Chocolate?

[JVictery]

I'm not any sort of experienced cheese maker. But I am the kind of person whose sister is usually eager to have dinner at my house, but then will hesitate and ask things like, "Wait. The ricotta in that lasagna isn't something you made yourself with old milk or something, is it?" And I have lied to her and said it wasn't, and she enjoyed her dinner. I just like to try new things.

Tonight, I made hot chocolate for my son, and after I poured his I decided to add red wine to mine. I see recipes for this, and since I like both hot chocolate and dry red wine, it sounded like something I should like. On the other hand, it sounded like it might be gross. And it was. However (perhaps because I let the chocolate get too hot?) the heat and acidity caused the curds to separate from the whey in the milk, so I decided to strain the drink through cheesecloth and let it sit in the fridge for a bit. I took a tiny taste, and it wasn't nearly as gross as the drink. Yet, when I search for chocolate cheese, I only come up with pairings, cheesecake or fudge. Does anyone ever intentionally make, basically, chocolate ricotta?

 

[FromZwolle]

marscapone would hold the chocolate flavors pretty well, as well as most of the soft fresh cheeses.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi JVictery, Not an answer to your question about chocolate and cheese so much but there is chocolate (which may be sweet) and there is cocoa and there are cocoa nibs and those might work with many other less sweet cheeses. But I wanted to suggest that rather than add wine to your "hot chocolate" you might consider simply adding cocoa or even hot chocolate made with water rather than milk to your red wine. Many of us make chocolate flavored wines and meads and these can be quite delicious - though if you make the wine with cocoa it is often a challenge to force the cocoa out of solution so that you end up with a bright clear wine...