Desserts & Candy Posters, Art Prints & Charts
for the classroom, kitchen and restaurants.

Cacao or cocoa plant (Theobroma cacao), the source of chocolate and cocoa, is a small understory evergreen tree native to the tropical region of the Americas.

Its scientific name Theobroma translates as “food of the gods”, cacao is from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word cacahuatl.

The Aztec emperor Montezuma was observed drinking a beverage made of cacao, and the beans were included in agricultural specimens returned to Spain.

Today cocoa is grown in West Africa, Central and South America and Asia. The eight largest cocoa-producing countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador and Malaysia, represent 90% of world production.

• Varieties of Cocoa, Ghana

Sugar / Le Sucre

Sugar, a class of edible crystalline substances, is a basic food carbohydrate that primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet, and also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple (in maple syrup), as well as many other sources.

Sugar is interpreted by human taste buds as a sweet flavor, excessive consumption of sugar has been associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity and tooth decay. Sugar forms the main ingredient in much candy.

Candied Violets -

• beat an egg white lightly (estimate one egg white/30 violets)
• brush egg white on both sides of each violet, then sprinkle the back of each violet *heavily* with fine granular sugar (make your own: regular sugar in a blender).
• lightly sprinkle the front of each violet with the fine sugar.
• lay the violets face up on wax paper for about one hour or until stiff enough to move to a clean piece of wax paper.
• let the violets dry in a warm well ventilated room / place for as long as you can stand it (or up to two (2) weeks).
  

Golden Treacle

Treacle is any syrup resulting from refining sugar and usually used as a sweetener or condiment in cooking. Careful readers (and trivia aficionados) will recognize a “treakle well” from Alice in Wonderland, and treacle tarts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Harry Potter.

Maple Syrup over Pancakes, Blueberries & Vanilla Ice Cream, Photographic Print

Maple syrup, a sweetener made from the sap of maple trees and most often eaten with waffles and pancakes, is sometimes used as an ingredient in baking, the making of candy, preparing desserts, or as a sugar source and flavoring agent.

The sugar maple is the Vermont State tree.

Cherry Pie is a homey dessert- cherries are a stone fruit, February is National Cherry Month; Traverse City, Michigan has an annual Cherry Festival in July; and George Washington is associated with the cherry.

Cakes are baked desserts usually made by combining flour, sugar, eggs, some kind of fat like butter or oil along with a liquid like water or milk, a leavening agent like yeast or baking powder, and flavoring.

Cakes are described by the ingredients, cooking techniques and shapes like sheet and layer cakes, bundt cakes, and cupcakes.

Gelatin desserts are made from the protein gelatin mixed with sugar. Gelatin, a translucent, colourless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid substance, forms a solution of high viscosity in water, which sets to a gel when cooled. Gelatin is extracted from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones.

The word gelatin(e) is from the French gélatine.

Tricks for a gelatin mold: let the fully dissolved gelatin cool in the refrigator for an hour or so before you fold in the chilled fruit and pour into a mold (use cooking spray). To unmold warm the outside of the mold, put a plate on top and invert, jiggle. Take my hints with care, I may be the only person in the world who made lumpy ‘jello’.

Jello, a brand name for a gelatin dessert mix of powdered gelatin, sugar or artificial sweetners, and flavorings, is so identified with gelatin, the word jello is understood to mean gelatin in the US.