Dark Chocolate Quotes

“A smile flickered across Coral’s face. “Have you ever noticed that once you have had a taste of certain sweets—raspberry trifle is my own despair—it is quite impossible not to think, not to want, not to crave until you have taken another bite?”

“Lord Swartingham is not a raspberry trifle.”

“No, more of a dark chocolate mousse, I should think,” Coral murmured.

“And,” Anna continued as if she hadn’t heard the interruption, “I don’t need another bite, uh,night of him.”
― Elizabeth Hoyt, The Raven Prince

“At Rainbow Cake, January's special flavors would be dark chocolate and coffee, those pick-me-ups we all needed to start the day- or a new year. To me, their toasty-toasty flavors said that even if you only had a mere handful of beans and your life went up in flames, you could still create something wonderful.
A little trial by fire could do you good. After all, if it worked so well with raw cacao and coffee beans, it could work for others, including me.”
― Judith Fertig, The Cake Therapist

“She breathed in the scent of lemon blossoms, inspired by how their citrus sweetness mingled with fresh ocean air. Closing her eyes, she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, tasting a faint saltiness in the moisture laden breeze. She imagined how dark, rich chocolate filled with the brightness of a lemon filling and dusted with chunky sea salt might taste. Delicious, she decided.”
― Jan Moran, The Chocolatier

“I didn't know until I licked the mocha buttercream from my third devil's food cupcake that this was the flavor of starting over- dark chocolate with that take-charge undercurrent of coffee.
I could actually taste it, feel it. And now I craved it.”
― Judith Fertig, The Cake Therapist

“He opened the little box, popped the chocolate into his mouth, and made a face. "Oh! That's bitter. Must be extra-extra-dark. But there's a very sweet center that tastes of almonds and honey, and..." He smacked his lips. "Something floral."
I was glad I hadn't eaten it myself. I hated bitter chocolate except as a garnish.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“Avis puts aside the 'Saint-Honore' and decides to embark on a new pastry. She's assembling ingredients when the phone rings in the next room. She ignores it as she arranges her new mise en place. This recipe is constructed on a foundation of hazelnuts- roasted, then roughed in a towel to help remove skins. These are ground into a gianduja paste with shaved chocolate, which she would normally prepare in her food processor, but today she would rather smash it together by hand, using a meat tenderizer on a chopping block. She pounds away and only stops when she hears something that turns out to be Nina's voice on the answering machine:
"Ven, Avis, you ignoring me? Contesta el telefono! I know you're there. Ay, you know what- you're totally impossible to work for..."
Avis starts pounding again. Her assistants never last more than a year or two before something like this happens. They go stale, she thinks: everything needs to be turned over. Composted.
She feels invigorated, punitive and steely as she moves through the steps of the recipe. It was from one of her mother's relatives, perhaps even Avis's grandmother- black bittersweets- a kind of cookie requiring slow melting in a double boiler, then baking, layering, and torching, hours of work simply to result in nine dark squares of chocolate and gianduja tucked within pieces of 'pate sucree.' The chocolate is a hard, intense flavor against the rich hazelnut and the wisps of sweet crust- a startling cookie. Geraldine theorized that the cookie must have been invented to give to enemies: something exquisitely delicious with a tiny yield. The irony, from Avis's professional perspective was that while one might torment enemies with too little, it also exacted an enormous labor for such a small revenge.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise

“You've got braised short ribs in the big oven, and that potato, leek, and prune gratin that Brad loves in the warming drawer underneath. There is asparagus prepped in the steamer- Ian can just turn it on and set it for eight minutes." When I helped redesign their kitchen, the Gaggenau rep convinced me to put in two warming drawers, since I'm usually leaving them food that is fully prepared but won't be consumed immediately, and an in-counter steamer, which has been a total game changer when it comes to getting a simple green vegetable on their plates every night, not to mention making the weekly pasta night a cinch.
"The perfect thing for a chilly fall night like tonight."
"That is what I figured. And there is a chocolate ginger sticky toffee pudding on the counter for dessert. The coffee caramel sauce is in the other warming drawer."
"That sounds interesting, a new one?"
One of the recipes I've been working on this week, sort of an update of the English classic. I'm loving how the dark chocolate and sweet heat of the ginger take the cake out of the cloying realm, and the bitterness of the coffee in the caramel sauce sets it all off beautifully. "Something I've been playing with.”
― Stacey Ballis, How to Change a Life

“Bittersweet chocolate so dark and deep it was almost too sharp coated on my tongue. Then I bit into the soft cake, releasing mellow creamy mousse. It wasn't chocolate---perhaps coffee or maybe caramel, the flavor elusive. But the combination of all that dark bitter bite with smooth cream made it something new, rich but not cloying.”
― Kristen Callihan, Make It Sweet

“If I couldn't escape the guilt, there was nothing left to do but lean into it. And leaning into it is what led me to grabbing the forty dollars my mom leaves out in the front to order food if I ever need it, schlepping miserably down to the bodega, and collecting everything I needed to make Paige's infamous So Sorry Blondies from the summer before she left for college.
I pull them out of the oven now, the smell wafting through the kitchen---the brown sugar and butter and toffee against the richness of the dark chocolate chips and toffee against the pockets of dark chocolate caramel sauce. A little bitter and a little sweet.”
― Emma Lord, Tweet Cute

“[...] but blowing a man's head off from four feet away probably doesn't suit everyone. It wouldn't suit me, and it doesn't suit Poppy. Actually, perhaps it would suit me? You never know until you try, do you? I never thought I would like dark chocolate, for example.”
― Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice

“What are you planning for your mille-feuille?"
"I was looking into popular flavors of the Victorian era," Claire recited, just as she'd practiced in the mirror last night, "and I decided to use lemon and raspberry. So my pastry cream has lemon zest and a bit of lemon juice, and then I will layer fresh raspberries between stripes of cream between the pastry layers."
How are you making the pastry?" Alan pressed.
Claire swallowed, suddenly nervous. "Full puff. I found that it layers better than rough puff."
Alan gave her a nod of consideration. "Takes longer too."
"Are you concerned about the combination of two tart flavors?" Dame Sophie asked in a prim, almost trilling voice. "It can be quite a collision if you are not careful."
Claire nodded. "I tried a number of combinations, and this cream should have enough sweetness to counter the lemon. And fresh raspberries, I find, gave a better mouthfeel than freeze-dried or using an essence in the cream itself."
Lindsay leaned on the counter, her expression playful. "Tell me about the chocolate, Claire. C'mon, tell me you're using good chocolate."
"Of course I am," Claire told her with a laugh. "I'm doing a dark chocolate icing and marbling with the vanilla icing, instead of the other way around."
"Daring, Claire," Charlie praised, smiling in his usual would-be devilish way. "Turning history on its head, innit?"
Claire made a show of exhaling. "I'm going to try, Charlie, and hope not to offend history or the judges in the process.”
― Rebecca Connolly, The Crime Brûlée Bake Off

“Switching on the lights above the kitchen island, I turned on the stove and started melting some butter. I poured it into a mixing bowl, then added some monkfruit sweetener, an egg, a splash of vanilla extract, then whisked it until it became light and fluffy. And here was the twist I was planning: instead of Oreo and white chocolate, I was using matcha and dark chocolate as substitutes. The carbohydrate content in matcha was super low, so I wanted to experiment with different recipes using matcha powder, hoping to offer several items in that flavor at the bakery.
After adding some plain flour, baking powder, a pinch of salt, and some matcha powder, I mixed them all to form a dough, then added some dark chocolate chips and several crushed matcha cookies into the mixture.”
― Cynthia Timoti, Salty, Spiced, and a Little Bit Nice

“From the trolley, he picked up a chocolate, rolled in cacao powder. 'These are ganache truffles,' he said. 'The easiest chocolates to make. Even a child can make them. Even Mahmed could, probably.'
I took one. It smelt of darkness infused with gold; a scent that both drew and repelled me.
'I don't really like dark chocolate,' I said.
'Just try one. I made them myself, from bean to bar. Nothing artificial.'
I bit a piece from the chocolate. It was bitter and powdery, but there were other flavors there, struggling to be released.
'Rest it on your tongue for a while. Eyes closed. Mouth half open.'
I did as he said. The bitter scent started to intensify. It's odd; I didn't quite like it, and yet it was evocative. I can taste charcoal, and nutmeg, and salt, and olive, and strong wild honey. It makes me think of incense, and woodsmoke on a frosty night, and the scent of fallen leaves in the rain, and the memory of that night in the church, the warmth of the confessional.
I thought I didn't like chocolate. In fact, I never knew it. Those little squares of chocolate I'd had as a child were nothing like this.
'I know. It's different,' he said. 'It's eighty per cent cacao. It might taste a little bitter to you, but that's the nature of cacao: the stuff you get in the shops here is really mostly sugar and palm oil and fat. But this is the soul of the cacao bean. This strength. This bitter potency. And in this form, it has a kick. It sharpens the mind. Gives energy.'
I put the rest of the chocolate aside. My mouth was furred with darkness.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Imagine a neon sign, right there, a bowl of noodles in flashing red. Imagine the scent of roasted pork, and garlic, and sizzling vegetables. Imagine the customers crowding the street; faces rosy in the glow of many lights. Imagine the money coming in; the luck of the family turning.
Madame Li's face opened up like a flower in a glass of tea. 'Luck,' she said.
I nodded. 'Here. I made these for you.'
I pulled out one of my little sample boxes from my bag. Green tea truffles, with darkest chocolate and fleur de sel: a flavor that reminds me somewhat of the rising tide in Normandy, where Maman and I spent a summer once, and where I ate crêpes wrapped in paper, with butter and fried sausages, while the waves crept closer and the gulls circled hopefully overhead.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne