When we talk about cocoa, a taste familiar from early childhood pops up involuntarily. It was served in kindergartens and schools, chocolate is made from it. It is unlikely that anyone thought about the properties of cocoa, how to brew it and generally where it came from, enjoying the taste and aroma of the drink.
Scientists have carefully studied the fruits of cocoa and found in them many useful substances. Cocoa is an excellent antidepressant, like coffee, acts on the body excitingly, only softer than caffeine. It can be drunk even to those to whom coffee is categorically contraindicated, including children.
For breakfast, cocoa is the most nutritious drink for the child going to school. Drinking cold helps restore muscle after training or hard physical work. In Switzerland, cardiologists consider chocolate, which contains at least 70% cocoa, to be “sweet aspirin,” because the product contains antioxidants that protect the body and the cardiovascular system from free radicals, causing premature aging and the development of oncology.
Cocoa Recipes
Cocoa is a high-calorie product, up to 400 kcal per 100 g.
Consider popular recipes.
Classic recipe
- Boil water, add sugar (to taste) and cocoa (6-8 tablespoons of powder are taken per liter of water or milk).
- Beat with a whisk (if you beat with a whisk, the drink will turn out with airy foam).
- At the end of cooking, add hot milk of at least 3.5% fat and boil a little.
Video Recipes
Recipe with milk
For the recipe you will need milk, cocoa and sugar.
- Rinse the pan with cold water and pour a liter of milk. While milk is on fire, mix cocoa powder (4 tablespoons) with sugar (4 tablespoons), take warm milk from the pan and stir to avoid lumps.
- Pour the resulting homogeneous mass into boiled milk and keep on fire for 5-7 minutes.
Pouring over cups is better when hot. Cookies served with a drink biscuit, muffins, crackers, bread and butter. Most do not like the foam that forms after cooling, so they boil it on water, and hot fat cream is added to the cups.
Recipe number 3
It is better to take the dishes for boiling milk.
- Pour cocoa powder (1 cup 2 tbsp. Powder) and sugar (to taste) into the bottom of the pan, mix, breaking the lumps.
- Heat the milk and pour in the pan as much as to cover the powder mass, mix thoroughly again until it dissolves.
- Pour the remaining milk into the resulting mass, continuing to stir with a spoon, bring to a boil and reduce heat, hold for 10 minutes over low heat, without ceasing to stir.
The better it is stirred, the drink is thicker and tastier.
Video
Vanilla Recipe
To get an exotic drink, add vanilla to the tip of the knife in the finished cocoa. You can make dessert. Cocoa (preferably cold) is poured into the cup exactly half. Beat sugar with cream and add a tablespoon of the mixture to the cup. Dessert is ready!
Oatmeal with cocoa
For porridge you will need:
- Milk - a glass, one and a half
- Hercules - 4 tbsp. l
- Cocoa powder - 1 tbsp. l
- Sugar - 1 tbsp. l
Put the cereal in a pan, add water, add cocoa and sugar. Mix well and cook.Bring to a boil and remove from heat, leave for 10 minutes.
Cocoa Hot Chocolate
- cocoa 2 tsp
- chocolate 30 g
- milk 450 ml
- vanilla cinnamon taste
- In a pan, mix cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, add 3 tbsp. l milk, stir.
- Add milk, stir constantly.
- Put on fire, bringing to a boil add chocolate, cook for 3 minutes.
Pour hot chocolate into cups and serve immediately. The drink goes well with cookies, pastries and even christmas cakes.
Cocoa with ice cream
Ingredients for 1 Serving:
- Cocoa - 1 tsp
- Sugar - 2 tsp
- Milk - 1 cup
- Ice cream - 50 g (without filler)
Combine cocoa with sugar, pour in some hot milk, mix well. Pour the remaining milk and cook a little while stirring. After cool and pour into a vase with ice cream.
Cocoa with Egg Yolks
Ingredients:
- Milk - 800 g
- Sugar - 120 g
- Cocoa - 25 g
- Yolk - 2 pcs.
Cook cocoa according to the classic recipe. Gently separate the yolks from the proteins and grind with sugar, pour warm cocoa. Put the resulting mixture on the fire and heat, without bringing to a boil, beat with a mixer and pour into cups.
Cocktail
Ingredients:
- Milk - a little less than a glass
- Cocoa Powder - 2 tsp
- Sugar - 2 tsp
- Natural Cherry Juice - 20 g
- Cinnamon - to taste, the usual norm - on the tip of a knife
Cocoa mixed with sugar with a small amount of milk, then pour the rest of the milk and juice. Beat the mass with a mixer. You get a pleasant drink that will appeal to children and adults. Serve with a straw in cocktail glasses, add a little cinnamon and powdered sugar to each glass on top.
Cocoa Cream
Ingredients:
- High fat cream - half a liter
- Condensed milk - 8 tbsp.
- Cocoa powder - 4 tbsp.
- Chocolate to taste
Cool the cream, beat until a firm foam is formed, gradually introduce condensed milk and cocoa. Put the resulting cream into plates, sprinkle with chocolate chips on top (grate chocolate first on a fine grater). Another dessert is ready!
Mask
It helps with peeling skin and a feeling of tightness. After applying the mask, the skin of the face becomes soft and velvety. To make the mask, dilute the cocoa powder with milk to a paste state, add a little vegetable oil. Apply on face and neck for 20 minutes. Remove with a cotton pad and rinse with warm water.
Useful Facts
Cocoa is brewed in any convenient dish: pan, kettle with a wide neck. The powder does not absorb water well, so when cooking it is necessary to stir constantly so that it evenly dissolves in water and does not stray into lumps.
- When choosing a powder, you should pay attention to the smell: it should be pleasant and chocolate, so that you immediately want to make a fragrant and delicious drink.
- There should be no lumps in the powder. Tracking in lumps indicates low-quality products. When rubbing the powder with your fingers, a feeling of oiliness, not dust, should remain.
- Cocoa contains a substance - the "hormone of joy and happiness" - serotonin and caffeine, which invigorates and improves performance.
- The product has a lot of iron and zinc, which are necessary for health, in particular, improving hormonal balance. Cocoa prolongs youth thanks to antioxidants, lowers blood pressure, improves working capacity and blood supply to the brain.
Story
The history of cocoa goes far back centuries. The plant was known even before the Mayan civilization, but it is they who break the plantations of the evergreen tree and produce the drink in a makeshift way. For them, he was considered sacred, and cocoa beans replaced the money.
The first European to bring the product to Europe was Christopher Columbus. The drink gradually began to spread, first in Spain, then throughout Europe. The drink was expensive and accessible only to people in the upper layers of society.
Historians write that cocoa enters France with the delivered baggage of a Spanish lady who was supposed to be the wife of Louis XII. The monks transported the product from country to country. Later, the government of Charles V, realizing the benefits of beans, tried to establish a monopoly, but smugglers literally flooded Europe, and only Italians invented a license for chocolate production. “Chocolate houses” have become more popular than coffee houses or tea houses.
With the development of industrial production, it became an affordable and cheap product. Milk and spices, sweets, wine and beer. In 1674 they began to add to rolls and cakes. In 1828, Holland patented the production of cocoa powder, and the first chocolate bar appeared in the middle of the XIX century in England. Tiled chocolate was delivered to the fleet; it was believed that chocolate was the best cure for scurvy.
Where do cocoa trees grow?
Cocoa tree grows only in the humid tropical climate of the equatorial regions of the globe. The fruits of the tree are of unusual shape, similar to a cucumber, 30 cm long, 12 cm in diameter. Various in color: yellow, orange or red, depending on the variety. Weight reaches 600 grams, inside, surrounded by pulp, there are fruits, slightly elongated almond-shaped. There are about 60 of them.
Cultivating the crop is time-consuming. The height of the tree reaches 12-15 meters, bears fruit all year round. Harvested by hand twice a year, manually separate the beans from the pulp. The first fruits on the tree appear in the 5th year, the active fruiting period lasts 50 years.
How much can you drink cocoa?
Some are afraid to drink cocoa, taking care of the figure. It is in vain! It’s impossible to get fat from him! Unlike chocolate, cocoa does not affect the figure. It does not have as many saturated fats as in chocolate (in chocolate per 100 g of the product - 20 g of fat), in a mug of cocoa fat there are only 0.3 g.
The drink is very nutritious, one cup drunk at breakfast causes a feeling of fullness.
It is better to drink in the morning or afternoon. A drunk cup during the day will give strength and vitality. It is better not to drink at night, there is a risk of spending a sleepless night, since one cup contains about 5 mg of caffeine.
Cooking cocoa, you can safely experiment by adding honeyvanilla liquor to your liking. Cinnamon, chocolate or powdered sugar is added to the hot drink. Children love the sweet drink, try to please them more often.
Scientists claim that cocoa with milk is a healthy product. The main condition that must be observed, do not overdo the amount of sugar!
