Sweetening your cacao drink

Ok, when writing this with a nice cacao drink, I got carried away a bit so the TL;DR points are:

Sweetening cacao is delicious! Just be careful not to oversweeten.
Use nice sweeteners that you prefer; like maple, agave, honey, dates etc.
It can bring out certain tastes: like cassis in the Cahabon cacao, or extra fruitiness in the Cusco cacao.
The world is used to oversweetened cacao products, often masking lower quality ingredients.
Yummy recipe tip: blend your cacao drink with a fresh date for a creamy, naturally sweet texture.

Cacao and sugar are a very successful combination. Sweet chocolate and all kinds of treats immediately trigger a “yumm” response and a craving to eat more. When we started with the Kakaw Bar in Amsterdam in 2018, pure cacao drinks and ceremonial cacao were mostly unknown. The only reference to a cacao related beverage was sweet chocolate milk. Our minds are primed to sweet chocolate. Interestingly many people told us they started with sweetening their cacao drinks at home, but after a week gradually built down the sweetness and started to appreciate the complexity of cacao with its bitters and wide range of taste and aroma.

Understanding sugar content in chocolate

We ourselves felt kind of cheated by the chocolate industry, only knowing of cacao as an ingredient for sweets instead of all the benefits that pure cacao can bring. It’s good to realize how much sugar as generally used in chocolate:

Milk chocolate contains milk powder to soften the cacao taste and ±40-65% sugar.
Pure chocolate may be called so from a minimum of 35% cacao ingredients (cacao + cacao butter combined), the rest is basically sugar 😱. Many chocolates contain 50% sugar.
100% chocolate often contains added cacao butter to soften its taste, but may be called 100%. Eating small flakes of our pure cacao is delicious and satisfying.

When we mention “pure cacao” or “ceremonial cacao”, we really mean 100% pure, minimally processed, nothing added, nothing extracted, peeled, whole cacao beans as the only ingredient.

What’s in the name 🤷♂️. Anyway, it is not the aim to bash sugar here, the goal is actually to mention how nice it can also be in your cacao drink and how important it is to make something that you enjoy. It is however important to understand this, and still mind blowing to me to realize. It is almost like cacao has been used to actually sell sugar over the last centuries…

Confusing cacao color

One more belief to demystify: extra bitter or dark chocolate does not automatically mean extra pure. On the contrary. It depends on the type/variety of cacao, fermentation, alkalization and processing methods that make it actually darker. The “dark = pure” idea might come from milk chocolate where the milk powder makes it lighter.

But if you look at our delicious chuncho chocolate bar, you can see how light brown it is by nature. This is btw the only product we have that contains (unrefined) sugar because it really creates something special, bringing out different tastes and chocolate has a different goal in itself. I like to look at this chocolate as healthy candy.

Making delicious cacao drinks with some sweetness!

So, then finally coming to the whole purpose of this blog, and that is to celebrate making delicious recipes for your cacao drink and not feeling bad to sweeten it to your taste. I will always applaud less added sugar in our diet, but that is a balance to make for yourself. Sweetening cacao reduces its bitterness and can amplify certain flavors. It is very easy to oversweeten, so rather stay on the low side. Some sweeteners, like maple, honey and dates, bring delicious flavors by themselves.

Recipe tip: Cusco date!

My favourite recipe amongst many experiments is to blend 20gr Cusco cacao + 1 fresh date + 100ml hot water (80°C) in a blender or nutribullet (be careful not to overheat in a closed system). Optionally add a pinch of cinnamon or vanilla. The creamy texture of the blended date is incredible, and the taste together is fantastic.

Making cacao for a large group

For a small cacao ceremony we usually do not sweeten it. But for a larger group (25+ people) or large ceremonies, music events, etc we usually do make a bit of a softer cacao drink with oat milk or tahini and add some sweetener because many people have different tastes and it makes sense to make it more generally liked.

Reasons to sweeten your cacao:

It counterbalances the natural bitterness.
It can amplify certain flavors (this is especially important for craft chocolate and why 70% is a successful bean-to-bar recipe). For example some sweetening can bring out cassis tones in the Cahabon cacao, or extra fruitiness in the Cusco cacao.
It gives a direct “Yummm” effect.

Reasons not to sweeten your cacao:

It makes sense to limit your sugar intake. This is why we do not presweeten our cacao and it is up to you to decide.
It can mask certain tastes and aromas that make our cacaos so special.
It is easy to oversweeten, and this can ruin your cacao drink.

All in all, it makes sense to find your own balance in making your cacao drink. There are so many delicious (and healthy!) things to add. Many people naturally reduce sweetness over time, opening up to the complexity of pure cacao drinks.

Wishing you delicious experiments with cacao recipes for yourself and to share!