Celebrate World Chocolate Day

Today is World Chocolate Day, and we’re going to help you celebrate by listing several revered chocolate recipes from the EYB Library. But first, let’s learn some interesting tidbits about our favorite treat via The Telegraph. In celebration of World Chocolate Day, they dug into the research to bring us 10 weird chocolate facts, some of which you may not want to know.

The list begins with the revelation that the river of chocolate seen in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film (made in 1971) was real. The river was created with “15,000 gallons of water mixed with chocolate and cream. With all the cream, the river spoiled fairly quickly and the cast revealed it left a terrible smell.”

Another interesting morsel comes from the tale of the chocolate chip cookie. It turns out that these cookies were the result of a serendipitous accident. In 1930, Ruth Wakefield discovered that she was out of baker’s chocolate, so she mixed broken pieces of Nestle chocolate into the cookie dough, “expecting the chocolate to be absorbed and create chocolate cookies. Instead, she accidentally created chocolate chip cookies, and later sold the idea to Nestle in return for a lifetime supply of chcolate.”

You may not want to know this, but it’s quite likely that your favorite chocolate bar contains insects, about eight pieces on average. According to the U.S Food and Drug Administration, “most foods have natural contaminants in them, but there are levels which the FDA deems safe. Anything more than 60 insect pieces per 100 grams of chocolate is rejected by the FDA.” Think of it as extra protein.

While you’re absorbing these chocolate facts, make one of these highly rated recipes from the EYB Library (and tell us your favorite chocolate recipe in the comments!):