Burnt Caramel Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Coins (with my mind on my money, and my money on my mind)

I wonder if Snoop Dogg visits this blog, and if he does, what he thinks about my gratuitous, trying to be cool, hip-hop reference.

This chocolate video features one of my rare forays into the world of candy. These chocolate coins are inspired by my love for the chocolate-salt-caramel flavor combination, and my fascination with edible money.

To this day, if I'm in a store and I see those little mesh bags of chocolate coins, I immediately turn into a 5-year-old. Those foil wrapped chocolates were, for whatever reason, my absolute favorite. Come on, money and chocolate in one shiny package…beautiful.

It also provided a valuable life lesson. I always thought the saying should have been, "you can't have your chocolate coins and eat them too." I mean who wants to keep cake around? It gets stale. Of course you eat cake as soon as you can - that's a no-brainer. Chocolate coins presented the real have-or-eat dilemma.

Before you watch, let me say that I'm not a candy maker or chocolatiere. I didn't really use a recipe, so if you are experienced in chocolate manipulation you very well may see errors in both technique and execution.

I also didn't bother to wrap them in gold and silver foil. I was very tempted, but time management and sanity prevailed, and I just piled them up.

The chocolate I used was made by a company called Amano, which is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the top artisan chocolate makers anywhere. They are one of the few American companies that create their chocolate directly from the cacao beans. It's amazing stuff and I've included a link here so you can learn more, and hopefully taste it for yourself. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 6 oz dark chocolate, broken in small pieces
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• sea salt
• cocoa for dusting