Dark Chocolate Terror

Chocolate, Sweetheart

I’m sorry for terrorizing you.  If you’re not able to partake in the experience of drowning yourself in luxurious chocolate, dark as night with a bittersweet bite and an aroma that makes you swoon, I am really, really sorry.   This post may make you cry.  It’s likely to be traumatizing.  That is, if you like quality dark chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, spice and sea salt and can’t get to it.  Oh, and did I mention bacon?  Yep, bacon, but that will come much later.

By now, if you’re familiar with the FRANtastic life at FRANtasticFood, you’re well acquainted with the fact that I’m thrilled with the fact that I’ve learned how to temper chocolate in my microwave and any chance I get to turn a block of the stuff into something I can claim my own makes for a successful day.

And when you’ve got a cabinet with bars of Valrhona Chocolate which you scored at prices so low you couldn’t help but grab it all off the Winter Clearance table to rescue it from a home in which it might sit, unused, blooming into white blocks of tasteless chocolate, all kinds of ideas come to mind.  Bathing in it was my first inclination, but well, I can’t afford that much chocolate right now, so making dreamy chocolate bars was the answer.

Valentine’s Day is coming up and this is what I wish:  I wish I had a Valentine to give this chocolate to.  I’d say; “I made this for you, please enjoy my chocolate, sweetheart.” Uh.  Yeah.  No.  I wouldn’t say that.  Can you imagine ME saying that?  It is NOT at all a FRANtastic thing to say.  As a matter of fact, if something like that came from my mouth I’d be FRANtic at the FRANdemonium it would cause in my head.  Seriously.

So here we are with a multitude of photos of some of my favorite things all jumbled up into something I’m going to call Crazy Chocolate.

And then I woke up with a crazy idea.  Bacon and Chocolate.  Sure, I’ve seen a few photos of maple syrup coated chocolate and heard talk of chocolate covered chocolate, but I hadn’t given the process of making chocolate with bacon in it any real thought — until this morning.

I pulled out a package of bacon and cooked it on a low heat until it was dark and crispy.  And then I reached into the fridge and the pantry for the following:

• Dried Apricots
• Fresh Ginger
• Candied Ginger
• Chipotle Spice Rub

And it all came together in a new candy bar.  I decided to finish the chocolate on a jellyroll pan and ended up with a rather thin bar of Crazy Chocolate.  It tastes good, but needs more heft.  Next time I’m not going to go crazy with my knife skills.  I’d like to bite into a chunk of this chocolate and have some resistance from bacon or a larger piece of apricot and I’ll go a little heavier on the chipotle spice rub.  It works quite well with chocolate.

If you were going to make a chocolate bar, what would you put in yours?  And would you use dark chocolate, or milk chocolate?

I encourage you to try your hand at tempering chocolate.  I’ve been using this method from eHow and it’s worked every time.  Go ahead, give it a try — especially if you’ve got a Valentine you want to impress or treat to something special.

Next time caramel is going to find it’s way into my chocolate bar, but these are going to last me a while.

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In 2007 my career with a large, but shrinking high tech Fortune 50 \"left me,\" leaving a void in my life. While lamenting the loss and flying around the world looking for a new career to get married to, I discovered a way to use a familiar outlet during tough times -- writing. My blog-writing morphed into writing about my favorite past time -- Food! I purchase food, sell food, make food, watch food being made, broadcast meal preparation, photograph and blog about food. Like I said; Food! To change this standard text, you have to enter some information about your self in the Dashboard -> Users -> Your Profile box.

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Tagged as: Chocolate, Cook, Eat, Food, Terror, Valentine's Day, Valrhona Chocolate