Spike's brown balls

You say cocoa, I say cacao; who gives a shit?

Much on-line bandwidth is wasted on debating the difference; or whether there is any difference at all apart from the spelling. Health food fanatics will tell you that what you need are raw cacao beans, before they have been heated and sweetened and turned into cocoa and chocolate. So I bought some.

If you want to know what cacao tastes like, you can buy 99% cacao chocolate bars; but I don’t recommend it because it’s an acquired taste. Instead, buy a 75% cacao bar, then an 85% cacao bar; before finally tentatively trying out a 99% version. Personally I am still extensively testing the 75% bars; but I still have that bag of beans sat in my fridge.

So today I did a bit of searching and discovered some recipes that use cacao beans as a basis. First job was to turn the beans into powder; not an easy job. I tried stuffing them into the coffee grinder but they were too big; so I used a blender to break them up a bit. The blender was none to happy with that task. Then I put them into the coffee grinder which promptly jammed up, because the beans contain sticky fat specifically evolved to congeal in a coffee bean grinder. Finally, after much digging around, I produced a sticky powder; just don’t ask me to grind any coffee beans in the near future.

The other ingredient in the recipe was dates which I was meant to mix with the cacao powder; so the whole lot went back into the blender which enjoyed the combination even less than the cacao beans on their own. Eventually I extracted a brown mess from the blender, which I was then meant to form into balls and sprinkle with cocoa powder; but the recipe did mention that I could add a little alcohol if I wanted. I wanted, so I threw in a couple of measures of Cointreau before forming the balls.

And here was the end result:

She who must be obeyed tried one and was not that enamoured. I tried one and found it most palatable, to the extent there are now only three left. Because they use cacao, they are not sweet, but the dates and the Cointreau make for a very pleasant taste (I think). What are they called, asked my rather surprised wife (I rarely create food)? They are known as Spike’s brown balls, I replied; although given time I am sure I could come up with a better name.

Give it a try. All you need are some cacao beans, a blender that you don’t care much about, a coffee grinder you care even less about, some dates and the alcohol of your choice (not warm beer).

Comments 🔗

2013-07-11 | Chang Noi says

Thanks will try it once. As I am not a coffee junk I do appreciate a good cup of Hot Chocolate milk. At Amazon the call it “Hot Choco” but at “Chu Chocolate Bar & Cafe” (in Bangkok at the Interchange building) they make it from a kind of cacao tablets. Verrrrryyyy sweet the Thai way! And expensive the Bangkokian way. So I had a discussion with the owner where I am claiming that there is more sugar added as normally is done to cacao powder and he claiming that it is not. But well it is 90% cacao of what I think is at least 50% sugar. So next time when you are in BKK please try and let me know what you think of it.

In the meanwhile I am very much considering buying the new Olympus PEN E-P5, just to take a photo of a cup of Hot Choco.

2013-07-11 | Spike says

There is no sweetness in cacao, so they must be adding loads of sweetener. I think you need the EP-5; it’s been optimised for Hot Choco shots.

2013-07-11 | Chang Noi says

That is what I told the owner also …. not about the EP-5 but the sweetener. So I can buy a un-sweeten EP-5 but at Chu Chocolate Bar & Cafe you cannot buy a Hot Choco without sugar. Thanks I might be of to BigCamera now.

2013-07-12 | ChristianPFC says

Try cooling the beans or dates and the coffee grinder or blender in you refridgerator before grinding/blending. But you should stay above the dew point to avoid condensation.