Haute Chocolate

As you know, I have never had either coffee or tea in my life, a fact that I am confident many of you have repressed.

To many friends, it seems an impossibility. How could you not drink coffee? Tea? Is it my religion, they ask? An allergy?

Neither of the above. My parents could not get me to drink milk, so they disguised it as hot chocolate, thus addicting me to this elixir for life.

To this day - and I see no changes in my future - I have cocoa every morning of the year. People find this odd, and state confidently that cocoa is a winter beverage. "C'mon!" I protest, "You drink hot coffee or scalding tea all year long!" It's different, they say. But it's not.

I drink an entire café-au-lait bowlful to start each day. It is my breakfast - full of protein and chocolate happiness. It keeps me sated until noon, unless someone asks me if I want a pastry, and then, of course, all bets are off.

Cocoa and hot chocolate are very different beverages. Cocoa is less sweet and made from cocoa powder, a little sugar, and milk - I use skim or 1%. Hot chocolate, by contrast, is best made using the highest-quality bittersweet chocolate available, melted lovingly into milk or cream. It can be made from skim milk, too, but why would you?

I tend to save hot chocolate for special occasions, and use it more as a dessert. Its richness calls for smaller amounts - doses, almost. Demitasse cups are the perfect size.

Today's recipe is, to me, the most exquisite of all hot chocolates. It is adapted from one I found in Saveur magazine, and have tinkered with for almost 20 years. Markipedia was fascinated by the geography of the ingredient list. I misread the caption and thought the source was South American, to which Mark immediately said, "No, this has to be Spanish Baroque." He was right. (It is hard living with an encyclopedia.) The entire sprawling Spanish empire is found in this little cup: chocolate, chile and vanilla from Central America, saffron from the Mediterranean, milk and roses from Eurasia, cinnamon and sugar from Southeast Asia.

He’s insisted I keep my version of this recipe a secret for twenty years, but as it has published origins, it is time to share it with all my friends. It makes a great flavor base for panna cotta, or homemade truffles. Those concepts are MY addition to the culinary world.

And it is never too soon to plan for Valentine’s Day, is it?

Bottoms up, and pinkies out!

~ David

Spanish Baroque Hot Chocolate

adapted from Saveur Magazine

3 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cinnamon sticks

1 chile de árbol

1 vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1/8 ounce dried culinary rose buds

pinch salt

4 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate - about 70% cacao

Place the milk in a medium saucepan, and add the cinnamon, chile, vanilla bean, saffron, rose buds, and salt. Over medium heat, bring almost to a boil, then remove from the heat, cover, and let steep 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, break chocolate into small pieces and place in another medium saucepan, preferably one with a good lip that pours easily. Strain the milk into the pan with the chocolate, and place over medium-low heat, whisking, until the mixture is hot.

Pour into small demitasse or tea cups, and serve with immediately.

Serves 4.

Notes on the china: The chocolate pot is English and was a gift from our friend Sue, and the red and gold demitasse cups, from John, hail from Bavaria. The rest, with the exception of the Monet blue and yellow plate (Limoges), are all saucers from a collection of beautiful teacups (English and Bavarian) that came from the estate of our friends' Lynn & Lee's Aunt Mary. The pitcher with the parrots (German) was a rare impulse purchase by Markipedia.