Every time I see or smell a cup of co­coa, I'm al­ways re­mind­ed of an old beau­ty con­tes­tant joke...

Em­cee: What's your name?

Con­tes­tant: Char­lene.

Em­cee: So, Char­lene, what is your spe­cial­ty?

Con­tes­tant: My spe­cial tea is co­coa tea!

Lord have mer­cy...

Jokes aside, co­coa is a se­ri­ous busi­ness. When you think about co­coa's his­to­ry in Trinidad and To­ba­go (since the 1780s, mind you), you can un­der­stand why there are still many co­coa es­tates, in­clud­ing aban­doned co­coa es­tates, present in the is­lands. To­day, co­coa es­tates are more com­mon in the North of Trinidad (To­co, Paria, and Blan­chisseuse), and the prod­uct is sought af­ter be­cause of its dis­tinct fruity taste and heady flavour. We Trin­bag­o­ni­ans love our co­coa so much that we eat it in our desserts and drink it for break­fast and our evening 'tea'. Though many canned va­ri­eties of co­coa pow­der and drink­ing choco­late abound, purists like to search for the pound­ed and hand rolled bars of ground co­coa that need to be grat­ed to make the clas­sic cup. (I ac­tu­al­ly saw a few of these be­ing sold in one of our lo­cal su­per­mar­kets, and hand formed to look like the orig­i­nal co­coa pod too!)

Then, there is that oth­er sin­ful­ly de­li­cious prod­uct we get from co­coa – name­ly choco­late – which is some­thing I love, but do not in­dulge in very of­ten, even when I use it in my bak­ing. (Yet it tastes so good!) So what do we get out of co­coa? Well, for starters, choco­late and co­coa con­tain a high lev­el of flavonoids, specif­i­cal­ly epi­cat­e­chin, which may have ben­e­fi­cial car­dio­vas­cu­lar ef­fects on health.

Cer­tain stud­ies have al­so found short term ben­e­fits in LDL cho­les­terol lev­els from dark choco­late con­sump­tion. Al­so, it is be­lieved that the im­proved blood flow af­ter con­sump­tion of fla­vanol-rich co­coa may help to achieve health ben­e­fits in hearts and oth­er or­gans. In par­tic­u­lar, the ben­e­fits may ex­tend to the brain and have im­por­tant im­pli­ca­tions for learn­ing and mem­o­ry. Speak­ing of mem­o­ries, I've got two easy, mem­o­rable recipes to share with you to­day. One is for an easy cup of co­coa tea, and the oth­er is for a de­li­cious­ly moist triple lay­er choco­late cake, which you are go­ing to love.

Have fun in the co­coa!

Triple lay­er Choco­late cake

with Choco­late frost­ing

Cake In­gre­di­ents

2 cups boil­ing wa­ter

1 cup unsweet­ened co­coa pow­der

2 3/4 cups all-pur­pose flour

2 tea­spoons bak­ing so­da

1/2 tea­spoon bak­ing pow­der

1/2 tea­spoon salt

1 cup but­ter, soft­ened

2 1/4 cups white sug­ar

4 eggs

1 1/2 tea­spoons vanil­la ex­tract

Method

• Pre­heat oven to 350 de­grees F (175 de­grees C). Grease three 9 inch round cake pans and set aside.

• In a medi­um bowl, pour boil­ing wa­ter over the co­coa pow­der and whisk un­til smooth. Let mix­ture cool.

• Sift the flour, bak­ing so­da, bak­ing pow­der and salt to­geth­er; set aside.

• In a large bowl, cream but­ter and sug­ar to­geth­er un­til light and fluffy.

• Beat in eggs one at time, then stir in the vanil­la.

• Add the flour mix­ture al­ter­nate­ly with the co­coa mix­ture and mix af­ter each ad­di­tion.

• Spread the bat­ter even­ly be­tween the three pre­pared pans.

• Bake in pre­heat­ed oven for 25 to 30 min­utes. Let them cool for 15 min­utes in their pans be­fore turn­ing out on a cool­ing rack. Al­low to cool com­plete­ly be­fore frost­ing.

To make the Choco­late Frost­ing

(You will need an elec­tric mix­er for this)

• Cream 1/2 cup but­ter (room tem­per­a­ture)

for 30 sec­onds.

• Add and mix in 2 cups sift­ed pow­dered sug­ar,

1/3 cup sift­ed unsweet­ened co­coa pow­der, 1/4 cup

milk or cream (room tem­per­a­ture) and 1 tea­spoon vanil­la on low speed un­til blend­ed, then beat on

med-high speed for 1 minute.

• On low speed, grad­u­al­ly add in 1 3/4 cups

sift­ed pow­dered sug­ar.

• Beat on medi­um-high speed for 1 or 2 min­utes.

• Add ad­di­tion­al milk or cream by the tea­spoon­ful

un­til de­sired spread­ing con­sis­ten­cy is reached.

Sim­ply frost the cakes by spread­ing the frost­ing on the first cake top. Place the sec­ond cake on top of the first, and spread frost­ing on the sec­ond cake top. Place the third cake on top of the sec­ond and frost the top and sides of the cake.

"Co­coa tea"

Co­coa tea is made from "co­coa sticks," which are 100 per­cent Trinidad co­coa beans ground in­to a paste with lo­cal spices. The sticks are then dried and grat­ed in­to boil­ing wa­ter to cre­ate a "tea" that is then flavoured with con­densed milk.

In­gre­di­ents

A co­coa stick

Con­densed milk (to taste)

Two or three cups of wa­ter

About 2 ta­ble­spoons of sug­ar

Method

• Place 2 to 3 cups of wa­ter in a saucepan.

• Grate about 2 or 3 ta­ble­spoons of co­coa pow­der

from your co­coa stick; add it to the saucepan of

wa­ter.

• Place on heat to boil and stir con­tin­u­ous­ly

with a whisk.

• Re­move from the heat when it has boiled

and stir in about 2 ta­ble­spoons or so of sug­ar.

• Strain some in­to a cup and add a spoon of

con­densed milk to taste.

En­joy!