by Judy Schultz
In their own way, these post-Christmas months are as exciting as the recently-departed festive season was, or ever will be.
Let’s call it chocolate season. It’s a triple threat: the romance of Valentine’s Day, followed by the springtime whimsy of Easter (bunnies, eggs, chickens) and finishing with big wind-up over Mother’s Day.
It’s all so darkly, sweetly mysterious.
Although the beginning of chocolate season may not be the best time to admit it, I am not what you’d call a true chocoholic. I can go days without it, no problem.
But then will come the winter blahs…the emotional quagmire of slip-on-the-ice misery. (And I ask myself: is this raspy little cough about to become pneumonia?)
On such a day, there’s only one sure cure, and its name is chocolate. Hot chocolate. The best, if not the only answer. Thick enough to coat your spoon (maybe a whisker of cornstarch in the mix?) deeply dark, smooth as velvet, with just a hint of something else (cardamom? espresso?).
It arrives in a mug you can trust, heavy and hot enough to warm your hands on a cold night, best consumed in a corner lit by a single candle. A puff of whipped cream rests on the surface; a pillow of edible swan’s down, neither aerated nor shot at warp speed out of a tin can. Just enough cream, but not so much that chocolate overflows. Sweet hot comfort in a mug. I feel better already.
That said, there are a couple of chocolate desserts for which I’d walk over hot coals. One is the chocolate pudding my Mom made every January, a simple little cornstarch-based dish. I loved the chewy skin that formed as it cooled. Yes, there are ways of preventing that skin, but why would you spoil the best thing about chocolate pudding?
The second one is the hot chocolate soufflé invented by David Lebovitz, an American chef currently living in Paris. His soufflé is perfection. A dark, fluffy cloud baked under a fragile crust. Talk about seductive dishes, if this one doesn’t work, it’s all over. (Lebovitz has published two recipes for chocolate soufflé, both available online. Use the one with cornstarch, it gets even better as it rests out of the oven for a few minutes. If someone stays over, you can eat it for breakfast.)
The truth? Chocolate is all about romance. Especially now, all tidied up in a fancy heart-shaped box, beruffled and beribboned. Part of romance is mystery, evoked by the darkness of chocolate itself. Isn’t that why we need a map with that box of Jacek? Otherwise we resort to sneaky methods: squeeze the mysterious bonbon just enough to crack the couverture, the better to see what’s what. Is it coffee cream? Could it be mint, or some sort of ersatz fruit gum that doesn’t belong in a chocolate? Or the white sugary goop that surrounds a maraschino cherry? Lacking a map, the only one I really trust is the reliably square chocolate with the rippled surface. Yay, a caramel.
And oh, the cakes. Devil’s food cake, three layers, with waves of seven-minute seafoam icing rolling across the top. German chocolate cake, crusted with coconut, pebbled with walnuts. And brownies, delicious downfall of the formerly svelte.
Still, we persist in fixing what isn’t broken. Black cocoa is trending. But why? Black cocoa (not just dark, but black) I can do without. Apologies to your classic Oreo, but black cocoa leaves residual grit in the bottom of my milk after dipping. A solid no to that one. Nor do I find much appeal in heavily-spiced Mexican chocolate featuring everything from dried rosebuds to aniseed and chili peppers.
There’s a message here. Cherish the good stuff and let it bask in solitary splendour.
Remember that guy who said; ‘don’t mess with perfection?” He was talking about chocolate.
We’re just in time for the launch of Western Canada’s first and only chocolate festival, upcoming April 25 and 26 at Millennium Place in Sherwood Park. The Chocofest promises two days of tastings and competitions (bakers, start your ovens). Yes, there’ll be a hot chocolate bar. Watch for it!