Confessions of a Chocoholic

Hi, My name is Rachelle and I am a chocoholic. I love chocolate, but not just any chocolate---I am a bit of a “chocolate snob”. Hershey’s kisses are not at all tempting, but put me near an open bag of Dove Promises, and I am a goner. I come from a long line of chocoholics, so I guess it is not surprising that I am inflicted with the condition. My mom is a chocoholic, my grandma is a chocoholic, and several of my siblings are chocoholics. When I am choosing dessert at a restaurant, I don’t even give a second glance to things with words like “fruit” or “cobbler”. For me, it is not even worth it unless there is the word “chocolate” followed by something like “overload”, “indulgence” or “obsession”.

When I was in college I actually won an award for a speech I wrote about chocolate. It made a great conversation piece on my resume! No one was happier than me when the health industry announced that the antioxidants in dark chocolate were actually good for you. Then I had an excuse to eat chocolate every day---after all it was for “medicinal purposes”.

My favorite kind of cookies are----you guessed it---chocolate chip cookies (or chocolate, chocolate chip cookies). So, recently, I set out to determine which brand of chocolate chips were the best. Fortunately, I teach a night class in statistics at the community college, and my students were more than willing to be my guinea pigs. My first experiment compared Target Generic milk chocolate chips, Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips, and Hershey’s milk chocolate chips. Because Hershey’s chocolate in general (ie Hershey’s Kisses, Hershey bars, etc.) do not live up to my standards, I was sure that Ghiradelli would win and Hershey’s would be sent home in shame, but I was wrong! I had each subject sample each type of chocolate chip with the order determined at random. Each sample was rated on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being super yucky and 10 being “died and gone to heaven” delicious. Between samples, the subjects cleansed their palette with a glass of water. Samples were labeled only A, B or C so that subjects would not be biased by the brand name. Here is a graph of the results:





As you can see on the graph, Hershey’s outscored the other two. Subjects found no difference between Ghirardelli and Target Generic.

The next semester, I took the milk chocolate chip taste test one step further. This time I compared Hershey’s milk chocolate chips, the winner from the first test, to Nestle milk chocolate chips. Once again, Hershey’s was the clear winner!

Next semester I will have to see if Hershey’s can maintain the number one spot when comparing semi-sweet chocolate chips! In the meantime, I will be buying Hershey’s for all my cookies!

Rarely does a day go by when I don’t eat some form of chocolate. Lately, my favorite breakfast includes oatmeal with a packet of diet hot cocoa and a small spoonful of peanut butter mixed in. Of course, if I ate chocolate as much as I wanted to, I would be as large as the Good Year Blimp, so I usually try to limit myself to one low-cal chocolate treat per day (breakfast doesn’t count). Some of my favorites are a Healthy Choice Fudge Bar (100 cal), Chocolate Indulgence Jello Mousse Temptations (60 cal), Deep Chocolate Vitatop (100 cal) and Skinny Cow Choclolate Fudge Ice Cream Cone (150 cal).


If it is a special occasion or I am feeling super indulgent, some of my favorite restaurant desserts include TGI Friday’s Brownie Obsession (minus the nuts---in my opinion, nuts only take up space where chocolate should be), Cheesecake Factory Tuxedo Crème Cheesecake or 30th Anniversary Cake Cheesecake, and Carrabbas Sogno di Cioccolata (Chocolate Dream).

One of my favorite homemade chocolate desserts is aptly named “Death by Chocolate”. It has become a Christmas Eve tradition. Here is the recipe:

Death By Chocolate
2 Pkg. Chocolate Mousse made according to directions (I like the Double Chocolate Mousse Mix by Dr. Oetker)
1 brownie mix (9x13 pan size) made according to directions
1 Bag of Crushed of Heath Toffee
8 oz. Cool Whip

Crumble half of brownie into trifle bowl. Add ½ of mousse. Next Layer ½ Cool Whip. Sprinkle with ½ toffee.

Repeat and refrigerate.

Death by Chocolate

Of course it was almost inevitable that some of my children would also become chocoholics. From early on, we could tell that Rustin would struggle with chocoholism.

Rustin and Kyndall on their 2nd birthday--one cupcake was not enough for him!

Riley and Kaiya both have a love for chocolate, though their palettes aren't as developed as mine and they have a difficult time distinguishing the "good stuff" from the "bad stuff". :)

Riley (who loves chocolate so much that he made his cub scout pinewood car to look like a Hershey's Chocolate Bar)

Kaiya

Though Rustin has clearly shown a preference for chocolate, the rest of the quints haven't given much of an opinion on the subject. Perhaps it is because they haven't had a lot of opportunities to eat chocolate--I don't often give them treats, and when I do, I stick with something less messy!

Kassidy

Kaydence

Rustin

Kyndall

Ryder


All this writing about chocolate is making me hungry....I think I am going to go have some--after all, those antioxidants are really good for you, right?

Confessions of a Chocoholic