San Francisco Examiner: The Heart Of Chocolate

Alice Medrich

San Francisco Examiner

Sunday, 02/13/2002

Ex Files

Imagine that you have tasted orange juice but have never seen an orange, or that you love peanut butter but have no knowledge of peanuts. Chocolate is a source of pleasure that predates memory for most people, yet most have no idea where it comes from.

Cocoa nibs are the purest, most elemental form of chocolate available. Curious chocolate lovers and cooks should be excited. Nibs are tiny nuggets of roasted cocoa beans, not yet crushed or ground to homogeneity, not yet transformed into unsweetened chocolate or processed into smoother or more refined forms of sweetened chocolate. In short, nibs are cocoa beans on the brink of becoming chocolate and, as such, they are a unique and fascinating new ingredient.

Hold a handful of nibs and inhale the aroma. Notice the color variations, like earth-toned confetti. Pick out and taste the different colors. (Nibs are, appealingly, even more crunchy than toasted nuts but they are unsweetened and relatively bitter so they may take some getting used to.) You will discover a sweetness and fruitiness in some nibs; others will be nuttier; some will be quite astringent; some will be tart. If you concentrate, you will notice more flavors than you ever imagined were in chocolate, such as banana, peanuts, pineapple, lemon peel, cherries and coffee.

Usually, when you taste a piece of chocolate, you are tasting a blend of cocoa beans, possibly different varieties from different parts of the world. When you taste a variety of cocoa nibs, you are tasting each individual component of a blend: chocolate deconstructed.

Over the last several months, I have tried nibs in almost everything, from hors d'oeuvres to dessert. Lesson No. 1 is: Do not expect nibs to act like chocolate chips; they are neither sweet, smooth nor soft.

With the idea of exploring the nut-like qualities of nibs, I started my experiments by baking all kinds of cookies. Butter cookies are an especially good medium. The nutty-but-chocolatey flavors in the nibs infuse the rich cookie gradually, getting more pronounced over a few days, during which time the flavor and texture of a butter cookie always improves anyway. The cookie is crunchy and the nibs are, delightfully, even crunchier; a happy union. I've found that nibs work best in cookies that bake for a relatively short time. Long baking, or twice baking as for biscotti, often results in excessive bitterness.

A few sweet and savory ideas

Here are some ideas for using cocoa nibs in your home.

• Grind some nibs with coffee beans before making coffee
• Sprinkle nibs, as you would toasted nuts, on a simple salad of field greens dressed with good olive oil and red wine vinegar
• Add nibs to Bolognese sauce
• Make your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe but omit the chocolate chips. Add 2/3 cup of coarsely chopped nibs and 1 cup each currants (or raisins) and walnuts. Make the cookies small and dainty.
• Sprinkle nibs on bread and butter; sprinkle with sugar if desired.
• Sprinkle nibs over ice cream

RECIPE

Alice's Cocoa Bean Pecan Cookies

Makes about 48 2-inch cookies

For the best flavor and texture, make the dough at least two days ahead and bake the cookies at least one day before serving.

• 1 cup pecan halves or pieces
• 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup cocoa nibs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (lightly spooned into the cup and leveled, not packed)

Have ready two cookie sheets, ungreased. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Spread the pecans on a cookie sheet and bake until they are lightly colored and fragrant, 10 minutes or more. Cool completely.

Chop the nuts to about the size of the cocoa nibs. With a mixer or the back of a large spoon, in a medium mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar, salt and vanilla about 1 minute, until smooth and creamy but not fluffy. Add the flour and mix just until incorporated. Mix in the nuts and nibs. Scrape the dough into a mass and, if necessary, knead it a few times just until smooth. Form the dough into a 12-by-2-inch log. Wrap and refrigerate the log at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

Use a sharp knife to cut the cold dough log into slices 1/4-inch thick. Place cookies at least 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes or until light golden brown at the edges, rotating the cookie sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking. Repeat until all cookies are baked. Let cookies firm up on the pan for about 1 minute before transferring them with a metal pancake turner to a rack. Cool completely before stacking or storing.

Cookies are delicious fresh but even better the next day. They may be stored, airtight, for at least 1 month.

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Inspired by a love of fine chocolate, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker was established to create a superior American-made chocolate from bean to bar in the historic European tradition of manufacturing chocolate in small batches. At Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, hand selected cacao beans are chosen from the finest plantations around the World, including Central and South America, West Africa, Indonesia, and the Caribbean. The Scharffen Berger blend contains up to 50% small-plantation Venezuelan beans that reveal the true nature of the cacao bean, imparting a gentle cocoa fruitiness and offering a long and smooth finish.

For Press Inquiries, please contact: Liz Kaplan at (510) 981-4065 or email: pr1@scharffenberger.com

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