Review - Dagoba Drinking Chocolates

Dagoba chocolate is a product I've been seeing turn up more and more in my local grocery stores. I started seeing it first in the baking chocolates, and later saw their drinking chocolates pop up in the hot cocoa aisle. Being a "Star Wars" fan my entire life, how could I not be drawn to this chocolate!?

As always, we're going to enjoy a couple of their drinking chocolates for the review, but I did also grab their 100% unsweetened chocolate. It has a couple other ingredients in minuscule amounts (soy lecithin and milk), but it is still a very nice chocolate to work with.

I picked up both the Authentic and the Xocolatl drinking chocolates. The Authentic is simply their dark hot chocolate, while the Xocolatl is flavored to represent the ancient Mexican drinking chocolates with some added cinnamon and chili.

There's a small label on all their products showing a little frog. This is the Rainforest Alliance logo, and it's there because Dagoba is all about sustainability. Taking care of the environment, the cacao workers, and their cacao farms. I'm all for this! If cacao isn't sustained, that would mean no chocolate. That's not a world I want to live in!

The ingredients on both products are nice and simple. A great, straight forward mix. It just seems so unnecessary to add in all the extra preservatives and stuff that most store bought hot chocolates have in them, especially once you taste a chocolate like this. So much more real chocolate flavor! 

Their instructions actually made me laugh a little. What a pleasant way to describe the act of heating milk and scooping this chocolate into it! "When vapors rise, the milk will be at its most receptive to accept the chocolate into its embrace". Seriously, how awesome is that! 

The mix itself has nice chunks of real chocolate in it, which is great. Having the actual bits of whole chocolate in there is a definite improvement over mixes that only have cocoa powder. The fat (cocoa butter) from the chocolate really makes a difference in the smoothness.

By the way, did you know what Dagoba means? A dagoba is a shrine for sacred relics in the Far East, usually pertaining to Buddha. Kind of makes sense that George Lucas used it for the name of the planet where the wise Jedi Master Yoda was living in "The Empire Strikes Back".

The Authentic has a rich, almost smoky flavor. Nice dark notes, but not bitter - it still manages to be sweet. And as I always recommend, you can use just a little of the mix for a nice lighter breakfast hot chocolate, and then in the evening, use a lot for a rich after-dinner dessert drink.

The Xocolatl is spicy, but not uncomfortably so. It's a very nice heat. The cinnamon is not as forward in this mix as in some other Mexican chocolates, but it's there, and it's a great addition. It'd be great to see Dagoba add a little more cinnamon to this mix and really make it pop!

Both of these chocolates are wonderful and worth picking up. Dagoba drinking chocolates are a perfect replacement for those packets of powdered milk disguised as hot cocoa you're keeping in your cupboard or office. Hopefully there's a gourmet grocery store near you that carries them, but if not, you can always grab them at Dagoba's website. They have a couple other flavors there, as well, like Chai, which sounds great!

Recipe - "White Hot" Hot Chocolate

When it comes to eating chocolate, I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate. It's ok when there are other ingredients mixed in, but by itself, I don't know, it's just too sweet or something. But this recipe is really great! It's light and spicy and creamy, everything you'd want from a great hot chocolate.

Is white chocolate even real chocolate? Technically, no, I don't think it is. Ok, what is it, then? Good quality white chocolate is mainly cocoa butter, sugar, and milk. Cocoa butter is the fat content of a cacao bean. When cacao liquor is pressed with tremendous pressure, the cocoa butter is separated out, leaving the solids behind. Those solids are ground further to become cocoa powder. The cocoa butter is often added to processed chocolate to increase its smoothness and creaminess. Cheap white chocolate sometimes has no cocoa butter at all, and can be mostly vegetable fats and sugar.

I'm using Godiva White Chocolate with Vanilla Bean. It's a great, high quality white chocolate, and the vanilla bean right in the bar adds a little extra flavor. 

You can see in the picture above where the heat in the "white hot" name comes from - chili powder! There's also a bit of cinnamon to balance it out a bit. It takes a bit of heat off the chili and a bit of sweetness away from the chocolate, so everything plays nice together.

The ingredient list:

1 3/4 cup milk (2% or whole)

5 tbsp chopped white chocolate

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp chili powder

Put the milk on medium heat on the stove. Once it's just about to boil, add in the white chocolate and spices and whisk until fully melted. Turn the heat down a little and let it steep for a few minutes. Even though we added in what seems to be a lot of white chocolate, you'll find the hot chocolate still has milk flavor, the white chocolate not being overpowering at all.

This drink has some bite to it, too! It's not too bad, just enough to be pleasant. When I first made this and added in that much chili powder, I really thought it would be hotter than it is. I really like this one, much more than I thought I would, considering that I don't really enjoy white chocolate. And it's a nice break from regular hot chocolates.

This is a good one to experiment with on your own, as well. Add less or more chili powder, or try cayenne pepper powder or some other kind of ground pepper. Maybe try adding some vanilla extract to really bring out those flavors in the white chocolate. Garnish it with sprinkles of chili powder or cinnamon, or even cocoa powder. Now that I think about it, maybe this drink would be perfect with some chocolate marshmallows!

Review - Chuao Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate

After trying out that recipe for ancient xocolatl, I thought I'd review one that showed just how far spicy hot chocolates have come in over two thousand years.

The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego is where I found this one. Chuao's Spicy Maya hot chocolate. While there on a weekend getaway, my girlfriend and I found a great chocolate shop on the bottom floor of the hotel, and this tin was just sitting there innocently. I purchased way more than I should have at that store, and I just couldn't leave this there without trying it. Peppers in hot chocolate was new to me at the time.

Wow! This stuff is just amazing! Hot chocolate with some kick! This is what a sweet, rich, spicy hot chocolate should taste like!

I would later learn that Chuao Chocolatier (pronounced chew-WOW) is right there in San Diego, founded by two brothers from Venezuela, Master Chef Michael Antonorsi and Richard Antonorsi. In 2011, Chuao won the sofi Awards Gold Award for Outstanding Hot Beverage with this firey chocolate drink.

There's a couple peppers in this, pasilla chile and cayenne, but what gives this hot chocolate its kick is the cayenne. The xocolatl recipe I made previously used a green chile, which didn't have quite the heat that the cayenne pepper brings to this party. There's a very distinct difference!

It's definitely got some heat, and you're going to feel it. If you're not a fan of spicy things, this may not be for you. I love spicy stuff, and this hot chocolate is just right. Not a relaxing cup of chocolate, this one's going to wake you up!

I only made the recommended serving, a 1/2 cup, and my throat was definitely burning a little bit after finishing it. In a good way, of course! It's rich and chocolaty (they use a blend of Venezuelan chocolates), and while the peppers give it some bite, the flavor of the peppers do not overpower the chocolate. I added in the last of my homemade marshmallows. (I'll post the recipe soon, since I have to make some more.)

Chuao has some chocolate cafes around San Diego county, so if you're down in that area, check them out. Around Los Angeles, I've spotted this hot chocolate in some Whole Foods stores, so keep your eyes open and check that cocoa section! Chuao's chocolate bars are pretty insane, as well. They have a potato chip bar, a honeycomb bar, maple bacon, and even a bar with pop rocks in it!

There's a bunch more spicy hot chocolates out there I'm going to review in the future. If you like this one, stay tuned. There's a wide variety!