European-style hot chocolate means melting shavings, beads or disks of actual chocolate and adding boiling water or milk. That’s what you do with Recchiuti Dark Hot Chocolate Pure Chocolate Pistoles, one of the favorites you’ll read about.
December 2006 |
Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Beverages
Some Like It Hot: Cocoa & Hot Chocolate To Part 2Page 8: Gourmet Hot Cocoa Brands D To E
This is Page 8 of a 10-page review of hot chocolate and cocoa brands. Click on the black links below to visit other pages. Hot Chocolate Brands D To E
Dagoba Organic Chocolate Authentic Hot Chocolate. Beverage is a medium cocoa brown color, with a mildly chocolate aroma. Decent chocolate impact, with flavor verging toward bittersweet, but lots of undissolved flecks of chocolate, some of which do register on tongue, leading to a slightly gritty effect. First ingredient: evaporated cane juice. Entire ingredient list: evaporated cane juice, cacao powder, unsweetened chocolate. Sodium content: 2 mg/serving, Instructions are either tongue-in-cheek or meant to suggest some element of ritual/mystery, but suggesting the repeated stirring of heated milk eleven times in one direction, then eleven times in the other, is a bit odd. Price: $8.60 for 12 ounces. Read our full review of Dagoba Chocolate.
Dolfin Copeaux de Chocolat (77% min. de cacao, GMO free). Beverage a light milky brown with many undissolved chocolate flecks and a lightly chocolate aroma. Much stronger chocolate flavor than light color of beverage suggests; beverage not sweet enough. First ingredient: cocoa mass. Entire ingredient list: cocoa mass, sugar, low fat cocoa powder, soya lecithin. Sodium content: not listed. Price: $14.95 for 12.35 ounces. Domori Cacao Cult Hot Chocolate. This “mix” comes in the form of small, individually-wrapped bars, with instructions in metric quantities (note that the 60 ml of liquid called for is about 1/4 cup). It’s impossible to dissolve the bars entirely in the hot liquid, even with brisk whisking and replacing the saucepan over low heat. However, if you like big red wines, this is for you; it’s the hot, liquid, chocolate equivalent of Cabernet Sauvignon. First ingredient: cocoa mass. Entire ingredient list: cocoa mass (65% minimum), cane sugar, cocoa butter. Sodium content: not listed. Price: $14.95 for 7.6 ounces. Read our review of Domori Chocolate. Dorado Signature D Old World Collection Haute Chocolate Mix. Mix is in large chunks—inconvenient to measure. Instructions don’t make sense: “Mix a tablespoon to taste with hot milk, stir, and enjoy.” As no specific quantity of milk was stated, 1 tablespoon of mix was used to 4 ounces of hot milk. At those proportions, beverage was a light milky brown with a faint chocolate aroma and very little (though pleasant) chocolate flavor. First ingredient: cacao liquor. Entire ingredient list: cacao liquor, sugar, cacao butter, cocoa powder, dry whole milk, soy lecithin, vanilla. Sodium content: not listed. Price: $15.95 for 12 ounces. Enrico Rovira Chocolate a la Taza. A deeply bittersweet flavor, with some astringency. I love the texture of this beverage, which is that of a warm chocolate pudding. The color is deep chocolate and is matched by the aroma. Negatives: there’s no convenient way to make a small number of servings and too great a range is given in the amount of milk (between 1/2 and 1 liter; I used the midpoint, about 3 cups). Would be a favorite except for the drawbacks. First ingredient: cocoa. Entire ingredient list: cocoa, sugar, vanilla. Sodium content: not listed. NOTE: While Enrico Rovira is one of the world’s greatest chocolatiers, Zingerman’s currently lists this product merely as Spanish Drinking Chocolate. You will need to search for it by that name on their website unless Zingerman’s responds to our suggestion that they give Sr. Rovira his due. Price: $18.00 for 6 servings. Elevated Ice Cream’s Premium Drinking Chocolate. A medium milky-brown beverage with a decently chocolatey aroma. I had a problem with this mix. Although I followed instructions precisely, there were many small chunks of chocolate in the mix that didn’t dissolve entirely in the hot milk. The resulting beverage had a definite chocolate flavor but no element of sweetness at all. My guess was that the chocolate chunks contained the necessary sweetness, so on a subsequent attempt a small amount of the hot milk was added to the mix; this was then stirred and heated to dissolve any chocolate bits before the rest of the milk was added. While the resulting beverage was better, it still wasn’t sweet enough, and not enough of the chocolate chunks eventually dissolved. First ingredient: cocoa (processed with potassium carbonate). Entire ingredient list: cocoa, sugar, semisweet chocolate, pure vanilla, soya lecithin. Sodium content: 5 mg/serving. NOTE: Elevated Ice Cream does not have online ordering, but will be happy to take your order over the phone at 1.360.385.1156. Price: $6.00 for 12 ounces.
Continue To Page 9: Hot Chocolate Brands Beginning With F To L
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