Organic Milk Chocolate Blocks at Home: Tips on What to Buy and Use

People often times underestimate the simplicity of making chocolate and chocolate treats. In fact it can be ridiculously easy and inexpensive.

Often times with out busy life styles we feel that we do not have much time for anything. So we by microwave dinners, visit drive thrus, and buy prepackaged foods.

Also, the horrors of buying processed individually rapped cakes!

There is nothing like homemade delicious foods. It is the best hands down!

However, the key is not succumbing to the microwave society. We have to find quick solutions that have REAL ingredients.

I am surprised at all of the membership sites that are available to help with delicious recipes and dinner ideas.

For instance, I just found out that you can make homemade milk chocolate with only 5 ingredients!

Just think of all of the money that can be saved when making chocolate-based desserts!

Not to mention eliminating all of the processed fake crap that is in the traditionally bought prepackaged stuff.

The 5 Ingredients are

Powdered Cocoa
Salt
Shortening
Powdered Milk
Confectioner's Sugar

Powdered Cocoa

Buy the good stuff! Do not skip this step! Depending on what you are going for you can use organic cocoa powder or dark chocolate this will be up to you. There are a lot of great brands out there: Hershey, Ghirardelli, Navitas Naturals. This step is critical because you want to have a quality treat when you are finished. Choose a quality Cocoa!

Salt

Only a pinch is needed

Shortening

This is what will hold the recipe altogether. There is a shortening that is organic by Spectrums. The consistency is fluffy and smooth.
It's great for confectioneries! Loved the results when I used it.
This is a stupendous alternative to other shortenings.

Powdered Milk

Where the milk in milk chocolate comes from. You can go organic. Which many of us are seeing the benefits of it. I found that the product Organic Valley Organic Nonfat Dry Milk Powder is definitely superior to other store brought powdered milks! The best part is that it does not have that "processed, plastic" taste that regular grocery store milks have. Plus, the fact that it is organic only adds to the wholesome nature of this item.

Confectioner's Sugar

I used to eat this by it self! Wholesome Sweetener's Fair Trade Organic Powdered Sugar has a wonderful taste to non-organic traditional powdered sugar. I also used this to make my homemade butter cream frosting for my cakes and the taste is amazing!! Everyone who eats it raves about how good it is. You can try another organic brand as well!

You need to know that you can be a bit naughty and still consume foods that your body can break down. The easiest thing to do when you have a recipe is to simply substitute it for organic!!

Find out how to make homemade milk chocolate on video visit http://candymaking101.net/how-to-make-chocolate-video and sign up for free recipes, resources and time saving candy making tips!!!

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Gourmet Sugar Free Chocolates, The Perfectly Delicious Gift

Gourmet chocolates are relished by people of all age groups. This is a good gift option as well as a great stress buster. Chocolate gift baskets are now in great demand. People customize these baskets and send chocolates to their near and dear ones. There are a variety of chocolates like unsweetened, slightly sweetened, dark chocolates, milk or white chocolates, liquor chocolates to name a few. Diabetics, who are chocolate lovers, need not feel left out any more. There are now delicious chocolate options available for them called gourmet sugar free chocolates.

When you go to the market to get chocolates for yourself be cautious in reading the label that mentions the laxative effects that the chocolate might have. Maltitol is sugar liquor used in these chocolates and too much of its consumption may cause diarrhea. More than 50 grams of sorbitol or 20 grams of maltitol every day may lead to digestive disorders as stated by American Dietetic Association. These can be great chocolate gifts. Although this type of chocolate has been available for many years, you should still read the instructions regarding content level of sugar liquor in it.

Maltitol is a natural form of sugar usually derived from starch and is the main content in the new version of sugar free chocolate. Maltitol is in a stable form and melts fast enabling it to be used to make these delicious sugar free treats.

These high quality chocolates do not have a bitter taste which usually is present when made from artificial sweeteners. Maltitol makes chocolates taste as sweet as original but with less in calories causing no tooth decay and not adding to your weight in terms of fat. Maltitol still gives that rich creamy texture to chocolates. But make sure you keep a check on the amount you consume every day. The next time you need to give something to a diabetic person, choose something along the lines of this type of chocolate gift.

What's great about the new gourmet sugar free treats is that they come in all kinds of styles, tastes and with some incredible additions mixed in. No longer do you just have to suffer with a bland sugarless bar, but gourmet sugar free chocolates now are found in glorious gift baskets and wonderfully elegant boxes as well. There are some incredible selections as well. You can get chocolate peanut clusters or delicious sugar free almond buttercrunch and so many other scrumptious options!

So not only can you pay attention to your weight and still enjoy gourmet chocolates, but you can show that you care by sending some scrumptious sugar free chocolates to others that are health conscious or have diabetes. What better way to share something sweet than to make it a delicious box of gourmet sugar free chocolate?

Colleen Maguire -
Writer, Traveler and Chocolate Lover
For More Delicious Chocolate Ideas and Tastes:
http//www.UltimateChocolateShoppe.com

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Hershey Foods Corporation and the Love of Chocolate

Among the largest manufacturers of chocolate and confectionery products in America is known as a company called The Hershey Foods Corporation. The company is a major exporter of chocolate-related products and has additional factories in Canada and Mexico. This company was founded in 1894 by Milton Hershey which is located in Hershey Pennsylvania.

By the age of fifteen, the young Hershey, following a candy apprenticeship attempted to run his own candy shop in Philadelphia which failed after six years. But undeterred by his failure he continued to operate on his business idea of making caramel with fresh milk until in 1886 he returned to Lancaster founded the Lancaster Caramel Company and made a success of the company until he sold it for $1 million in 1900.

Seven years after founding the Lancaster Caramel Company, Hershey made a decision to concentrate on making chocolate-covered caramels after buying a German chocolate-making machine and in 1894 he established the Hershey Chocolate Company that manufactured baking chocolate, chocolate coating, sweet chocolate and cocoa. A dedicated chocolate manufacturing plant was constructed by the company in 1905 and shortly the local community was dominated by the Hershey name together with the company's activity for chocolate for love.

The firm went from strength to strength although Hershey would not trust in advertising and marketing and he made a poor investment in Cuban sugar in the 1920s. The Great Depression saw a downturn in the market but to survive Hershey open his doors to public tours to promote his chocolate by referral and kept the regional population employed through various construction projects.

However, Hershey generously did not stop there, he and his wife, who were childless established a school for orphans in 1909, the Hershey Industrial School, which has eventually renamed the Milton Hershey School in 1995 and still owns 35.5 percent of the company's stock via a trust fund.

In 1945 following Hershey's death the firm continued in the 'giving' tradition of its founder and established the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University in the town of Hershey.

The company continued to prosper during the 1960s and began diversifying its product range outside of chocolate for love towards pasta and it brought two pasta companies established the company name to Hershey Foods Corporation. As the company expanding into Europe it started advertising and marketing and in 1980 it acquired rights of the British candy maker Cadbury Schweppes PLC. The expansion grew with acquisitions in Canada, Sweden and the Ronzoni Foods Corporation, that make Hershey the most significant supplier of dry pasta in the north American market.

The following is a snap shot of the more popular Hershey products:

Hershey: milk chocolate bars, Kisses chocolates, Jujyfruits candy, Twizzlers licorice candy, cocoa, chocolate syrup, baking chocolate, peanut butte, ice cream toppings, Cadbury's chocolate bars, York peppermint patties, Luden's throat drops, Jolly Rancher, Whoppers, Milk Duds, Good & Plenty, PayDay, Heath, asaU Chuckles, dry pasta

Reese: peanut butter cups, Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars. Pieces Candy

Canadian Products: Chipits chocolate chips, Eat-More candy, Glosette candy. Pot of Gold boxed chocolates, Oh Henry! chocolate bar

To date Hershey remains committed to producing chocolate for love for all their clients.

Find out more about healthy chocolate visit chocolate for love and to get immediate access to my FREE email chocolate health mini-course, visit Extraordinary Health Benefits of Chocolate. Steve Campbell has a keen interest in chocolate, health and nutrition.

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