Death by chocolate: a cereal.
I’m laughing at my own joke in the title, hope you get it later when you see the recipe! The next few blog posts are going to be on chocolate: dessert and savory, bitter and sweet.
I have been longing to experiment with some slightly more unusual recipes with chocolate. The 100% cocoa baking bars I have to experiment with are just the thing! There are so many savory recipes that could benefit from the dark, fruity depth of cocoa. Adding it in bar form will add body and smooth mouth feel.. mmm, I’m drooling already. On the other end of the scale, so many recipes just end up too sweet. Now, anything with caramel or a super-sugary ingredient can be beautifully offset with bitter dark chocolate. So exciting, I can’t wait to dive in with you!
This series will comprise of 3 parts in which your heroine will explore: chocolate caramel rice crispy treats, red wine hot chocolate, and slow cooked beef ragu, inspired by the ragu made by Samin Rosnat in her new Netflix show: Salt, fat, acid, heat on Netflix. Have you seen it?
I’m excited to partner with a local company – Divine Chocolate, on exploring the edges of what we can do with chocolate. They started the company in the UK and have been open in the US for the last 10 years, right here in Washington DC. The interesting thing about them is that the company is co-owned by 85,000 farmer members of Kuapa Kokoo, the cooperative in Ghana that sources the cocoa. These guys are doing things the right way and their fair-trade products are amazing too.
Although I will be concentrating on those three recipes above, I have already played around so much. I couldn’t help myself. Chocolate oats for breakfast, and a wonderfully decadent chocolate and dulce de leche cake for Dylan’s birthday. The bars are all sitting in a pile on my counter looking temptingly at me to be crumbled and sprinkled into every meal I make…
Oh - the rice crispy treats made it to the top of Dylan’s cake too, if you look closely.
Dylan’s chocolate and dulce de leche birthday cake
Chocolate oatmeal with salty butter, cream and exotic fruits
Right, so as I mentioned, Divine Chocolate has a new baking bar– a 100% cocoa bar. You think you like dark chocolate? This is the REAL DEAL guys: bitter, fruity, tart, almost the experience of a fresh, strong medium-bodied espresso. I have been so excited to experiment with such a unique ingredient. And excited to partner with a company that is doing such great things in Ghana.
First recipe up is chocolate caramel rice crispy treats! Do you get my joke now, from the title? Hehe. Now this is the safest of the 3 recipes I will share with you: staying comfortably in dessert realm. But I have been dying to use up the obscene amount of caramel I happen to have. Also, day dreaming of the recipes I want to make made me remember these rich gooey bars, so much more than rice crispy treats. My mom used to make a version of these to put in our lunch boxes at school – and our friends loved them so much that my sister ended up having a little business scaling up the recipe and selling them! That’s how good these are! This recipe is fabulously easy. You can have this done in 5 minutes flat, plus setting time.
Chocolate caramel rice crispy treats