Cacao Nibs

I have become known as Cookie Monster to my roommates because every time they bake, I am the first to try it and I eat the majority of the dessert. Hey, if they leave it out, it is up for grabs in my opinion. The other night I came home from eating one of those Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes from Chili’s and did not even notice that my roommates had made brownies because I was just around the sweet aroma of chocolate. They joked that I am so used to the smell of sweets that it follows me around and I have stopped noticing it. Sad, I know. Surprisingly, I have yet to work with chocolate on this blog which is why I am so excited to use it this week.

My roommate Maygor went to Run for the Seals in SF a few weekends ago with the Biology club (nerdy, I know. Not seals, Biology club.) and brought back Raw Organic Cacao Nibs from a health company tabling at the run. She did not know what to do with them and threw them at me urging me to use it for my blog. That was enough convincing for me.

Cacao nibs are actual chocolate pieces, without the sugar and fat that we are used to. And they taste horrible, like dirt. They are crunchy and look like smashed coffee beans. It has a hard smell to describe, I can only sense a little bit of chocolate until it gets overwhelmed by something else. Behind the coffee bean looks and hard-to-describe smell and taste is a whole lot of health including antioxidants, essential minerals and fats, and the ability to increase neurotransmitter levels in our brain. They say it is best to eat chocolate in it’s most natural and unprocessed state, but that’s not happening for me unless it tastes like a Hershey’s bar.

I found a recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes using cacao nibs (in substitution of bittersweet chocolate) in the cream cheese filling. The first step was to make the filling, easy enough, although, I think mine was too watery. I then proceed to mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately and slowly mixing them together.

Sadly, we only have two bowls in our house so I had to use tupperware to mix the wet ingredients. And yes, that is my name on the bottom of it so my roommates will not steal it. No one can be trusted.

The recipe is only supposed to make 12 cupcakes and I used all the batter in one cupcake tin (like the recipe called for) filling them up pretty high. I began to sense a problem. I poured the cream cheese filling on each cupcake to fill it to the top. I knew that the filling would become the top of the cupcake instead of actually filling the middle of the cupcake when it finished baking. I think the combination of watery filling and too much batter ruined the look of the cupcake. Dammit. Another recipe gone wrong. 

After baking for 30 minutes, they came out with a pretty cool looking crackle top. My roommates and I all agreed that everything but the cacao nibs was good. They gave the cupcake an unexpected, and in my opinion unwanted, crunch. The website that said the cacao nibs would give the cupcakes a more grown-up taste. I guess, in the cupcake world, I am still a child.

-Em