Anima Dulcis Arquiste

I love a good chocolate as much as the next gourmand lover but these days it takes a little more than just chocolate to rock my world. Anima Dulcis does just that. 

The opening of Anima Dulcis is a peppery, dry dark chocolate that smells like it's 90% dark with that raw cocoa taste and low on sugar. The vanilla and cinnamon slowly make their way in and the chocolate turns to a more creamy milk chocolate, the spices keeping it from being overly sweet and giving it a more grown-up feel, away from chocolate scents like The Body Shop's Chocomania and Guerlain's Elixir Charnel Gourmand Coquin that smells like a rosy Lolita bingeing on rum and Godiva chocolate hearts, a delicious scent but that price-tag, really? 

As it further evolves, Anima Dulcis loses some of the vanilla and gains back more dark cocoa with its bittersweet earthy flavour. The overall concoction smells realistic and organic, I can almost taste it. The edible version of Anima Dulcis would be Lindt's Chilli Dark Chocolate, as strange as it sounds it's pretty good stuff, semi sweet dark chocolate with a subtle spicy flavour to give it that extra kick in the taste buds. 

Lindt Chilli Dark Chocolate, image courtesy of Flickr.

Anima Dulcis dries to a dusty spiced chocolate, reminding me of making hot chocolate from chocolate powder, but this time with cinnamon and maybe some cardamom and chilli flakes? The scent has a moderate projection and very good longevity, my cardigan from last night still smells delicious after 24 hours. 

Spicy Hot Chocolate, recipe below, courtesy of www.shape.com

Since this is probably triggering cravings, I found an interesting recipe on shape.com for spicy hot chocolate and have included it here.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound butternut squash (about 2 cups cubed)

Cooking spray

7 cups nonfat milk

8 7/10 ounces Mexican or semisweet dark chocolate

30 1/2 ounce semisweet chocolate

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Peel squash and cut it into 1-inch cubes. Arrange squash on a baking sheet in a single layer and spray lightly with cooking spray. Bake for 30 minutes, or until tender.

2. In a blender, puree squash with three cups of milk until smooth. Stir remaining ingredients in a large saucepan over low heat, until chocolate is melted.

3. Add pureed squash mixture to pan and continue stirring until it's heated (do not boil). Strain mixture through a coarse sieve and serve.