Blood Orange and Chocolate buns
Fragrant citrus-orange rolls jam-packed with dark chocolate swirls, this is what dreams are made out of I tell you. The rolls are fluffy and airy, yet absolutely moreish thanks to the decadent chocolate filling.
I've always had a thing for chocolate and orange. It's one of my favorite chocolate combinations, just like Gianduja (aka Nutella), chocolate and cherry, or Mocha.
But now that I am on the subject of chocolate combinations, I have a confession to make. I have been lied to. Not a little petty lie of little to no consequence. A reiterated lie that I have based my gastronomical career on.
To make matters worse, it was so ingrained in me that I passed it along to my loyal, trusting, and unsuspecting customers.
I was told that each chocolate combination had a name. If you add hazelnuts to chocolate, you get Gianduja. If you add coffee to chocolate, you get Mocha.
You add orange to chocolate, you get Java. Right? WRONG!!!
So imagine my surprise when I went to research when Java chocolate was invented. I rummaged through all my historical cookbooks and all my chocolate cookbooks and found a big pile of nothing. I panicked, I punched in all the possible chocolate and orange combinations into Google, still nothing.
I asked my mom and aunt. They were as perplexed about it as I was. How could this have happened?
My only possible explanation is that my grandmother probably picked it up at one of my great grandfather's hotels and sold us the story.
My grandmother didn't have a run of the mill childhood. She grew up in her father's hotels. They were always on tour, making sure they were all running smoothly.
To ensure she had a proper education her father hired a German governess to home-school her. But she was always more interested in the hustle and bustle the hotel had to offer than her Latin classes. So she always managed to sneak out on the Fräulein only to end up in the kitchen with the pastry chefs.
I'm guessing this is where she heard about Java for the first time.
I have two theories as to why they called the chocolate orange combination Java.
One stems from little cakes that were all the rage in Great Britain after McVitties unleashed them in 1927, Jaffa cakes. Little morsels of genoise sponge cake and Jaffa orange jelly covered with chocolate, sheer bliss in a bite.
The other one is a play on words. You see, you mix chocolate from Java, Indonesia, with oranges from Jaffa, Israel. Boom, Java, but shouldn't it be Javfa?
You must be thinking well how did chocolate make it all the way to Indonesia. Let's take a look.
A short history of Chocolate
The cacao tree is native to my corner of the world. Archeology managed to pinpoint its origin to one precise area — at the foot of the Andes Mountains between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers smack bang in the middle of Colombia and Ecuador.
It's unclear if Theobroma Cacao, chocolate's scientific name, migrated to Central America on its own or if it got there through trading. Commerce has always been widespread, globalization is definitely not something new.
Be as it may, the truth is that despite being native to South America, it was in Central America where the Cacao tree really saw it's potential.
The Olmecas were the first to separate the bean from the surrounding mucilage, dry it, grind it, add hot water, chili, and spices. The resulting beverage was not only delicious but stimulating due to the many properties of cacao like caffeine and theobromine.
Soon the drink became available only for the wealthy, the ruling class, and the warriors who were about to go into battle. Cocoa was so valuable to them that the cocoa bean became currency.
When the Olmecas started trading with neighboring civilizations like the Mayas, Toltecs, Zapotecs, and Aztecs the rich and famous from the whole area started enjoying a hot cup of cocoa as well.
According to the Toltecs and Aztecs, it was the god Quetzalcoatl who gave Man the gift of Theobroma Cacao so he could be well-fed and nourished. He also gave them agriculture, art, and astronomy. The Mayans told the same story but called him Kukulkan.
He also taught them how to make Xocolatl, a thick frothy drink made with cornmeal, roasted cacao beans and flavored with hot chile, cinnamon, musk, pepper, and vanilla.
Quetzalcoatl was similar to Prometheus in many ways. His gift to Man angered the gods who vowed to retaliate the heinous act of bestowing chocolate to the lowly creatures that worshiped them.
They tricked Quetzalcoatl into fleeing, leaving his beloved people behind. The cacao seeds in his pockets fell while he ran East, growing into beautiful trees. He stopped when he reached the beach, looked back, and promised to return and rule that land once again, then dove into the ocean.
Enter Hernán Cortés, conquistador of Mexico.
Official sources of the Mexican conquest claim that when people saw Cortés and his men, horses and shiny armor, they were sure the Quetzalcoatl had returned.
Whether or not Moctezuma, ruler of the Aztec Empire, believed Hernán Cortés to be Quetzalcoatl's avatar, we will never know. What we do know is that he tried to dissuade them from taking over his city, by showering them with lavish gifts, including Xocolatl.
Not surprising, when Hernán Cortés sailed back to Spain in 1528, his ships were full of cacao beans as well as all the instruments required to make frothy hot chocolate.
It seems that this wasn't the first time the Spanish Court had seen cacao. In 1502 Christopher Columbus had already brought some beans with him. But he didn't manage to sell it without two key ingredients: sugar and milk.
Cortés wasn't about to make the same mistake. When he presented the drink at Court, he made sure to modify the beverage slightly and make it better suited for the Spanish palate.
Hot chocolate as we know it was born, and Spaniards became hooked. Over the next century, the Spanish Empire held a monopoly on chocolate.
The controlled the cacao trade routes which meant they controlled the sugar and vanilla routes as well.
The formula for making logs of chocolate that could be easily stored and then melted to create all sorts of delicious concoctions was perfected. The secret formula locked up in monasteries. Monks and nuns were the chocolatiers of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Needless to say, the chocolate trade was booming.
Being a part of the Spanish Empire meant the Low Countries had a constant supply of chocolate. That is until the religious wars broke out, and The Netherlands became independent.
Independence never seemed so bittersweet. Breaking off from the Hapsburg rule meant that their chocolate supply was cut out.
But the Dutch are resilient and resourceful people. Soon a country with little over 1.5 million people took to the sea and dominated international trade. The government created two large mega-corporations, the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company.
They set up cacao plantations in their new colonies. Little did they now that introducing the crop in Java would transform the Indonesian economy forever.
Unfortunately, this new cacao craze had cruel by-product, slavery. The Dutch were particularly adept at trafficking with African slaves.
But not even with the extra manpower could they keep up with the world's demand for chocolate. Technological innovations were made to speed up production. Animal power was harnessed to make the milling process more efficient.
And then in 1815, a Dutch chemist called Coenraad van Houten revolutionized the chocolate industry forever. By adding alkaline salts to chocolate he managed to reduce how bitter chocolate was, a few years later he developed a press that managed to remove around half of the natural oils in chocolate, aka cocoa butter. This meant that not only chocolate would be both cheaper to make but that the resulting quality was better.
Javanese chocolate boomed.
Jaffa Oranges
Jaffa Oranges are a very particular type of orange. They were developed in the city of Jaffa, modern-day Israel, by Palestinian farmers during the mid-19th century when the region was still Ottoman Palestine.
I don't want to be political here, but it turns out that Jaffa oranges, also called shamouti are a big bone of contention between Palestinians and Israelis.
The Middle East as a whole has always been at the crossroads between Asia and Europe, trade has always flourished in this area as a consequence of this. But this stands particularly true to the Levantine region, an area that encompasses Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and the South-western part of Turkey.
Ottoman Palestine produced a series of commodities like soap, sugar, barley, and cotton all of which had been exported to Europe since the 1200s. But two innovations marked a rapid economic growth in the area during the 19th century; the Jaffa orange and steamships.
Jaffa oranges have a very distinctive oval shape, their skin is far thicker than that of other oranges. It makes it both easy to peel, great for making marmalades and also allows to fruit to bruise far less, making it very well suited for exports. Also since Jaffa oranges have far less juice than other varieties it can be stored for longer periods than other citrus fruit. They are the ideal orange for export from a storage and transport standpoint.
Steamships heading for Europe meant that farmers could move their product in a matter of days rather than weeks. The Jaffa orange got marketed as one of the healthiest and most delicious snacks on the planet.
The orange business grew exponentially. In just over two decades Palestine went from exporting under 250,000 oranges to nearly 40 million. But because of the very nature of orange groves that require large capital and render no yields in the initial years, the Jaffa orange business shifted from small farmers to wealthy landowners.
Jaffa had another very important development in its history happen in the late 19th century. Zionist settlers called Bilu'im started arriving. The Bilu movement had as its goal the agricultural settlement of the Promised Land.
They settled around the historic port city of Jaffa, founding the bustling city of Tel-Aviv. These same zionists introduced technological advancements that enabled Jaffa orange production to be more cost-effective.
Slowly many of the orange groves changed hands.
Today the Jaffa orange is a symbol for Israelis and Palestinians alike. It just represents very different ideals for both nations. It represents Jewish enterprise and the state of Israel for Israelis and it's a symbol for the loss of their homeland for the Palestinians.
I hope that clarifies the story for you, I know that it clarified it for me. Now excuse me while I go munch away at another one of my not-Java rolls, I suggest you do the same.
Ingredients:
- 500g (1lb 2oz) strong white flour
- 1 tsp salt
- Zest of two blood oranges, if they’re not in season any orange will do.
- 1 x 7g sachet fast-acting yeast
- 300ml (1 cup + 2 tbsp, 10 oz) milk
- 40g (3 tbsp) butter softened
- 45 g (2 tbsp) sugar
- 1 large egg
- vegetable oil, for greasing
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 120 g (1/2 cup) softened butter
- 100g (1/2 cup) dark chocolate melted
- 450 g (16 oz) room temperature cream cheese
- 115 g (1 stick) butter
- 1 blood orange (use regular if not in season) juiced and zested
- 160 g (1 1/12 cup) powdered sugar
Instructions:
How to cook
- Warm the milk and stir in the sugar and yeast, set aside for 10 minutes
- In a large mixing bowl place the flour and salt, mix both ingredients until thoroughly combined.
- Pour the milk mixture, the egg, the orange zest, and the softened butter into the flour mixture, stir thoroughly until the contents of the bowl come together as a soft dough with a wooden spoon or with the help of a stand-alone mixer.
- If using your hands, tip the dough onto a lightly floured countertop and knead five minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with a damp tea towel, a place in a warm place for one hour or until the dough doubles in size.
- Line your baking tray with parchment paper.
- Roll out dough on a lightly floured workspace with a rolling pin. The rectangle should be roughly 30x20cm or 12x8in in size.
- Spread chocolate mixture over the dough and roll into a log. Cut into 12 equal pieces.
- Place your buns on the parchment paper leaving a bit of space in between them to allow them to expand.
- Place in a warm spot for 30 min.
- Preheat oven to 180°C or 350°F.
- Bake buns for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
- Let the buns cool before frosting them
- Place all the ingredients on top of a double boiler and melt them together.
- Set aside, and allow to cool.
- In a large mixing bowl combine sugar, orange zest, and orange juice.
- Mix until well combined, add butter and cream cheese and continue beating until whipped.
