Proudly Filipino 
Chocolate. It’s, perhaps, the most desired confection ever created. It’s the most cliched gift item you could give to your love but it always does the work of bringing sweetness to romance. Even the lack of it(yep, romance) can induce a certain passion within. That’s why it’s called an aphrodisiac.
Sometimes, eating too much of sweet chocolate may not be good for diet, despite the health benefits being reportedly published. But I know the dark chocolate brings the best of regarded nutritional advantage.
Rather than giving other kinds of sweets like candy or gummy bears to your loved ones, why not give a little twist of chocolatey, gooey goodness.
Here are some ways to innovate your craving for chocolates, keeping you and your love away from eating the same chocolate bar.
Dried Mango Chocolate
Filipinos and foreigners love to eat dried mangoes. How much more if we combine two of our favorites! That would be heavenly.
Champorado
A champorado is a rice-based breakfast or snack food mix with cocoa/dark chocolate. It’s been deemed among the most favorite breakfast item. In the afternoon, it’s the favored merienda.
And with the nutritional boost from chocolate, you would surely perk up after having a bowl of this for breakfast to go through the day.
And do you know that champorado is best paired with tuyo or buwad(dried fish)? There’s the oddity in the mix, but it does the work of bringing a balanced meal: carbohydrates from rice and protein from chocolate and dried fish.
For me, champorado is better than a cup of coffee.
Puto n’ Sikwate
Puto maya is a rice cake variant of puto, made of glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk, sugar, salt and ginger. Usually wrapped in banana leaves, puto maya has become a popular breakfast item pairing it with sikwate (hot chocolate). The ripe mango added to the puto n’ sikwate pairing is a great combo for merienda and again, for breakfast. But anytime of the day, this can be served and eaten.
A variation of this is a combo of suman, tsokolate and mangga. Like puto maya, suman is a rice cake made of glutionous rice, coconut milk and sugar. But it doesn’t require salt and ginger as added ingredients.
Related: All-time favorite merienda are at Cafe Laguna
Chocolate Sorbetes
This is one of the wonderful innovations. Who would have thought that a coconut milk can be mixed with chocolate to concoct a favorite Filipino ice cream variety?
Although sorbetes
The tinkling of the bell of the sorbetero– the street hawker who carries a wooden cart with the metal canister of sorbetes– signals the arrival of a favorite frozen confection.
Now with different flavors such as mint, melon, strawberry, jackfruit, cookies and cream and ube, the sorbetes is still among the favorite coolers of the Filipinos. And perhaps, the chocolate sorbetes is at the top of the list.
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