Chocolate connoisseurs are like coffee connoisseurs — they prefer their product pure and bitter. Dolfin, my favorite chocolatier, manufactures some terrific bitter chocolate, including one with a staggeringly high 88 percent cocoa solids.
Once you move away from the classic marriages — chocolate with caramel, chocolate with coffee, chocolate with nuts or berries — combining chocolate with other flavors can be a tricky business. Chocolate clashes with lemon, with many wines, with apples, with most fresh fruit, in fact.
Dolfin sells some conventionally flavored chocolates — a great bitter chocolate with orange peel, a deeply flavored cafe au lait with coffee extract and milk chocolate; but their real specialty is unconventional flavorings, including chocolate with anise, with rose water, with cumin, even with lemon extract.
Their chocolate with Earl Grey is one of the most balanced and complex confections I’ve ever tasted, a bittersweet chocolate infused with the tannic, hibiscus flavor of Earl Grey tea.
But my favorite is probably the Milk Chocolate with Cinnamon — milk chocolate mixed with roughly chopped Ceylonese cinnamon.
The Milk Chocolate with Cinnamon is inspiration for my take on hot chocolate. I’ve combined milk and bittersweet chocolate with milk a pinch of salt and a handful of fragrant spices.
This hot chocolate is perfect with grated chocolate and a few marshmallows as a garnish.
John Broening cooks at Olivea and Duo restaurants in Denver.
Cinnamon Hot Chocolate
To scald milk is to bring it to the brink of a boil. Do not allow it to bubble. Watch it carefully. Makes 4 servings.
Ingredients
2 cinnamon sticks
4 ounces finely grated 70 percent bittersweet chocolate
4 ounces finely grated milk chocolate
3 cups milk
Pinch salt
Marshmallows and grated bittersweet chocolate as a garnish
Directions
Place the cinnamon sticks in a skillet and toast over medium heat until fragrant.
Place both chocolates in a small stainless steel bowl. Grind the cinnamon in a spice grinder. Combine milk, cinnamon and salt in a small saucepan and bring just a boil. Pour over the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to sit for 5 minutes then stir to combine. Return the mixture to the pot and reheat over low heat. Serve in warm mugs, garnished with chocolate shavings and marshmallows.
