As we mentioned last week, this month’s Flavor of the month is Chocolate.
We’ve decided to give a brief history of the flavor, to better understand how rich its history is and how much it was a much utilized flavor.
The use of cocoa beans is traced back in parts of early South America to 1900 B.C. It was utilized mainly by Mayan and Aztec cultures in religious events as well as royal events.
Priests offered cacao seeds to the gods and chocolate drinks were served in sacred ceremonies. The seed were so valuable that the Aztecs required areas they had conquered to pay taxes with cacao seeds as a tribute.
| Cocoa Seeds (blog.soliditytrade.com) |
The cocoa seeds were then introduced to the Spanish and they refined the bittersweet chocolate drink with sugar and milk around 1529. Chocolate was then introduced to the French court around 1615 and it became very popular in French courts from Paris to the rest of France. The chocolate craze spread throughout Europe to London where the first chocolate shop was opened in 1657. By 1730, the steam engine had been perfected and was used to grind the cocoa seed to make chocolate more efficiently.
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| Chocolate drink (www.telegraph.co.uk) |
By 1755, chocolate had reached the U.S. it gained popularity and different products were created including milk chocolate.
| Dairy Milk Chocolate (www.mnn.com) |
Chocolate is one of the most popular used flavor in baked goods, drinks, food and candies in the world. We are no exception since we love using it in our products which or on sale this month ^_^
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| Amari Death by Chocolate Frosted Cupcakes |
Although cocoa was originally grown in America, currently Western Africa produces about two thirds of the cocoa grown worldwide.
Stay tuned for chocolate recipes coming soon and enjoy our Chocolate Season ^_^
Baking with Amari | Baking Classes 
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