Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar

Follow up recipe #1 from yesterday’s PAII webinar, first post here: http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/follow-up-to-food-costing-paii-webinar-for-bed-and-breakfasts/

Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar

The Balsamic

-4 cups good quality Balsamic Vinegar (if you use cheap vinegar you still get cheap reduced vinegar)

-Reduce the balsamic to 2 cups on a simmer (do not boil) let cool. (I recommend if you are going to cook this and especially if your going to cook larger batches of it, do it after guests are done and gone after breakfast, it does smell up the kitchen quite a bit, not in a bad way, it’s just quite strong.

The Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup sugar or for a more earthy taste 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 1.5 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, good quality is preferable.
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoon pure vanilla

-Bring the sugar, salt and water to a boil, add the cocoa powder and stir until slightly thickened, remove from heat and add the vanilla. Result 2 cups of syrup

-Mix the 2 cups reduced vinegar and 2 cups syrup together.

Cheater Maple Balsamic:

Suggested Chocolate Syrups:

• Torani Chocolate Syrup
• Ghirardelli Barista Chocolate Syrup
• Da Vinci Chocolate Syrup

-mix with

Suggested Balsamic Glazes:

• Roland Vinegar Balsamic Glaze
• Modenaceti-Glaze, Balsamic Glaze
• Blaze Balsamic Glaze

Each glaze and syrup has a different amount of sweetness and acidity, so a general ratio would be one cup to one cup, but vary the amounts depending on what tastes good to you.