With International Chocolate Day this week, we thought we’d give you some ideas in how to bring chocolate into your life in more ways than dessert.

Start Your Day Right With a Mug Full of Chocolate

Celebrate with a delicious bowl of chocolate oats or make your day extra special with chocolate chip pancakes. Don’t forget to brew up a nice cup of hot chocolate to enjoy with your breakfast! Delysia Chocolatier’s rich and creamy drinking chocolate will help you take on the day.

For All The Snacks in Between

Give yourself little boosts of energy throughout your day with little chocolate treats! Mix little chunks of Delysia’s specialty chocolate barks with some salty nuts and dried fruit to create a yummy snack to get you to dinner.

End the Celebration with a Savory Chocolate Meal

You may think it’s crazy to include chocolate in a main dish, but people have been doing it for hundreds of years. From a classic mole dish to adding cocoa powder to your pot of chili, a piece of pure dark chocolate can add so much depth and flavor to your recipe.

Serious Eats has a spicy yet savory mole recipe that will be the perfect end to International Chocolate Day. This silky smooth recipe calls for chunks of dark chocolate along with several types of peppers.

If you want to turn the heat up even more use Delysia’s Ghost Pepper chocolate bark in place of the dark chocolate. This bittersweet chocolate smothered in ghost pepper salt has a subtle heat that will help boost the flavor of the other spices and peppers in this recipe.

 

 

Serious Heat: Silky, Spicy Mole Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 dried pasilla chile, seeded and chopped (reserve the seeds)
• 2 chipotles in adobo, seeded and chopped
• 1 cup cooked black beans
• 1 ounce dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup almonds, toasted
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
• 2 shallots, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1/3 cup)

Directions

1. Rehydrate the pasilla chile by pouring broiling water over it, and allowing it to soak for half an hour.
2. When you’re ready to make the sauce, pull the chile open and seed it. Chop coarsely and put in a blender or food processor with the chipotles, black beans, chocolate, almonds and salt. Blend, adding the stock slowly, allowing the blades to do their work as the sauce things out.
3. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan, and gently sauté the garlic and shallots over low heat. Once they’re soft, add them to the blended chocolate-chile mix, and blend again.
4. Transfer the sauce to a saucepan, and simmer for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it to avoid scalding because the chocolate and nuts are delicate.
5. The sauce should have a subtle but definite heat and enough salt to bring out the diverse flavors. If the sauce needs to be spicier, add some of the reserved chile seeds or add a low-acid hot sauce such as Marie Sharp’s.

Celebrate this week’s International Chocolate Day your own special way with your favorite chocolate treats and recipes. Just don’t forget to share your photos and recipes with us in the comments below and on Delysia Chocolatier’s social media pages!