In the mood for love
Your Valentine will just melt away with a chocolate pudding. Cocoa – aka Theobroma cacao: food of the gods – stirs all five senses by triggering specific happiness and love hormones.
Since it also boasts top-grade psychoactive substances to give you a high, and magnesium – known as the great fatigue, stress and anxiety buster – you are dealing with an aphrodisiac, antidepressant, stimulant and euphoria inducing delight. Aztecs already knew all this. Montezuma, second of the name, used to drink fifty cups a day to keep his hareem happy. These tchocoatl fiends also used the lovely little bean to treat ailments from constipation to indigestion, dysentery, fatigue, gout and hemorrhoids. In Europe, it started its glorious career as a medicinal drink. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette’s apothecary concocted a brilliant recipe to alleviate the queen’s headaches. Her migrainous Majesty hated his potions. She begged him to dilute them with hot chocolate, her favourite drink. The royal pharmacist formulated a more palatable remedy by incorporating his powders to what became the first hard, eating chocolate. He cut it into round slices. Marie-Antoinette, overjoyed, called them pistoles. The dear boy also devised some with cinnamon, “curative and aphrodisiac”. We don’t know if the king benefitted from their effects, but the queen probably reached nirvana.
Send your Valentine to seventh heaven with this seductive mousse. The night before, refrigerate a 400 ml (14 oz) can of organic coconut cream. The following day place a metal mixing bowl and your mixer whisk attachment in the freezer for 10 minutes. Then add the coconut cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Furiously whisk together until stiff peaks begin to form. Put in the fridge.
Chop 200 gr (7 oz) 85% high quality dark chocolate, preferably from South America. Fill a large bowl with ice and water and set aside. In a small bowl, mix the chocolate and 170 ml (6 oz) boiling water until the chocolate is completely melted. Then place the bowl immediately on the ice bath.
Whisk together with your pretty electric mixer, start on low and increase gradually to medium speed, until the mixture thickens. Make sure not to over whisk or the chocolate will get horribly crumbly and dry. If it does, don’t panic, just melt the chocolate over a double boiler to get rid of the non gratae and whisk it again, until you get your desired unctuous consistency.
Delicately fold in the coconut whipped cream, making lovely swirls. Add ½ teaspoon cinnamon or a pinch of Cayenne pepper and some chopped candied ginger. Top with green lemon zest. Serve immediately or put back in the fridge.
