chocolate - Nourish by CH - Nutrition & Wellbeing

The perfect chocolate chip cookies without an electric mixer!

The Perfect (no-electric mixer) Chocolate Chip cookies

by Christina
20/04/2020

I have a big secret… I’m a nutritionist with a big sweet tooth.

I mean, nothing’s wrong with that once I can control it. I’ve been this way from since I was little and I doubt that’ll change any time soon. I’ve actually been visiting le BF in Namibia for some weeks now and though I’m quite impressed by the selection of pastries here – pre-lockdown, of course – it’s been a while since I’ve been away from my usual sweet fixings.

Unfortunately, I’ve been craving some chocolate chip cookies for 3, maybe 4 weeks. We finally bought some from the store, and gosh were they weird and lacking chocolate. Le BF seemed to enjoy them, although they were rock hard. Definitely not what I was expecting from a cookie unless it’s a Bajan Rough Top.

I can’t quite get a taste for the cookies here. I don’t know what it is, but it seems that all of what I’ve tried are really sweet, dry with a slightly coconutty taste. And I feel like they’re missing something – aside from moisture – but I don’t know what it is. It’s a bit weird!

Fed up, I decided I’ll make some chocolate chip cookies and searched for dark chocolate each time we did a quick supermarket run. For the essentials, you know. Then last week I finally found a 500g bar in SPAR for N$46 (which is BB$5 or US$2.50). Not bad at all!

Chopping dark chocolate into chips for the perfect chocolate chip cookies — These blocks were so thick, this was a proper workout!

To Eat or Not to eat the Chocolate

by Christina
10/02/202008/07/2022

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching and the US$43 billion Cocoa and Chocolate industry promoting their products as gifts for your loved ones, it’s hard not to get drawn in. Let’s be honest, we’re bound to get at least one box, even if we bought it for ourselves. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, but I do enjoy it occasionally, especially a good-quality dark chocolate bar. So, should we be wary of our chocolate cravings during Valentines?

Hand drawn cacao sticker design elementHand darwn cacao sticker design element — The origins of chocolate, the beautiful and exotic cacao pod.

Chocolate is a mixture of cocoa solids, cocoa butter fat, milk, sugar and stabilisers like lecithin which help the main ingredients to form a solid mass. As if that didn’t sound like a bit of science, the cocoa solids give the chocolate its antioxidant properties, as they contain flavanols which are psychoactive organic compounds. And so, the higher the cocoa contents, the more of these antioxidants you’ll get. Typically, dark chocolate will contain 45 – 90% cocoa solids and trace amounts of milk, while milk chocolate will have mostly milk and sugar, and between 10 – 32% cocoa solids (at least in the States).

You may see vanilla included in the ingredient list, and that tends to round out the flavor and may lead to less sugar being added too. But some manufacturers use cheaper alternatives to cocoa butter such as vegetable oils and palm oil, and other additives to stabilize the product. Now although I like my KitKats, Cadbury, Agapey and Lindt, when it comes to quality chocolate, you want to see a very minimal ingredient list. That’s the standard of chocolate, I’m talking about in this article.