Skip to main content

The Chocolate Coo

 Today was our last day in Edinburgh before we leave for a 5-day Highland Fling tour of Northern Scotland. And today we also got to do something I’ve dreamt of for a while - make our own chocolate bars!

My finished “Chocolate Coo” chocolate bar

We started off today with a 90-minute tour of The Chocolatarium, a small local chocolate factory in the city centre. Here we got to learn all about the chocolate making process and we also got to try lots and lots of chocolate samples!

Single-origin chocolate samples

Oat milk drinking chocolate

Harvesting cacao beans in the Ecuadorian rainforest

Our guide also told us about the whole chocolate making process and we got to try cracking some roasted cacao beans to eat the raw, 100% chocolate nibs inside. From the shells of the beans you can make chocolate tea, which looks like green tea but smells and tastes like a nice delicate chocolate. 

Micro chocolate factory

Roasted cacao beans
Tea from cacao bean husks

Then we got to make our own chocolate bars! Liam and I both used the 60% dark chocolate and tons of great toppings. I called my chocolate bar “The Chocolate Coo” since my mold was in the shape of a Highland Cow (or Coo as they’re called here). Liam’s mold was the Loch Ness monster, so he called it “Nessie Sighted”. 

The toppings on our chocolate bars! Including crystallized ginger, raspberry, honeycomb, mint, salt, and chilli flakes

Another fun things that we got to try was the traditional Aztec drinking chocolate. This was served cold and was considered a drink of the gods… and emperors drank around 50 cups per day of it! Traditional ingredients (that were in our drink too) were coco nibs, cinnamon, vanilla, honey, and chilli. It was quite refreshing!

Aztec drinking chocolate 

Some other interesting chocolate flavours that we tried included wild gorse flower, haggis spice, Scot’s pine, kumquat, lavender, purgatory chilli, pho spices, and carrot cake.

And of course we were so relaxed and happy after all this chocolate…but why? Well it’s probably thanks to theobromine, one of the main molecules found in chocolate (Theobroma cacao). 

Theobromine is a vasodilator and promotes relaxation and stress relief… so next time you’re stressed and want chocolate, don’t feel bad! “Theobroma” in Greek also translates to “food of the gods”… so you really can’t go wrong with chocolate. 

Don’t forget to have some chocolate today!

But we did do more things than just eat chocolate all day. After lunch we joined a free walking tour of the city! Our guide was very funny and had lots of good stories. 

One of my favourite stories was that of William Brodie, the man of two personalities. 

Brodie was a respected cabinet maker by day and a notorious robber by night. He would deliver cabinets to the rich, make wax imprints of their keys, and then later walk into their houses and steal all their goods. Eventually after many years he was caught and hanged for his crimes… ironically using the gallows he helped to design.

The famous author Robert Louis Stevenson had one of William Brodies cabinets as a child, and this two-faced man is though to be Stevenson’s inspiration for his 1886 novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

One of only two known pieces of furniture made by William Brodie; a cabinet owned by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

One last fun fact, the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn! It represents strength, freedom, and a wild spirit. 
Unicorn!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BC Ferries Yam Fries

  Four months, 13 countries, endless love and memories. I cannot believe I’m already writing the last blog of this trip! The time has flown by. This evening we left London for our last flight of the summer, our flight home to Canada. We spent September 2nd similar to how we spent May 2nd - walking around Hampstead Heath and stopping for feast at Ginger and White Café. Goodbye feast at Ginger and White It felt so surreal to be back in London exactly four months after we got here! The seasons had changed, leaves were falling, but the city felt somewhat familiar, comfortable almost.  Fall leaves appearing in Hampstead Heath As we took the tube to the airport I felt nostalgic for our travels already - it’s been such a unique experience.  Waiting for the tube in the new Elizabeth Line station I won’t lie, I teared up a little bit waving goodbye to London from above. Last views of London At least we got some yummy airplane food to soothe our souls… and I’m not even jo...
1 comment
Read more

Śledzie po kartusku

 We arrived back in Sopot, Poland last week! Our time here has been spent doing some work, enjoying time with family, and getting lots of good snacks. So, I suppose this post is essentially an ode to Polish treats.  A very common food in Poland are “śledzie” or in English “herring”. Herring can be served in so many ways, but at Bar Przystań in Sopot they serve a fantastic śledz po kartusku. This is a herring marinated in oil and vinegar with tomatoes, peppers, and lots of onions. Essentially, the fish gets so soft it falls apart and is absolutely delicious! Śledzie po kartusku One evening, we got a very fancy fruit drink! Non-alcoholic cranberry juice with soda and topped with tons of fruit and a beautiful flower.  Fancy and fun drinks! On Saturday morning, my mom and I went to Yoga on the Pier. This free event is put on by a Polish fitness YouTuber who leads a huge crowd through many exercises! I’d call it yoga-Pilates-dance-aerobic fusion. Yoga on the Pier in Sopot ——— ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pho Ga

Today we had a very futuristic day in Berlin! We started the morning by visiting the Futurium Museum. This free museum offers a plethora of interactive exhibits about “the future”.  Outside the Futurium You start by getting a wristband which allows you to store interesting information and participate in various exhibits. At the end, you get a code which allows you to access the information you stored online. You can read about some of the exhibits that I stored here .   We leaned about personalized medicine and the future of genetic treatment, we saw futuristic prosthesis like the third thumb and the pangolin, and we got our brainwaves measures.  Inside the exhibits Novel prosthesis  The headband measured our “thoughts” using electroencephalography and    displayed different emotions as different colours.  There were also many interesting robots, like the robotic arm that wrote out questions for you to answer. When Liam replied that the robot could not...
2 comments
Read more