Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Xocoatl and the Heart of Darkness

Just in time for Valentine's Day, lovebirds!

"You had my heart at 'FEED THE ANGRY SUN GOD', you handsome devil you <3<3<3"


A while back, I found some really awesome vegan candy bars that were all sorts of off-the-cuff flavors. One that stuck with me was "Xocoatl" which was named after the original Aztec word that became "chocolate". It was very very bitter dark chocolate, cacao nibs, and dried chili flakes. Sounds bizarre until you eat some. After that, you'll wonder why more people don't eat it that way.

I've had designs on making this forever, but I'm always hard on luck trying to find candy molds, because some organizational moron decided that, no, you can't buy candy molds at grocery stores or even stores that sell kitchen stuff. No, you have to go to the HOBBY STORE. It's the sort of organizational irony that makes me want to TEAR OUT DELICIOUS HEARTS.

Wait, I mean make candy. Yeah. Candy.



I finally ponied up some candy molds and random crap, took half a box of unsweetened chocolate, combined with a whole box of bittersweet, and melted that in the microwave. I then stirred in a heaping tablespoon each of dried chili flakes and cacao nibs. With the grace of a caveman, I sort of slathered them into molds (I didn't use a nozzle thing because I thought the little solid bits would clog it)
and made a hilarious mess of things. I let the molds cool a little, let them cool a little more in the fridge, and then, the freezer:



Yay it mostly didn't make a mess! Now to add a little veneer to things:


Red for love? Red for hot chili peppers? Red for EVISCERATED HUMAN SACRIFICE? If you guessed all three, step up to the altar!

The bars are wrapped all slapdash because the foil didn't really fit, but it's not too terrible for my first foray. And yes, my Xocoatl is just as en fuego as the other stuff.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You foodie bastard. Your powers of deliciousness have defeated me!


(that is to say, I have gone out and bought a xocoatl bar and crossed over to the dark side.)

Chuck said...

That is awesome. What brand did you buy? The one I'm familiar with is Dagobah (yes, like Yoda's swamp planet).

Supposedly you can crumble this stuff and slowly add near-boiling cream & a good shot of kahlua to make a hot xocoatl drink, since that's supposedly how the stuff got it's start. It won't be vegan anymore if that's your thing, but it's something to think about.