Rosemary Olive Oil Chocolate
A locally-grown alternative to pine needle season.
Rosemary is such an important and powerful herbal medicine that it stayed in people’s yards disguised as a culinary herb when practitioners of modern medicine tried to banish herbal knowledge. I think of this tidbit that I picked up somewhere, perhaps from my herbalism school, every time I see rosemary in my yard. Rosemary is a plant to keep close by. I feel a part of a tradition of common people with common sense and common wisdom (uncommon now) going back countless generations. Even growing up we had a rather large rosemary shrub, although I recognize it only in retrospect, in a prominent place on the walkway to our house. My sister and I called it the “bee bush” and would run past to not disturb the many stinging visitors.
Yet my romantic attachment to rosemary does not explain this week-long craving I’ve had for the scent and taste. It started as I was infusing fresh rosemary and ginger into macadamia nut oil for a topical salve. The smell of rosemary coming from the instant pot I use as an incubator caught my attention. As a member of The Next Batch School, I have no choice but to consider everything I taste and smell through a lens of chocolate. Time to make a rosemary flavored chocolate.
Pairing rosemary and chocolate is a natural, the flavors playing rather than melding, a similar feel to mint and chocolate. Olive oil and rosemary is also a natural pair, and I’ve made olive oil chocolate before. Intrigued by the possibility, I immediately went outside (in a predawn hour), collected a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, and started infusing into some good quality olive oil.
Rosemary seems right for this late fall season, as we enter into winter, especially here where pine trees don’t grow. While temperate-climate-living people may reach for evergreen needle tea, we can enjoy garden rosemary. As I hinted above, rosemary is superpower heathy as well as delicious, and should be ingested unsparingly.
I’ve tried two rosemary flavored dark chocolate recipes. One with a light influence of rosemary in olive oil and the other a heavy-handed rosemary-ginger infusion into macadamia nut oil, the latter of which is delightfully all locally sourced. I am so smitten with the infused oil as chocolate inclusion that I will be playing with this more. Next up: a Thai basil infusion, which will no doubt be stunning, suggested by my friend Erika. In the meantime, here’s a recipe for the rosemary chocolate. If you are also inspired to infuse all the herbs into all the oils and try in chocolate, I want to hear about your favorites!
Rosemary olive oil chocolate
Step 1: infusing the oil
Choose your oil. You can try any you’d like, but some will interfere with cocoa butter tempering. If crisp, tempered chocolate is important to you, stay away from coconut oil here. I’ve had no trouble tempering dark chocolate with 10% olive oil. Macadamia nut oil tempers well, but not quite as well as olive oil. You can use cocoa butter, of course, if you keep it warm and liquified while infusing, but you will miss out on the oil inclusion fun.
Mixing olive oil into chocolate gives it a more intense chocolate flavor and a beautiful, silky mouthfeel. It’s worth experimenting with. I enjoy the green, peppery notes of good quality olive oil mixed with chocolate.
This was my first time using macadamia nut oil in chocolate, I was happy to find that it tempered so well. The oil imparted some nutty tones to the chocolate and made the chocolate melter, but not with quite the same smoothness level as the olive oil. Still, I love the option of using locally made oil, and sadly I can’t get local olive oil.
There are many ways to infuse oil, and you don‘t need to follow my method exactly or at all.
Pick fresh rosemary.
Pull leaf tufts of woody stems and compost stems. Rinse carefully and dehydrate 1 hour at 105°F.
Lightly bruise leaves with a mortar and pestle, if you’d like. Put in a bowl and add enough oil to cover.
Allow to infuse on low heat. I put the bowl uncovered in my dehydrator (my instant pot with an air fryer lid) set at 120°F for about a day. Stir occasionally while infusing.
Notice the color of the oil becoming greener, and taste periodically until it’s reached a level of flavor you like.
You’re done. It’s best to use oils infused with fresh ingredients soon, so let’s move on to mixing with chocolate.
Step 2: flavoring chocolate with infused oil
I used (my normal) 85% dark chocolate sweetened with coconut sugar. I selected a batch that has a blander flavor, so that the rosemary flavor to come through. In the future, I will try with a batch that has a rough aftertaste, since the rosemary flavor is bold enough to stand up to that.
I used 10% oil to chocolate, for example, to 90 grams of tempered chocolate, add 10 grams oil. Tempering using the cacao butter seed (silk seed) method will allow you more wiggle-room for throwing in weird things like oil or liquor after tempering. It may work with a different method of tempering; I haven’t tried.
Prepare your molds or other chocolate receiving gear, like a parchment lined container.
Temper chocolate using the cocoa butter seed method.
Mix in oil.
Pour into molds.
Allow to set as usual.
Easy, huh? And so many possibilities to explore!
Have you made or tried olive oil chocolate? What do you think of the rosemary-chocolate combination?
News:
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I made rosemary olive oil bonbons today!