While chocolate cake may always be a crowd pleaser at dinner parties or other celebrations, it can also feel like a cop-out to a creative host or hostess. If you’re tired of presenting the same old chocolate cakes, puddings, or ice creams to your guests for dessert, try these suggestions for some unexpected chocolate dessert recipes. Don’t be afraid to be adventurous. Dessert is all about having fun!

Revamp Other Dessert Recipes with Chocolate

An easy way to make a fun, new dessert is to incorporate chocolate into other familiar dessert recipes. Try putting dark chocolate chips and walnuts into a berry cobbler, or spruce up after dinner coffee with some chocolate liqueur then top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. If you’re going light, add some extra life to an angel food cake with some natural unsweetened cocoa powder and serve with fresh raspberries on top.

Leave the Chocolate to The Whim Guests

A really simple chocolate dessert recipe is chocolate fondue. Let your guests go to town dipping an assortment of fruits, cakes, cookies, and nuts into a nice fondue. Spread out a few different fondue pots and play with flavors. Try a spicy chocolate fondue by adding just a touch of chili powder, or some peanut butter for a heavenly treat. Don’t limit your dippings to fruit. Cut up an assortment of bite-sized bits of cakes, brownies, candies, marshmallows, even cheesecakes.

Spicing Up Some Favorites

If you do like the idea of a cake, but want to get away from traditional recipes, spice things up a little with a modern chocolate cake dessert recipe. Add some fruit or berries to the bottom of your bake pan and create a chocolate-upside-down cake with a nice coffee or caramel glaze. Create a layered chocolate cake, alternating layers of caramel sauce and homemade whipped peanut butter topping, served with vanilla ice cream.

Frozen Chocolate Dessert Recipes

Plan ahead and whip up a frozen chocolate dessert recipe. Try a banana split with frozen chocolate covered bananas. If you have an ice cream maker, try a nice chocolate and fruit sorbet. If you’re a fan of Smores, don’t worry about the fire, try a frozen version instead. Spread some melted chocolate and marshmallow cream between two graham crackers, wrap each smore in foil, and stick in the freezer. This is an easy chocolate dessert recipe that is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Bookmark to:

Guide - When it comes to chewing chocolate, a person must be very careful. Each bite of chocolate must be chewed no less than 12 times out of respect for the cacao seed that sacrificed itself for your toothsome treat.

How many of us have not eaten a chocolate bar? I am sure the count isn’t many, unless you are allergic to the delicious confectionary. From the simple milk chocolate bar to the elaborate bars that include caramel, marshmallows, nuts, or coconut there probably isn’t a more popular type of chocolate in the world.

From its beginning in the 1800s it quickly became a much desired product and by the early 1900s was a huge commercial success that has done nothing but increase since its introduction. Many of the bars that are sold on the market today are still the exact recipe of those from the beginning and have also remained affordable. Until the late 1940s you could buy chocolate bars for a few pennies, even though they are more than that now they are worth it!

Guide - Tassimo from Braun is also one of the better-known appliances available. In addition to many kinds of coffee, this machine can make excellent Suchard Hot Chocolate drink.

Even though there are thousands of different types of chocolate bars being marketed now the number of actual chocolate making companies is much smaller. The industry is dominated by a handful of giants in the chocolate business that will go out and buy smaller companies and absorb that company’s products into their mix. The chocolate bar is one of the most widespread forms of chocolate and commonly found even in vending machines. One of the biggest introductions lately has been the addition of nutritional value by adding protein and additional vitamins to the delicious confection.

Guide - Children are more likely to prefer chocolate when they reach 10-11 years old than when they are younger.

Of course there is no way that one can talk about chocolate bars without covering Hershey’s chocolate bars. These delicious and popular milk chocolate bars are created in a wide variety of flavors that all get their origin from the classic Hershey’s chocolate bar made by the founder, Milton Hershey in 1900. The way the bars are made today hasn’t changed much; they still select the most high quality cocoa beans and then roast them. Afterwards the process consists of winnowing, conching, tempering, and then molding and packaging for shipping.

The vast majority of chocolate makers that produce chocolate bars use the same exact recipe for their products. What makes them different in taste and quality is the cocoa beans they select, the taste of chocolate can vary greatly depending upon the different plant varieties and even from where in the world they come. One of the most popular chocolate makers, Nestle, actually has three bars hailing from three different countries. Like other manufacturers, the makers of chocolate may also produce their bars in one country and then have them packaged in another.

There are some ingredients that are absolutely crucial to create all chocolate bars including cocoa paste, cocoa butter and sugar. Some of the optional ingredients are lecithin and vanilla. White chocolate contains more of the cocoa butter. Have fun and experiment with different brands and varieties to find the one you prefer the most.

Guide - Choose chocolates with the least amount of refined white sugar or other sweetener. Dark ‘bittersweet’ chocolates with a high percentage of cocoa solids (usually the label will state the exact percentage) have less sugar than semisweet or milk chocolate and also have the greatest health benefits.

Bookmark to:

Guide - If you have a wrapped chocolate bar, remember, it must be unwrapped and allowed to breathe like a fine wine. Many people yield to the temptation of ripping open a candy bar and immediately taking a bite.

I find the best way to consider the history of chocolate is to actually eat some while I’m reading! We can thank the Mayan Indians for discovering and planting the first cocoa plants in 1500 BC, when the Olmec Indians began to grow them. They used to dry out the beans and then grind it up and use as the base of a watery drink just like we do with tea or coffee today. This was such a delicacy that only the social elite were able to afford such luxury by the time of the Mayans. When Columbus first began to explore the new world he was introduced to the coco bean as cargo a Mayan trader was carrying.

Guide - ‘The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.

Europeans Invent the First Chocolate Drink

Cacao beans were not very popular after Columbus brought back the first supplies. In fact it took some laterally minded monks to try the drink as a hot beverage. This immediately became popular throughout Spain. Soon Chocolate Houses opened throughout Europe. In the 1700’s the first steam mechanized coco grinders which lead to a price drop in coco production that made chocolate available for all.

Guide - Children are more likely to prefer chocolate when they reach 10-11 years old than when they are younger.

At Last - Solid Eating Chocolate

As the hot drink spread as a favorite drink, people became more adventurous and experimented with using the cacao beans differently. Soon the powder was being used in cakes and desserts. It became obvious that the combination with sugar was a vital developmental step. Around the time of the American Revolutionary War, Bakers Chocolate Company began large scale manufacturing.

The Chocolate Revolution Begins

Whilst the Bakers Chocolate Company was influential in North America, the Dutch were quickly moving to widespread use of Cocoa powder produced by a process named after the country, the “Dutching” method. This process produced a fine grained powder which is still a favorite with chocolate connoisseurs.

Chocolate Spreads its Wings

Soon chocolate began to be used to make candies of varyoing types. The “Dutched” method lent itself to multiple uses and when combined with cocoa butter the modern chocolate styles began to emerge. This was especially evident with the production of moldable treats which we call chocolate truffles.

Guide - The largest chocolate bar ever made weighed over 5,000 pounds and was made in Italy in 2000. The largest slab of fudge was over 2,000 pounds and was made in Canada.

The history of chocolate in America features a rich diversity of baked goods and candies. One of the baked goods beloved by Americans are brownies, the first published recipe for this now classic treat was published in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue back at the end of the 19th century. The Hershey Company and the Nestle Company were making so much money in the United States, that a Belgian confection maker opened Godiva Chocolate Company in 1926; all three companies are still popular chocolate manufacturers today.

Guide - In 1842 Cadbury’s in England created the worlds first chocolate bar.

Bookmark to: