Chili season is upon us, and this hearty beef and bean slow cooker chili recipe is an easy way to kick it off! It’s loaded with all the classic chili ingredients plus a pinch of cinnamon to deepen the flavor. Top it off with homemade crispy corn strips. Continue reading “Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Chili” » LEGGI TUTTO
To use the windowpane test to check dough for proper gluten development, lightly flour hands and pinch off (don’t tear) a small piece of dough. Slowly pull the dough out from the center. If the dough is ready, you will be able to stretch it until it’s thin and translucent like a windowpane. If the dough tears, it’s not quite ready. Beat for 1 minute, and test again. LEGGI TUTTO
Make mornings easier with overnight slow cooker oatmeal. This recipe combines warming spices and melt-in-your-mouth golden raisins with the nutty bite of steel-cut oats to take breakfast to a whole new level—and requires less work than the stovetop method. Continue reading “Slow Cooker Spiced Oatmeal” » LEGGI TUTTO
When the weather cools, it’s time for hearty, filling comfort food! This meal plan is loaded with warming chicken and vegetable stew, creamy broccoli cheddar mac and cheese, Instant Pot Balsamic Pot Roast, and Steamed Mussels in a rich tomato sauce. It’s like a warm hug from your kitchen. Continue reading “5 Hearty Dinners to Help You Feel Satisfied” » LEGGI TUTTO
From Hershey’s to Guittard and Ghirardelli, here are the brands of cocoa and chocolate that we buy and use in our baking!
My Simply Recipes co-editors and I have lovingly referred to this past month as Choctober.
Chocolate is good anytime, anywhere, but chocolate recipes feel especially on point when the weather turns colder. Hot chocolate! Hot cocoa! Chocolate banana bread! Chocolate brownies! Double chocolate cupcakes! Someone stop me, please, before I share this list of 14 more decadent chocolate recipes. (Too late.)
To make all the chocolate things you need to have some chocolate (bar or chips) or cocoa on hand. But what kind?
Quality, flavor, meltability can all vary from brand to brand, so I queried my fellow team members for their favorite go-to brands for cocoa, baking chocolate, and chocolate chips.
Our Favorite Cocoa
Before we get into cocoa, are you wondering about the difference between Dutch-process and natural cocoa? We wrote a post about that! Check it out here.
Now on to our favorites…
Hershey’s Original 100% Cocoa
$3.00 for 8-ounce can
Hershey’s natural, non-alkanized cocoa powder (read: not Dutch-processed) has a pleasant, familiar flavor, great for cozy baked goods you want to taste like your childhood. LEGGI TUTTO
A chocolatey riff on the classic Adonis cocktail, this drink is made with crème de cacao, sherry, and vermouth. This low-proof cocktail feels so special you won’t know what you’re missing. It’s equally perfect for a holiday cocktail party or Friday movie night!
Photography Credit: Sam Schick
The Chocolate Lark accomplishes the near-impossible: surprising complexity and body for a low-alcohol cocktail, enshrouded in a deliciousness that stops shy of being a dessert. This cocktail is one any host should have up their sleeve.
In fact, as a lower-proof cocktail, its character is entirely built on the interplay of its compelling ingredients—specifically, sherry, vermouth, and creme de cacao.
THE LIQUORS FOR THIS COCKTAIL
Shy with alcohols, gregarious with flavor: The Chocolate Lark sees a sherry complemented by a deep, rich vermouth, and a dark crème de cacao. Each is a character in its own right, but together, they practically sing.
Amontillado sherry is an aromatic, intriguingly dry fortified wine. Aged in oak barrels and beneath a layer of flor (yeast), this sherry’s concentrated aroma and dynamic flavor are rich in the nose, but light on its feet. Amontillado is the rosé of the sherry world: darker, less dry than fino sherry, but lighter than oloroso. Lustau Los Arcos Amontillado Sherry is your best fit, but this recipe also works well with light, dry sherries, such as manzanilla or fino.
Carpano Antica Formula (a vermouth) has a strong body, dark complexity, and self-assurance that has made it a standard in bars the world over. Its strong vanilla notes are joined by cacao nib, orange peel, and dried cherry. If you want something more than a basic sweet vermouth but cannot find Carpano, try Coccchi Vermouth di Torino, Cinzano Rossocchi Vermouth di Torino, or Cinzano Rosso.
A dark crème de cacao provides the chocolate wheels on which this cocktail rolls. Too often misused and abused, crème de cacao is best when used with some restraint (no more than 3/4 ounce). This will add just enough richness, sweetness, and depth. Tempus Fugit Crême de Cacao à la Vanille, a recipe recreation from the liqueur’s heyday, is a great choice, as is Marie Brizard Brown Cacao Liqueur.
OTHER INGREDIENTS FOR THIS CHOCOLATE COCKTAIL
Chocolate Bitters are going to amplify not only the chocolate of the crème de cacao, but also the deep body of the vermouth. You can make your own, go with Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters, or be really interesting and try Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.
Fresh lime juice pairs wonderfully with the chocolate while brightening the cocktail. Reserve a single wedge of lime to coat the rim of the coupe glass if you are going to garnish the cocktail.
Black sugar is a useful, if not necessary, garnish. (I’ll confess that I often skip the sugar.) It’s an unrefined brown sugar (the molasses content of which makes it black) and lends the rim of your glass a sweet, gravelly ring. Your best bet to find it will be local specialty shops or Amazon.
A LOW ABV COCKTAIL THAT STILL FEELS SPECIAL
We get some specialness out of this drink precisely because its chocolate is not allowed to overwhelm; it’s like an ingenue doing a surprise turn as a character actor: definitely noticed in every frame, but holding enough back as to draw your attention, rather than force it.
We get balance (not easy to come by without a stronger base spirit and the risk of oversweetening the concoction) from the surprise combination of sherry and lime juice, as they together bring a welcome acidity and brightness alongside the rich seasoning of the vermouth and sweetness of the crème de cacao.
THE HISTORY OF THE COCKTAIL
This cocktail is a riff on The Adonis cocktail, a sherry, vermouth, and bitters number that dates back to the late 1880s, and is named for the first Broadway musical. (The Adonis was itself a riff on the Bamboo, which went with a dry, “French” vermouth.) So why are we calling this a “lark”? For that, you can thank Shakespeare, whose poem “Venus and Adonis” refers to a “gentle lark,” which is perhaps the best description of this cocktail.
Now, cocktails and sherry go back a long way—once upon a time, sherry was as common a base ingredient as gin or whiskey. And for good reason: the fortified wine provides both body and acidity, levity, and complexity while leaving room for a broad range of other flavors to play their parts.
ANY VARIATIONS OR WAYS TO SWITCH IT UP?
Port of Adonis: Add 1 ounce of Tawny Port, and reduce the vermouth to 3/4 ounce, to introduce a dark stewed fruit flavor against the briny minerality of a drier sherry.
Stronger Adonis: You would be sacrificing the drink’s coveted status of low-ABV, but substituting cognac for the sherry, and a tawny port in place of the Carpano will go down very well indeed.
Chocolate Coronation: Substitute Maraschino for the simple syrup, and Marie Brizard’s Cacao Blanc for the dark creme, and you’ll have a chocolatey riff on the Coronation, an aromatic, delicately fruity cocktail from Harry Craddock’s 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book.
MORE LOW-PROOF OR NONALCOHOLIC DRINKS
Chocolate Lark Cocktail (Low-Proof) Recipe
Ingredients
1 ounce Amontillado sherry
1 ounce Carpano Antica
3/4 ounce crème de cacao
1/4 ounce fresh lime juice
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes chocolate bitters
Black sugar (garnish)
Method
1 Garnish the glass: Just before serving, use a lime wedge to wet the outer rim of a chilled coupe glass. Turning the glass on its side, dip the outer rim into a small bowl filled with black sugar, and coat the outer top of the glass.
2 Make the cocktail: In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add the sherry, Carpano Antica (or vermouth), crème de cacao, lime juice, and simple syrup. Shake until cold to the touch, and strain into a chilled coupe glass.
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Sam Schick
Sam Schick is a designer and drinks historian living in Seattle, WA with his joy Megan Gordon (our Marketing Director!) and their two small kids. There he helms the design firm Neversink, savors every quiet last sip of an Islay Scotch, and tirelessly works on new chartreuse recipes.
More from Sam LEGGI TUTTO
1.5 oz Apple Brandy (Calvados is traditional, but Applejack is a suitable American substitute)
¾ oz Yellow Chartreuse
¾ oz Benedictine Liqueur
Several Dashes of Aromatic Bitters (we, of course, like to use our Embitterment Aromatic Bitters)
Combine these ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, stir for about 15-20 seconds until the mixture is well chilled and properly diluted, then strain into a stemmed cocktail glass and garnish with a brandied cherry.
The Widow’s Kiss cocktail showcases three prototypically French spirits: Calvados, Yellow Chartreuse, and Benedictine (which is another herbal liqueur produced by an order of Catholic monks). This is an excellent formulation to pull out if you prefer sweet, but balanced cocktails. It’s definitely on the sweet and boozy size, but we would hazard to say that it’s not for everybody and that you really need to nail the dilution on this one. You just can’t get away with under-diluting it because it will be both too hot and too sweet on the palate if you do.
This cocktail, along with the Diamondback cocktail, are really the only places you’re going to see Yellow Chartreuse used in a cocktail format, so if you’re an aficionado of esoteric liqueurs, we really do think you owe it to yourself to try these things with other ingredients instead of solely sipping them neat or on the rocks.
Show Notes
The bottles we tasted through in this episode were (in order): Yellow Chartreuse, Green Chartreuse, and the Chartreuse 9th Centenary Liqueur. Below, we offer some history and context, as well as our tasting notes from this experience.
History of Chartreuse
In 1084, the Order of Carthusians (also known as the Order of St. Bruno) was founded near city of Grenoble in east-central France close to the borders of present-day Switzerland and Italy. This is Catholic sect of monks who live an ascetic life that is largely silent (with the exception of prayer and weekly check-ins).
In 1605, the order was given a recipe for an “elixir” by General François Annibal d’Estrées, and that recipe was the basis for Green Chartreuse, which was officially sold for the first time in 1764. The yellow variant was launched about 75 years later in 1838.
Corrections
During this interview, Eric indicated that there was a significant (and potentially causal) relationship between the Phyloxera Plague and the distillate bases of Green (sugar beet) and Yellow (grape) Chartreuse. Upon reviewing the history, this doesn’t seem to hold up, and Eric is very sorry that he got it wrong.
Chartreuse Tasting Notes
Yellow Chartreuse – (40% ABV) On the nose, saffron and angelica root are readily apparent, with hints of raisin, fennel, and honey. On the palate, it’s sweet and grapey with notes of tarragon and chamomile.
Green Chartreuse – (55% ABV) The aroma is reminiscent of “forest floor” (or the scent of an alpine forest after a rain), with clover, mint, and lemon balm coming through. On the palate, the spices jump out, with cinnamon, clove, and mace all making an appearance to support a heavy hit of genepy.
9th Centenary Liqueur – (47% ABV) Ethan pulled out notes of latex paint and old tweed on the nose, while Eric was more in the cedar universe. It has a generally “darker” and “funkier” aromatic profile than the Green Chartreuse. On the palate, it has a great deal of spearmint (rather than peppermint), mustard seed, and tea notes, and perhaps some lemon thyme. Finally, we should point out that this product does contain sesame seeds, which certainly contribute to the savory flavor of this expression.
This episode was made possible with editing and sound design by Samantha Reed, production and stream management by Eric Holtzman, a great bottle of rare Chartreuse courtesy of Ethan Hall and Domestique Wine here in DC, and a little bit of tasting magic by yours truly. This has been a Modern Bar Cart Production, copyright 2020. LEGGI TUTTO
Learn about the two forms of cocoa powder, when to use Dutch-processed cocoa and when to use natural or regular cocoa, and how to substitute one for the other. Continue reading “What’s the Difference Between Dutch-Process and Natural Cocoa Powder?” » LEGGI TUTTO
