Cacao Nib

Destined to be your go-to chocolate pie recipe for any and all occasions.

And what's a nib, anyway?

Testing these healthy candies was hard, but we stepped up.

You can eat pretty much every part of this crazy-good-for-you plant.

Jenelle Manzi's a New York City Ballet veteran with a killer recipe for matcha squares.

For a more caramel-y depth of flavor, toast the coconut flakes first.

Cacao nibs are unprocessed bits of the cacao pod. They are intensely flavored, not at all sweet, and give a wonderful depth and crunch to meals. Try blending them into smoothies, or use them to top a long-braised stew.

Because it contains more essential oils, whole grain rye flour can spoil quickly. Store the unused portion in the fridge or freezer.

This mixture gets pretty sticky in the food processor. Don’t be alarmed if you have to scrape and pulse and scrape and pulse to keep the machine moving.

Dates get even more Middle Eastern, dunked in tahini.

This bark combines unprocessed cocoa nibs, toasted coconut, and chopped pistachios for a crackly texture and bittersweet chocolate for its antioxidant virtues. Storing it in the fridge will give it extra snap, though the chocolate may acquire a dull bloom in there.

If a fudgy brownie and chewy chocolate chip cookie had a baby, it would be this decadent creation.

Silkier, lighter, and more sinfully good than anything you've ever tasted before.

Raw cacao powder retains a higher portion of nutrients than more common cocoa powder, which is usually heated during manufacturing. Swap the almond meal here for hazelnut meal, if you prefer.

Cacao nibs add an extra flavor dimension to these truffles.

This is one of the oldest beverages in Mexico and uses two of the main ingredients indigenous to the Americas: cacao and corn. It is essentially a thick corn beverage made with a bit of chocolate and lightly sweetened. It is sold in markets, outside bus stations, and near churches. It is present at many celebrations, from birthdays to baptisms, and is a popular accompaniment to sweet tamales. This recipe was given to me in the state of Tabasco, where I visited some wonderful cacao plantations that are lucky enough to have the ivory criollo bean, one of the highest quality in the world. Originally, champurrado was made with the shells of the toasted beans, but it is now made with the chocolate tablets used for chocolate caliente. If you don’t have any homemade tablets or can’t find them in the store, you can substitute the same amount of bittersweet chocolate and add another stick of canela.