé: Bake up a ready-to-heat-and-eat Chocolate Mint Soufflé from Heavenly Soufflé, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week (it’s heavenly and kosher, too).
Bonbons: Have a box of bonbons filled with handmade mint ganache, from John & Kira’s.
Chocolate coins: Enjoy the delicious Dark Chocolate Mint Coins from Lake Champlain Chocolates (also kosher).
Holland mints: Try our favorite Holland Mints from Marich. They’re not only pretty, they’re kosher, too.
Candy favorites: Chocolate Peppermint Patties and Mint Meltaways.
Fudge: Another temptation is the chocolate mint fudge from our favorite fudge maker, John Kelly Fudge (a NIBBLE Top Pick OF The Week, and kosher).
There’s a lot more out there.
But we’ll end with a calorie-free option:
Tea: A calorie-free option is Once Upon a Tea, the caffeine-free blend of loose tea made of rooibos tea mixed with chocolate nibs, mint and vanilla. It’s from Serendiptea.
Hmm, maybe it’s not so bad having these back-to-back chocolate mint celebrations. We think we’ll celebrate with a Chocolate Mint Martini.
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Tom Humes said,
February 19, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
Nibble Editors said,
March 1, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Thanks, Tom. This is just a wee bit of what we write. We have an online magazine at http://www.thenibble.com, with 10,000 archived pages of content about specialty food and food connoisseurship. Publishing the magazine sometimes gets in the way of doing the blog posts, but we try our best.
With best wishes,
The Nibble Editors