Drinking chocolate 65%

Drinking chocolate from Chocolat Bonnat, dark drops for the pot

Drinking chocolate from Chocolat Bonnat is a bag of dark drops made from cocoa, cocoa butter, and sugar that melt in hot milk. On paper, they are called Pépites de Chocolat, and when prepared, they create a dense, velvety cup instead of a thin infusion.

Drinking chocolate is the dark portioned chocolate from Chocolat Bonnat in Voiron, Isère, with 65 percent cocoa in every drop. The 250-gram resealable zip bag is enough for many servings, and whatever is left over can go into cake batter or chocolate mousse.

Dense, dark, and self-sweetened

Heat the milk, add two to three heaping spoonfuls of drops, and stir as soon as they soften.

The longer you swirl the whisk, the finer the foam and the velvetier the drink becomes. The cocoa comes through dark with a clear, tart edge, without the sweetness taking the lead.

You decide how sweet the final result is with a spoonful of honey, some maple syrup, or nothing at all. A pinch of cinnamon, a strip of orange peel, or a trace of chili will change the drink in a different direction every time.

Why drops melt differently than powder

Cocoa powder is defatted; it lacks the very fat that makes a cup well-rounded.

The cocoa butter is still inside the Pépites, binding the milk, holding the foam, and carrying the aromas that wouldn't dissolve in water alone. That is why the drink remains equally dense until the last sip.

The fact that the drops are small and flat has a practical reason: they melt quickly, can be measured by the spoonful, and save you from having to chop up a bar.

From the cup to the kitchen

What works in milk also works in cream and in batter.

Pour hot cream over a handful of drops, stir until smooth, and you have a ganache for cakes, truffles, or as a filling between two layers of sponge cake. In cake batter, they remain unmelted as soft spots; in mousse, they provide the deep, dark base note.

Sprinkled over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, they become cool and firm, and stirred with a shot of espresso, they create a robust mocha-cocoa.

Drinking chocolate and cocoa powder are two different things. Powder is defatted and needs sugar and milk powder to amount to anything in a cup. These drops are whole chocolate with their cocoa butter, and that is exactly what makes the difference between a thin beverage and a cup that stands a spoon up.

A bag that lasts through the winter

The bag can be resealed and belongs in a cool, dry place.

Because there is no milk powder in it, the contents age more slowly than pre-mixed blends that taste flat after just a few months. Anyone who buys in autumn will have enough to last well into spring, provided the bag isn't within reach of the children.

Two cups, a book, and a gray afternoon: that is all you need for this variety.

The cup becomes even bolder with the house's darkest drinking chocolate, or completely without sweetness using the pure cocoa drops. The house's bars can be found alongside them in the Chocolat Bonnat collection.