Chocolate Crackles
I had a sudden urge for chocolate crackles this evening after dinner, so I quickly looked up the recipe on the web (the traditional one that comes on the side of the rice bubbles packet), and we dashed to the shops to buy the ingredients. I must have been a bit of a childhood sweets kind of mood, because when we were at the shops I got an urge for homemade sherbet (the dry fizzy kind, not the sorbet type). So we bought some jelly crystals (I had this vague memory that you needed bicarb, icing sugar and jelly crystals). Then we went to buy copha to make chocolate crackles with, however when I looked at the back of copha and reasised it was mostly made of coconut oil (arguably one of the worst fats for you) and that it was 95% saturated fat (100% actual fat), I couldn't bring myself to buy it, it was just too unhealthy. I know that chocolate crackles aren't actually healthy, but.... The result of this entire encounter is that I have just made chocolate crackles with couverture chocolate instead of cocoa and copha, it was not in an attemt to make snobby chocolate crackles, just vaguely healthier ones. It feels almost sacrilegious to change a recipe that I think is probably one of the first things children are taught to cook, and something we all remember eating when we were little. Anyway, they taste delicious.
The sad news is that I don't have all the ingredients for sherbet, you need citric acid as well. Will have to get that tomorrow. For now I will settle for cups of tea with chocolate crackles:)
The sad news is that I don't have all the ingredients for sherbet, you need citric acid as well. Will have to get that tomorrow. For now I will settle for cups of tea with chocolate crackles:)
posted by earthkissed | 8:28 pm
5 Comments:
I feel almost obliged to point out that the reason chocolate crackles taste so good is that they're unhealthy. ;) And it is quite shocking to make them with real chocolate. :(
However, i usually balance out the unhealthiness by not eating the whole batch (ie, i make em for the kiddies at church when we're on morning tea, and i leave a couple at home for us :D)
Does it make it even worse if I say I only made half of a batch? It just seemed like there was no way we needed that much chocolate crackles!
I ate C.C's at a birthday party once and I had nausea and a horrible headache. That coconut oil is really bad for you...great idea to use good chocolate! Im gonna remember that for Maxies birthday.
If you do make it with chocolate, remember to leave out the icing sugar, or it will be too sweet! We _almost_ put in the icing sugar before I realised the chocolate would have enough sugar (in fact I put it in a few teaspoons before I remembered). We also put in just a tablespoon of butter just so it didn't set super hard like chocolate does and a little more chocolate then copha because it isn't as runny
Copha is trans fat, the kind your body can't use and can't expel, but it's not so much because of the coconut oil as it is because it's hydrogenised coconut oil. There is a lot of debate about the pros and cons of coconut oil, it seems some scientists believe it can be beneficial in small amounts. So, like most things, use in moderation. Copha was popular when we didn't know what trans fats were. Now that we know, it's inadvisable to use it.
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