I like recipes that are "light" but still manage to get chocolate in them three different ways.

These Light Chocolate Chunk Brownies from Everyday Food have chocolate and cocoa powder inside and chocolate chips outside, so they'll make chocolate lovers happy (the readers at the Everyday Food site say these are more cake than brownie). They also utilize unsweetened applesauce and low fat sour cream, so I'm itching to try these. I've been craving brownies all week for some reason. I hope I'm not pregnant.

Sometimes I wonder how many different recipes there can be for one type of food. We post a lot of recipes here at Slashfood, and while some of the recipes are exotic and complex, some are for very basic foods that we've made and/or eaten hundreds of times over the years. Take Chocolate Pudding for example. If it's basic chocolate pudding, how many different ways are there to make it? I guess it's all in the chocolate you use.

This recipe is from The Joy of Cooking. I have to have it with whipped cream on top. I love that combo of chocolate and whipped cream you get when you sink your spoon in and have a bunch of each on your spoon and put it into your mouth.

As if anyone needs a holiday as an excuse to eat chocolate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, and I thought that instead of having one post where I mention the day and list some recipes I'd do a bunch of posts that have to do with chocolate the entire day. So expect recipes, facts about the history of chocolate, maybe even some posts on things that you can make out of chocolate. I'll let you know what I find. Tune in throughout the day for more.

Mmmm...chocolate.

I've never gone out of my way to add chocolate to lunch and dinner recipes (except for dessert, of course!). I know there are moles and even chocolate pasta, but I've just always separated the chocolate from the main course.

That might change with Hershey's Spicy Cocoa Sloppy Joes. I haven't had a Sloppy Joe in many, many years and was going to make them soon anyway, and now this just gives me another reason to make them sooner rather than later.

Just Born is always expanding their Peeps lineup, as the sugar-coated marshmallows are one of their most popular products. Instead of only offering yellow chick Peeps at Easter, they have chicks, bunnies and egg shapes in a variety of colors and flavors. And for other holidays, they have themed Peeps, with hearts on Valentine's Day and trees at Christmas.

At Halloween, Just Born introduced cocoa-flavored black cat Peeps, which I passed on because I was somewhat put off by the color. I am a huge fan of Peeps, but I like my Peeps in the spring. While shopping this week, however, I came across Cocoa Bunny Peeps and, as they were Eastery-enough to meet my standards, I picked up a package for a taste test.

The important thing to note about these candies is that they are not chocolate marshmallows, despite the promising light chocolate color. They are merely cocoa-flavored and that flavoring is entirely limited to the sugary coating on the outside of the bunny. The subtle chocolate flavor didn't really do anything to enhance the Peep and, although I would eat them again, if I really want chocolate with my Peeps, I'll stick with Milk Chocolate Peep Eggs - or better yet, a dark chocolate Peeps s'more using a regular Peep.

For a closer look at the cocoa bunnies, click past the jump. *warning - the photo after the jump is graphic, and may not be suitable for all viewers*

Flavanols are the chemicals in chocolate, as well as in wine and teas, that are responsible for many of the nutritional bonuses that it offers, including improved circulation and general heart health. These antioxidants have also been shown to increase the flow of blood to the brain in research presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Increased blood flow to the brain has been associated with improved cognitive performance in healthy people, as it carries more oxygen to the brain than when high-flavanol cocoa is not eaten. Since one of the symptoms of dementia is a decrease in the flow of blood to the brain, scientists think that cocoa that is high in flavanols could be used to decrease the impact of the disease.

Unfortunately, many commercial chocolates are low in flavanols, so you probably won't experience any of the benefits demonstrated by this study if you eat an extra Snickers bar. The reason for this is that flavanols add a bitter taste to chocolate, which many manufacturers - especially of sweet milk chocolates - prefer to eliminate from their final products. An exception to this is CocoaVia, which is specifically infused with flavanols. CocoaVia aside, the highest concentration of flavanols is found in cocoa, meaning that dark chocolate is a better choice for your health than milk chocolate, but a cup of hot cocoa is going to be your best bet.

So today is not only Valentine's Day, it's also a great day for hot chocolate (for much of the country, anyway...you stay classy San Diego). So let's combine the two and see what we get.

And that would be Hot Chocolate Cones! They're cocoa, mini marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, and a red gum drop placed inside cone-shaped cellophane wrappers. Makes a cool gift:

3/4 cup cocoa mix
two 6" x 12" cone-shaped cellophane bags
2 clear rubberbands
scissors
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
3/4 cup mini marshmallows
1 large red gumdrop

Let's face it: if you take a glace at the rapidly expanding chocolate section of almost any store, there is bound to be at least one product that needs a second (and much closer) look just to figure out the label. In this case, I'm not referring to products with unusual flavor combinations, but to those marked with a cacao percentage.

Consumers and manufacturers alike have gone crazy over chocolates labeled with their cacao percentage in the last year or so, and even though the numbers themselves are clear, not everyone understands what those numbers mean. Often, the percentages are equated with the quality of the chocolate, leading to the idea that the darker the chocolate, the better it will be in spite of the fact that the darkest chocolate - usually unsweetened, 99% cacao- is actually quite unpalatable.

The cacao percentage indicates how much of a given product, by weight, is made up of cocoa solids from the cocoa bean (cacao), like cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The rest of the bar is made up of sugar, vanilla and/or other ingredients, including milk and the occasional emulsifier. This basically means that a bar of chocolate with a higher cacao percentage will usually have more chocolate in it and a stronger cocoa flavor (i.e. it will be more bitter) than one with a lower percentage, but that doesn't necessarily mean that bars of equally high percentages will taste alike.

Caviar seems to represent luxury and good taste, both in food and in life, so caviar fans can rejoice that the global ban on caviar is being lifted this year as stocks of sturgeons are up and caviar-producers can start exporting their wares again. Farmed caviar, and American caviar in general, is still an outstanding alternative for a caviar fan because it is often a good value and seems to be improving in quality every year.

If you're not a fan of the fish eggs, you're not alone. There is an alternative to them that will give you the same classic look, but with a much improved texture and flavor: Chocaviar. This caviar is made with chocolate from the Italian chocolate-maker Venchi, which has been expressing "chocolate's soul" since 1878. Each little piece of chocolate is dusted with unsweetened cocoa powder, which intensifies the flavor (something you might not want with the fishier caviar) and makes the product slightly reminiscent of tiny chocolate truffles.

Instead of fussing with steamed milk and trying to perfect the very difficult skill of making good latte art, which is very tricky to practice unless you have access to a good espresso machine and work in a coffee shop or drink a lot of coffee, a good way to decorate your drinks is with a stencil. Aerolatte sells a Cappuccino Art Set. The art set comes with a collection of stencils that can be placed on top of your drink and dusted with cocoa powder or cinnamon using a fine duster, similar to the type used for sprinkling powdered sugar. The six stencils are made of sturdy plastic, are dishwasher safe and come with a small storage tin. There is only one downside and that is the fact that you are limited to the designs that are provided. As elegant as the premade stencils are, if you want to make your own, you can use the exact same technique (perhaps even the same stencils) that we used for making cupcake stencils a few weeks ago.

White truffles may be in season, but the theme of this month's Sugar High Friday, the popular sweets-oriented food blogging event, was the more chocolaty - and perhaps more indulgent - type of truffle. The roundup of all the participating blogs was just put up by Johanna, the passionate cook and host of this edition of the event. If you want to try your hand at making truffles, all of the entries will provide lots of inspiration. Some of the recipes include Hazelnut Nougat Truffles, S'mores Truffles, Kahlua Truffles, Strawberry Balsamic Truffles (which use dehydrated berries for flavor) and Salted Caramel Fudge Hearts, just to name a handful. The black on black truffles pictured above were made by Veronica's Test Kitchen and are a classic truffle recipe, using high quality chocolate, cream and a little bit of butter. The truffles are rolled on cocoa powder to keep them from sticking together, as well as to simulate the earth that the other kind of truffles are found in.

Chocolate is widely perceived to be the best cure for all kinds of mental and emotional ills, from depression to anger, and can certainly elevate a good mood to a great one. A new study shows that chocolate - dark chocolate and cocoa, specifically - might offer even greater health benefits. New evidence suggests that it can function in a way similar to aspirin and aid in the prevention of heart attacks.

The discovery was unintentional. Some participants in a study on aspirin at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine were disqualified from the official testing because they had eaten chocolate. The researchers decided to run the final tests on their blood samples anyway, and found that those who head eaten chocolate had blood platelets that "clotted more slowly than [the platelets of] those who had not." This effect is what can prevent blood clots from inducing a heart attack. The results of the study were presented this week at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions.

[via the food section]

I really like hot chocolate and cocoa, now that the weather here in the northeast has started to turn chilly I'm ready to make myself a huge steaming cup for a mid-day pick me up. I've tried all the regular powders and syrups like Swiss Miss and Hershey's and find them lacking in real flavor. Slashfood has covered some of the premium hot chocolates before and written up Real Simples best picks. I've even tried some of the high end mixes like Jacques Torres Wicked Hot Chocolate which is quite good, but at around $18 for 8 servings it's more than I like to pay, especially since my large antique cocoa mug holds three servings.

My hot chocolates of choice are the myriad of excellent and affordable Latin American products. They aren't powders or syrups but instead specially made blocks of melting chocolate with a hint of salt and sugar crystals and spices like cinnamon. They don't taste too great eaten out of hand, but when you melt them in hot milk or water they are superb. Try them both ways for a completely different experience. I heat up the milk or water and drop the chocolate into the blender and add the liquid, then blend until mixed and foamy. I also like to make them Mexican style with the addition of a dash of cayenne and maybe some Penzy's real Ceylon or Vietnamese cinnamon. (The cinnamon sold in the US is in actuality Cassia, a similar spice but with a slightly different taste than true cinnamon.) More after the jump.