Sweet Heat

by Dave DeWitt

Overview

Since the ancient Mayas, sweet tastes and chiles have put their pleasure into a single palate-pleasing package. Now here's a guide to the most delicious ways you can yield to those same irresistible desires.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948749398
Publisher:	Terra Nova Books
Publication date:	12/15/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Dave DeWitt is an associate professor in Consumer and Environmental Sciences on the adjunct faculty of New Mexico State University, and also serves as chair of the Board of Regents of the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. His interest in chile peppers and spicy foods which has helped make Dave one of the foremost authorities in the world has led to such best-sellers as The Whole Chile Pepper Book, The Pepper Garden, The Hot Sauce Bible, The Chile Pepper Encyclopedia, and The Spicy Food Lover's Bible.

Read an Excerpt

To understand why people like to spice up their sweet stuff, we need to look at why they crave certain foods. My example for this is chile-infused chocolate in all its forms, a combination that goes back to the Mayas, who served it in two forms: as a hot, bitter drink, and sweetened with honey, the original sweetener before the technology to produce sugar from cane was invented.

There are three basic reasons we crave sugar. Stress can cause fatigue, but sugar can send waves of energy through the body, and we crave that energy. Diet is the second reason; if you've been following a low-carb or low-fat diet, your body can become resistant to insulin, sending signals to your brain to eat more sweets even though there is plenty of sugar in your blood. And the genetic makeup of your body can be responsible too. If you have a gene called glucose transporter type 2, it triggers the craving for sweets, and there's nothing you can do except resist it if you can.

There are also three things that trigger a craving for chocolate. First is the most obvious: flavor. Chocolate is quite delicious, with excellent mouth-feel, and most people want to repeat the chocolate experience again and again. The second trigger for the craving is the pleasure chocolate gives you. It stimulates serotonin release, which can decrease anxiety and depression. In addition, caffeine and theobromine, both found in chocolate, can give the body a much-needed boost of energy, and anadamine, another substance found in chocolate, may duplicate the effects of marijuana, giving a little "high" to the person consuming it.

These six craving triggers are boosted by three more triggers when chiles are mixed with sweetened chocolate. First, if chiles make totally bland foods flavorful, their addition to something delicious like chocolate strengthens the pleasure that chocolate provides, particularly for chileheads. Chiles are also unique, and add a dimension to foods that no other spice provides. And chile lovers expect their food to be spicy, so they crave chiles when it's not.

So chiles increase the cravings for sweet things in general and chocolate in particular. So all we need do to make chile chocolate even more desirable is to simply add one additional ingredient, as we see in our first recipe.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

The Great Montezuma Hot Chocolate Drink 3

Part 1 Incandescent Candies and Confections 5

Chile-Shaped Piñon-Chile Chocolate Truffles 8

Rum Raisin Red Chile Truffles 10

Red Chile Amaretto Truffles 12

Chile-Cashew Brittle Shard 14

Cayenne Pepper Taffy 16

Harald's Belligerent Butterscotch 14

Candied Capsicums 14

Part 2 Potent Puddings and Mighty Mousses 27

Avocado Mousse with Sweet Chipotle Sauce 30

Classic Vanilla Flan with a Kick 32

Piñon Flan with Green Chile Caramel Sauce 34

Coconut Ginger Flan with Ancho Chile 36

Raspberry Crème Brûlée with Chile Vodka 38

Southwestern Bread Pudding 40

Spicy Sweet Potato Pone 42

Dark Chocolate and Red Chile Mousse with Lemon Liqueur 43

Part 3 Joltin' Jams and Jellies 45

Habanera Mixed Fruit Preserves 49

Red Chile Raspberry Preserves 50

Sweet-Hot Mulberry Jam 51

Jumpin' Orange-Jalapeno Marmalade 52

Cranberry-Habanero Jelly 54

Chipotle Blueberry Jam 56

Cranberry-Chile Chutney 57

Red and Green Holiday Jelly 58

Part 4 Fiery Fruits and Powerful Pies 59

Savory Blueberry Compote 63

Chilled Chile Fruit Soup 64

Rujak (Spicy Indonesian Fruit Salad) 66

Calypso Grilled Mango 68

Grilled Peach Halves Stuffed with Cheese and Chipotle Raspberry Purée 70

Pears Quemado 72

Crostada del Diavolo (Devil's Tart) 74

Bananas in Rum Flambé 76

Fresh Margarita Strawberries with Tequila and Cracked Black Peppercorns 77

Hot Hill Country Peach Crisp 78

Blueberry Cobbler with Spicy Biscuits 80

New Mexican Spicy Margarita Pie 82

Spicy Country Cobbler 84

Part 5 Bold Breads Plus Cookies and Cakes Caliente 85

Carrot-Piñon Chile Bread 88

Lemon Chutney Serrano Bread 89

Green Chile-Pineapple Banana Bread 90

Dried Cherry Ancho Orange Muffins 92

Banana-Pasilla Macadamia Nut Muffins 94

Chocolate Chile Almond Cookies 96

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Red Chile Canache 98

Strawberry-Pasilla Blue Corn Muffins 101

Pasilla Scones With Red Chile Honey 102

Mandarin Orange Walnut Piquin Cake 104

Creamy Cheesecake with Pomegranate Topping 106

Part 6 Spices, Ices, and Creams 109

Tangerine and Cracked Black Pepper Sorbet 112

Blood Orange-Yellow Hot Sorbet 113

Mole-Tequila Sorbet 114

Snakebite Sherbet 115

Ginger Gelato 116

Green Chile Piñon-Avocado Ice Cream 118

Kanom Kluai (Banana-Coconut Cones) 120

Mulberry Ice Cream 122

Part 7 Resources 123

Further Reading 125

Seed and Plant Sources 125

Websites 125

Chile Pepper Suppliers and Online Hotshops 126

About the Author 127