The typical milk chocolate we buy has three main ingredients:

1. Coco or chocolate. This is the real thing.
2. Milk fats and other milk products
3. Sugar

The Chocolate is good, nay great for you. It is one of the strongest antioxidants. However, the milk fats bind to the chocolate and reduce its healing properties. And sugar is just plain bad for you. There is discussion in the brain science community about whether sugar is a mind altering addictive drug or not.

I personally think it is a mind destroying drug. It takes you up and then drops you down (reminds me of a David Bowie song). Anyway, I have discovered the true chocoholic Nirvana: “Trader Joe’s unsweetened Belgian Baking Chocolate.” It has no milk and no sugar. It is the pure thing. I can only eat one piece at a time: 70 calories all from the coco fat. It took some getting used to but now it is delicious and perks me up with out the sugar high and lows.

I believe I wrote about the way I make sugar free high caffeine hot chocolate. Add one teaspoon of cinnamon, cup of warm or even cold coffee, one piece of the unsweetened chocolate and heat in microwave. Stir well and drink. It is for the true chocoholic rather than the sugar or fat addict.

One glass in the morning wakes you totally without getting you jittery.

This is my own creation and will be improved. I did it very fast for now. Next time I’ll bake in oven.

Core a granny Smith apple. Cook in microwave at full power for three and a half minutes. Next place two teaspoons of honey, cinnamon powder and grated ginger to taste (I prefer mine quite spicy) and a square of dark unsweetened chocolate in the core. Cook for a further 45 seconds in microwave.

You can serve it hot or cool in a fridge for later serving. I sprinkle a little more cinnamon powder and serve with a little brandy (Cognac preferred). I will try flambeing it later.

As I wrote above this recipe is a work in progress. It is full and full of antioxidants from every single ingredient. And I found it quite tasty, but then I’m a chocohlic. You can sprinkle a few almond slices to make it even better and poor chocolate fudge over it.

Dark chocolate is one of the richest sources of polyphenols (one of the strongest antioxidants), for example, a standard 40g portion of dark chocolate contains 400-800 mg of polyphenols, compared to red wine (170 mg /100ml) or an apple (200 mg/piece). Cocoa polyphenols, most notably the catechins, can exist in both lipid and water-based environments (amphipathic), meaning they can spare both lipophillic and hydrophilic vitamins. There have been a number of human trials conducted using chocolate or cocoa and measuring various endpoints. Most have been conducted with dark chocolate. An article in Nature found that the bioavailability of epicatechin from milk chocolate was substantially reduced compared to dark, and even dark taken with a glass of milk (Serafini et al 2003). The hypothesis was that the milk proteins bind to polyphenols, making them unavailable.

OK - challenge make an apple wine dark chocolate recipe

The Spaniards, who were first acquainted with Chocolate after the Conquest of the new World, have laid it down for an undoubted Truth, that Chocolate is cold and dry, participating of the Nature of Earth. They have supported this Determination neither with Reason nor Experience; nor do they know from whence they learnt it; perhaps they have taken it upon the Words, and from the Tradition of the Inhabitants of the Country. Let that be as it will, it is natural from false Principles to draw false Conclusions, of which the two principal are as follow.

The first is, That Chocolate being by Nature cold, it ought not to be used without being mixed with Spices, which are commonly hot, that so they might, both together, become temperate and wholesome. This was the Jargon and Practice of those Times. For the same Reason the ancient Physicians erroneously imagining that Opium was cold in the fourth Degree, never fail’d to correct this pretended Coldness in their narcotick Compositions, with Drugs extremely hot, as Euphorbium, Pellitory, Pepper, &c.

Their second Conclusion was, That Chocolate being dry and earthy, and from thence supposed to be of a styptick and astringent Quality; if it was not corrected, must necessarily breed Obstructions in the Viscera, and bring on a Cacochimy, and a great Number of other incurable Diseases.

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Chocohlics’s comments: Note the bit about spices. OK I’m going to see if I can make some hot chocolate. I once had some (by hot I mean spicy - chocolate curry - the mind boggles!