Granny's Cookbook
Chocolate!
Oreo "Truffles"
8 oz. cream cheese
1 pound Oreos
1 pound milk or dark chocolate
1/2 pound white chocolate
Grind Oreos to find powder in food processor. With a mixer, blend cookie powder and cream cheese until thoroughly mixed (there should be no white traces of cream cheese). Roll into small or large balls and place on wax-lined cookie sheet. Chill 45 minutes.
Line two cookie sheets with wax paper. In double-boiler, melt milk or dark chocolate. Dip balls and coat thoroughly. With slotted spoon or fork, lift balls out of chocolate and let excess chocolate drip off. Place on wax-paper-lined cookie sheet. In separate double boiler, melt white chocolate. Using a fork, drizzle white chocolate over balls. Let cool.
Store in airtight container, in refrigerator.
The Rules of Chocolate
If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
The problem: How to get two pounds of chocolate home from the store in a hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.
A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?
If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.
Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous? Because no one wants to quit.
Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.
Chocolate is a health food. Chocolate comes from cacao beans. Beans are vegetables. Sugar is derived either from sugar beets or cane, both vegetables. And, of course, the milk/cream is dairy. So eat more chocolate to meet the dietary requirements for daily vegetable and dairy intake.
There is actually no written history of chocolate production until 1492, when Christopher Columbus brought back many treasures from his voyages overseas. One of the things he brought to the King and Queen of Spain was cocoa beans, which today are the principal ingredient in chocolate. However, it wasn’t until the early 1500’s when Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez voyaged to Mexico, that chocolate became recognized as valuable.
He found that the Aztec Indians used cocoa beans in preparing a thick, cold, unsweetened royal drink called chocolatl. Cortez and his men didn’t like the bitterness of the drink and thought that adding cane sugar and warming it would help. He was right, and the warm sweet drink made from cocoa beans became a delicacy among Spanish royalty. Spain kept their discovery of this chocolate drink a secret from the rest of Europe for almost 100 years.
By the mid 1600’s the chocolate drink spread quickly through France and England. In England, chocolate houses were becoming as popular as coffee houses. In 1765, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New World’s first chocolate factory opened. By 1847, a Dutch chemist invented a cocoa press, which allowed chocolate producers to make hard candy. Up until this time, chocolate was only enjoyed in a liquid form! And in 1876, Daniel Peter, a Swiss candy maker devised a way of adding milk to chocolate, creating the milk chocolate that we know and love today.
Can you believe it has only been 163 years since chocolate candy has been around? And now it is so popular that you can buy it in almost any store that sells food.
Easy Fudge--Made with candy bars!
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 (12oz) can evaporated milk
1 Tbsp. butter
Mix ingredients, then boil 5 minutes.
Add:
2 1/2 (6 oz) large Hershey's candy bars, crushed
1 (12 oz) bag semi sweet chips
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Nuts (optional)
Beat for just a couple of minutes, then pour into a well buttered 9x13 pan for thicker fudge or use 2 pans for thinner fudge.
Cocoa beans are seeds from the pods of cacao trees, a tropical plant that thrives in hot, rainy climates. This picture is from a rain forest in Ecuador.
Waffle Brownies
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 tablespoons milk
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
Powdered sugar for serving, if desired
Preheat a waffle iron.
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a small, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and milk. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat. Add the unsweetened chocolate and vanilla. Stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.
Allow the mixture to cool for a few minutes, then stir in the eggs. Gradually blend in the flour mixture until smooth.
Drop rounded spoonfuls of the brownie mixture into the preheated waffle iron. Close the iron and cook for about 2 minutes (it might take even less time) until the brownies are done.
Remove and cool on a rack. Dust with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.
Homemade Chocolate Syrup
◦1 1/4 C sugar
◦1 C unsweetened cocoa powder
◦1 C water
◦1/4 t salt
◦2 t vanilla extract
In a medium saucepan, whisk together sugar and cocoa powder until most of the lumps are gone. Add water and salt and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, until thickened, continuing to stir frequently. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes, then add vanilla extract. Store in air tight container in the fridge.
To make chocolate milk, add 1 tablespoon of chocolate sauce to a cup of milk and stir until combined.
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted, cooled
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
In large bowl, mix oil, chocolate, granulated sugar and vanilla. Stir in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover; refrigerate at least 3 hours.
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease cookie sheet with shortening or cooking spray.
Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into powdered sugar; roll around to coat and shape into balls. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly in center. Immediately remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.
A Family Favorite!
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
