Chocolate - Loved Around the World and Great For Chocolate-Almond Crinkle Cookies

You know chocolate comes from cacao beans. Do you know it has been eaten for centuries? Around 1100 BC Central American Indians were making beer from the pulp of cacao seedpods. The seeds were discarded.

Some 300 years later, according to a National Geographic Website article, "Chocolate Origins Traced to Beer Makers 3,000 Years Ago," beer-makers were using the seeds to make a non-alcoholic drink -- the origin of the cocoa we drink today. "The drink was poured form special pitchers that created high froth in the drinking cups," the article notes.

The Nibble Website has a detailed history of chocolate. From 600 AD -- 1,000 AD the Mayans were farming cacao plantations. In 1570 cocoa, as we now spell it, was used as a medicine and aphrodisiac. By 1674 chocolate was eaten in solid form. The Cadbury brothers sold candy at a British exhibition in 1849. The Ghiradelli company began production in 1860.

According to the timeline, the "first-known" recipe for brownies appeared in "The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book," by Fannie Merritt Farmer, published in 1896. After my mother-in-law died, I received her 1936 version of the cookbook. I found the recipe and it contains the same ingredients we use today: eggs, butter, sugar (brown, not white), flour, vanilla, melted chocolate, and walnuts.

In 2000 fusion cuisine found its way to the chocolate industry and extra spices, such as saffron, curry, and lemongrass were added to products. While grocery stores carry thousands of products, including cookies, but no cookies taste as good as homemade. Baking squares and chips need to be stored properly for the best baking results.

Improperly stored, the square and chips can "bloom," according to the "Hershey's Chocolate and Cocoa Cookbook." This happens "when condensation forms on the surface of semi-sweet or milk chocolate." When it is stored correctly, chocolate will stay fresh for more than a year. So store it in a cool, dry place at 70 degrees. If it gets really hot, store squares and chips in the refrigerator.

If you bake cookies, you probably bake chocolate chip, but other cookies are equally as good. These Chocolate-Almond lemon Crinkle Cookies are almost candy. Here is the recipe, just in time for summer picnics and barbecues. These cookies are fragile, so pack them carefully if you're bringing them to a picnic. Serve them plain or stick one or two in vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 tablespoons water
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
5 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups regular flour
1 teaspoon low sodium salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Method

Combine margarine, butter, sugar, and water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in chocolate chips, vanilla, eggs, flour, salt, and baking soda. Let the batter rest for 10 minutes. Work in the sliced almonds. Drop dough onto prepared baking pans. These cookies spread, so leave an inch between each one. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool lemon crinkle cookies for several minutes before you remove them from the pan. Makes about 5 dozen.