Dark chocolate: Grilling with Farastero and Criollo

It is a comforting treat for the soul and a pick-me-up: chocolate. It has even been proven to have health benefits - if the cocoa content is high enough. But the more cocoa there is in the chocolate, the less sugar it has and the more intense or bitter the taste. That's not everyone's cup of tea. But packaged in our recipes, it is guaranteed to seduce every discerning palate.

The cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) originally comes from the Amazon region. It can grow up to fifteen meters tall and bears melon-shaped fruits (pods) that contain up to fifty seeds - the so-called cocoa beans. Like many things that are commonplace for us today, cocoa came to Europe through the Spanish conquerors and initially only delighted the nobility. Products containing cocoa are mainly made from the main varieties Farastero and Criollo. Farastero is a high-yielding cocoa for consumption and has a strong, intense cocoa flavor. It is mainly grown in Africa and makes up the majority of world production. Criollo comes mostly from South America and is a so-called fine cocoa variety. It is mainly used for flavoring and processed into high-quality dark chocolate. And this chocolate has it all: According to a British study, eating a small piece every day not only soothes the soul but also keeps the blood vessels elastic. This is due to the many flavanols contained in the cocoa in dark chocolate, which can bind cell-damaging substances. So, get your chocolate on!

Instead of chocolate bars, we used chocolate coating in the recipe. Chocolate coating differs from conventional chocolate in that it has a higher fat content, which makes it thinner and creamier when melted. For chocolate coating, the cocoa mass, sugar and total fat content are given as a percentage: 70/30/38 means that the chocolate coating consists of 70 percent cocoa mass and 30 percent sugar, and the total fat content is 38 percent. Chocolate coating with the information 60/40/38 is not quite as bitter. White chocolate coating contains cocoa butter and milk powder instead of cocoa mass.

Chocolate-almond cakes with glazed apple slices
Recipe by Fabian Beck

Ingredients
(for approx. 10 portions):

  • 175 g soft butter
  • 50 g sugar
  • 100 g egg yolks
  • 225 g chocolate coating
  • 150 g protein
  • 100 g sugar
  • 30 g ground almonds
  • 75 g flour
  • 100 g almond leaves
  • 2 apples
  • 10 walnuts
  • some sugar
  • some white wine
  • powdered sugar
  • some chocolate or couverture pieces to decorate the plates

Preparation :

Roughly chop the chocolate coating and melt it in a water bath. Beat the butter until light and fluffy and gradually add the egg yolks. Then slowly pour in the melted chocolate coating and stir in. Beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff and fold in loosely. Finally, carefully mix the ground almonds, flour and flaked almonds into the chocolate mixture. Fill the dough into paper cases (for better stability, you may want to put 2-3 paper cases inside each other) and bake at around 180° C in a closed grill for around 15-20 minutes. Warning: the cakes will burst when baking.

In the meantime, core the apples and cut them into slices. Heat a pan and caramelize some of the sugar in it. Deglaze with a splash of white wine, add the apple slices and walnuts, stir and leave to steep for a while. Carefully remove the cakes from the molds, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with the glazed apples.