#chocolate tastings

[thegreenleavesofspring]

I need to tell y'all about hot chocolate.

For most of my life, when I had hot chocolate, I had the Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate flavor. Well Swiss Miss has, for a few years now, been phasing out their dark chocolate flavor, and none of the local Walmarts carry it any longer. I was dependent on someone else buying it from Publix for me or taking me there, which was burdensome, since I also drink it year round.

And so hot chocolate became a sign between me and God. It's what I drank when times got hard and I needed to prove that I still trusted Him: He would provide replacement hot chocolate for me, since I wasn't in a position to do so. So I would drink a cup.

Things have been rough for my family lately. And tonight I got a nudge to go fix myself a cup of hot chocolate. And it got me thinking - about the time I had the very last packet of my Swiss Miss. Last packet, hard times, and I held it up and went "I trust You to provide me more of this."

He didn't. I don't have any way to acquire it. You know what He did? He led me to a recipe for homemade hot chocolate that I could make in giant batches that I actually prefer. I drink it almost every day, because I can, because it's cheap to make and abundant and I like it.

Hot chocolate is not really the promise that it once was - that I trusted Him to provide more - but it is now, instead, a reminder. That He provides abundantly.

[borzoilover69]

heres your food im redesigning some other idiots for a lineup

[artzee534]

Although wholesome Sonic and Tails art is good, we need more gremlin siblings art of them, too

they deserve shenanigans. as a treat

[timetraveltasting]

ORIGINAL TOLL HOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (1938)

Since I won't be home for the holidays this Christmas (we are going to Australia to spend a summery Christmas with my in-laws), I went home to Canada a little early for a quick trip - most importantly to meet my new, adorable niece! Surrounded by childhood favourites and nostalgia, I thought it would be a great idea to make a classic Tasting History treat with my mom: the Original Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. This first ever chocolate chip cookie recipe, originally called Chocolate Crunch Cookies (a later newspaper typo created its now-common name), was created by Ruth Wakefield and her head pastry chef Sue Brides at The Toll House Inn in Whittman, MA in 1938. The restaurant was already quite popular among locals and food critics, and Ruth finally decided to share the recipe for these star cookies with the public. It was printed in newspapers, and the popularity of the chocolate chip cookie grew even further when Nestlé printed it on the back of their packaging. In the original recipe, Nestlé's chocolate is mentioned by name, and the growing popularity of the cookie recipe led to a 500% increase in profits for the company. Their chocolate bars originally had to be chopped up into 'pea-sized' pieces by hand until Nestlé began selling scored bars with the correct size, and eventually chocolate chips - created especially for making chocolate chip cookies. Interestingly enough, the original chocolate chip cookie recipe is very close to the one that is still on packages today. I have very fond memories of making chocolate chip cookies with my mother as I was growing up, and I thought, what better way to compare the two recipes than to also make this original chocolate chip cookie recipe with her! See Max’s video on how to make this dish here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.

My experience making it:

Finally in my natural element in Canada, with easier to find ingredients that I recognized and could more predictably bake with, I was able to follow the recipe exactly. The one major change I made was to omit the chopped nuts completely, mostly because I'm not a fan of nuts in baked goods.

Because this recipe requires an overnight element, my mom and I began preparing the cookie dough the day before we wanted to bake and eat them. My mom began by beating the eggs, then creaming the butter with a hand mixer while I portioned out the other ingredients. She added in the sugars, eggs, baking soda dissolved in water, and vanilla and mixed them until combined. I then slowly sprinkled in the flour and salt mixture into the mixing bowl while she mixed, until that, too, was combined. I was worried the dough was looking a little too dry and dense, but my mom assured me it still looked right - I totally trust her baking instincts! We then folded the chocolate chips into the dough with a spatula, then covered it with Saran wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next evening, we preheated the oven, took our dough out (which had really hardened up!), and began portioning it out into little balls of dough. My mom had to use a fork and a bit of force to portion it, since it was so cold and solid! We used a weigh scale to determine the 14 oz. size of ball, but honestly, we did end up going up to 20 oz. or so at some points - it would have taken a long time to weigh every ball. On a lined baking sheet, we fit about 14 balls of dough, spaced about 2 inches apart. After pressing down on each just a little bit, we tossed the first batch in the oven. It smelled so good, and the bits of raw cookie dough I snuck while waiting for the cookies to bake were heavenly! When we took them out, we transferred them onto cooling racks. I think we baked about 5 trays of cookies overall, leaving us with an absolute plethora of chocolate chip cookies by the end! They looked small, but classic - almost like the chocolate chip cookies you can buy in a store. Very photogenic, in my opinion.

My experience tasting it:

Of course, our patience got the best of us, and we did not wait for the cookies to cool before trying them. No regrets! They tasted wonderful - crisp on the bottom and edges, but soft and a little melty in the middle. Really ideal, this kind of cookie could please everyone. My mom likes her cookies on the crispier side, and I like mine on the soft and gooey side, yet we both were very happy with how this recipe turned out. So was my dad, sister, my brother-in-law, and my aunt! In fact, these cookies didn't taste much different from my mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe (as I remembered it). She claims she also got her recipe from a newspaper, so it may have also had the same origin as this one. The flavour of these cookies was sweet, but balanced by the salt and rich brown sugar. They were so tasty, I think this could even become my main chocolate chip cookie recipe, although I will probably make each cookie even bigger in order to get a large volume of soft gooeyness. And I will definitely halve the recipe! 100 cookies or so, as tasty as they are, is an awful lot to get through and would definitely become noticeable on the waist. Otherwise, I agree with Max that there is a reason this recipe has lasted so many decades in its nearly-original form - it really is a crowd-pleaser. I was happy I was able to take some cookies with me back to Germany so I can share some with my husband! If you end up making this dish, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Original Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies original recipe (1938)

Sourced from Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes by Ruth Wakefield (1938).

Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies Cream 1 cup butter, add 3/4 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, and 2 eggs beaten whole. Dissolve 1 tsp soda in 1 tsp hot water, and mix alternately with 2 1/4 cups flour sifted with 1 tsp salt. Lastly add 1 cup chopped nuts and 2 bars (7 oz.) Nestle’s yellow label chocolate, semi-sweet, which has been cut in pieces the size of a pea. Flavor with 1 tsp. vanilla and drop half teaspoons on a greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes in 375° oven. Makes 100 cookies. 

Modern Recipe

Based on the recipe from Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes by Ruth Wakefield (1938) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 beaten eggs

1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tsp hot water

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup chopped nuts

14 oz. chocolate chips

Method:

Cream the butter until smooth. Mix in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, baking soda water, and vanilla until combined.

Whisk together the flour and salt. Add this to the butter mixture and mix until just combined.

Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips just until evenly distributed.

Cover and chill the dough overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190° C).

Scoop dough into balls, about 14 grams each. A half a teaspoon is way too small of a measurement, so I found weighing the dough to be the best way. Place them on lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie. Press the cookie dough down a bit.

Bake for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown.

Take them out of the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Serve them forth!

[blackynsupremacy]

Reading BWWM love stories on wattpad be like… I’m about to talk shit under the pic. 🗣️

I’m not gonna out the writer…I’m not gonna drop the title of the story either. As a black female reader who has “If he fine, he fine” energy and wants to enjoy stories of my favorite characters or celebrities who happen to be of different races and ethnicities and have them paired with a black reader or black oc as a romantic interest…

Black women are people and they should be seen as such. We are more than our outside appearance. We are more than breasts, ass, hips, and lips. No, we do not taste like chocolate because we’re not food because why does being attracted to black women have to mean you’re a “chocolate lover”? Also, just because the character or celebrity is a different race does not mean you have to put in the fact that they “never really been into black women” before dating them and then after seeing one that’s conventionally attractive, they believe they’re gonna start to like all of them like we’re an experiment or something. This goes for any writer of any race that wants to write for an interracial pairing, just be careful how you word describing people from your own culture or another’s. It was a bit romantic in the first half but, damn! Please write black people like we have personalities, feelings, and substance.

Ya’ll can agree or disagree, I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say.

[theheartneverliez]

Lime jello fudge.

He got tricked it’s apparently better than it sounds 😂😂

[graveyardfullofstars]

[sea-lanterns]

Everyone look at the cookies I baked! Do they look good? Do you think Navia would be proud of me 🥺

[kral-adams]

Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake 🫐

[kuyokishi]

mmmm chocolate chip mint.......

certain extras

[hithisiszooz]

Ice Cream Break

[callmehaneul]

[salt-n-salt]

(sniper dot appears on my forehead) hi guys

[devotion-disorder]

birthday santa (im 21 now wtf)

*un-christmas’s your samta*

[thephoenixcave]

Terra and Edgar eating ice cream at the park

Back in November 2020 I was pandemic-stressed and election-stressed. During lockdown I filled a sketchbook with edgar x terra and also tried to teach myself Japanese. These comics come from that period. I loved returning to my comfort ship, and thinking up stories for them and drawing them happy and together. (Even though Edgar probably returned home a sticky mess 🍦

The final panel, it is the onomatopoeia in Japanese that translates to “plop”. As in, “plop, now there’s ice cream on your lap!” Being in love sometimes means putting up with these things

I always wanted to redraw the second half of the story. You can see it’s done with pen and paper and looks less polished than my usual stuff. But who knows if I’ll ever get around to it.

Anyway tonight I am once again election-stressed and am looking for cute, for sweet, for safe. And that is ffvi and edotina for me 🥰

[lez-bichi-lover]

No new art as I'm getting a little busy with school and personal stuff, but I remembered I had this old shitpost LMAO [I should redraw it someday...]