Chocolate and Wine Pairings

(photo from here)

When you think of a romantic evening, what are the first two things that pop into your head?  Maybe a lingering kiss or candlelight if you’re getting fancy, but wine and chocolate should be high up on the list.  While it seems like it’d be easy to drink wine and eat chocolate and have them taste good together, it’s actually more difficult than it seems.  At the risk of sounding like a wine snob (which I most certainly am not), chocolate and wine have “flavor profiles,” and you have to be careful when combining them so you get combinations that taste good.

When pairing wine and chocolate, you can make a choice to match the flavors or contrast them to make the individual flavor profiles pop.  Many people choose to match chocolate with wines that echo the fruity flavors found in most chocolates, but there is no need to limit yourself to those options.  Feel free to play around until you find combinations you like! Here are some that I’ve found are good as well as some that I’d like to try.

Pro tip #1: if you’re having a wine tasting and chocolate party, have plain crackers on hand for people to cleanse their palates between pairings.

Pro tip #2: Pair super rich chocolate desserts with a dessert wine like ruby port which is sweet but has enough body to match the intensity of the chocolate

Wine and Chocolate Pairing Suggestions

-White Chocolate: it’s pretty versatile because it doesn’t have any cocoa which accounts for the bitter taste that some chocolate has. Try a rosé port for a strawberry flavor, Riesling, or champagne for a nice compliment.

-Milk Chocolate: Milk chocolate has less cocoa than darker chocolate so it still is fairly versatile.  Pair it with sherry, a light merlot, or Riesling.

-Semisweet Chocolate: Since it has a stronger flavor, try port or cabernet sauvignon.

-Bittersweet Chocolate: Bittersweet chocolate is known for it’s intense chocolate flavor, so here come the heavy, full-bodied wines.  Zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot make will compliment the more intense chocolate flavor nicely.  Chambord is also a nice combination.

-Dark Chocolate:  Since this is chocolate at it’s most intense, bust out the deep red wines.  Merlot, zinfandel, and bordeaux are nice options.

Let me know if you think of any pairings that would be good. Happy indulging!

See these websites for more wine and chocolate pairing suggestions! Click here, here, and here.

Should You Ever Substitute Types of Chocolate in a Recipe?

(photo from here)

If you’re anything like me, the baking bug strikes frequently and without warning.  I don’t always have the ingredients I need on hand, especially when it comes to chocolate.  I can be kind of lazy sometimes and don’t want to go to the store and get the exact ingredients I need.  I’ve tried using chips when the recipe calls for bars and mixing dark and semisweet chocolate to get bittersweet chocolate, and I’m here to tell you what works and what gives you subpar results.

Substituting like this has never led to any bad results, but some will give you better results than others.  Here’s to avoiding unnecessary trips to the grocery store!

 

The Low Down on Chocolate

-Chocolate chips: These are pretty versatile little buggers.  Any time you want chocolate to keep its shape well, use chocolate chips.  They work best for cookie and bars.  The reason why they keep their shape so well is that they’re waxier than chocolate bars and contain more stabilizing ingredients.  They also don’t contain much (if any) cocoa butter so the chocolate doesn’t get fat blooms after baking.

I have melted chips to use for truffles and it works fairly well.  The chocolate doesn’t melt as smoothly because the chips are designed to hold their shape.  You normally have to heat the chocolate for longer so they all melt and then you run the risk of overheating the chocolate.  If you decide to use chips this way, heat the chocolate carefully with a double boiler.  (See my previous post on tempering chocolate)

-Chocolate bars: This is probably the most versatile form of chocolate.  Chocolate bars melt beautifully and are awesome for making truffles, ganache, and anything where you need to have smooth melted chocolate.  The higher the cocoa butter present in the chocolate, the more smoothly it will melt.  The most fantastic chocolate I’ve ever worked with was some white chocolate bars I got from Waitrose in London that had a 100% cocoa butter content.  They melted like a dream.

Before you use bars for anything, you should chop them up into small pieces, especially if you’re melting them.  This will help the chocolate melt more quickly and maintain an even heat. Plus you can steal a square or two when you’re cutting up the chocolate!  You can substitute bars for anything unless the chocolate specifically needs to hold its shape (ie chocolate chip cookies).

-Baking chocolate: As far as I’m concerned, baking chocolate is a cruel joke to children everywhere.  I snuck a square as a kid and bitterly regretted it.  For those of you who don’t know, baking chocolate is completely unsweetened as is actually quite bitter.  Definitely wasn’t the sweet taste I was expecting as a kid.

There really isn’t any way you can get around using this.  If you run out, go to the store and buy more.  Any other chocolate you try to substitute will be way too sweet.  You can substitute cocoa powder if you’re short on time, but it’s better to have the real thing.

-Cocoa: I don’t use this much in recipes because it can be bitter and I prefer just using regular chocolate.  I love using it for dusting desserts or rolling truffles.  Substitute 3 T of cocoa powder + 1 T of oil for 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate

-Candy melts: I really don’t like these.  I know they melt perfectly smooth in no time, but they aren’t really chocolate! They taste fake, and I’m not really a fan.

Quick guide:

-Run out of white chocolate? Go buy more

-Run out of milk chocolate? Use semisweet but it won’t be as sweet

-Run out of semisweet chocolate? Use 1/2 milk chocolate to 1/2 dark or bittersweet

-Run out of dark chocolate? Use bittersweet or ¾ baking chocolate to ¼ milk chocolate in a pinch

-Run out of baking chocolate? Go buy more