What to do with Choffy besides drink it
Choffy is roasted cacao, brewed like coffee - so anywhere a recipe wants brewed coffee, espresso or cocoa depth, it will take Choffy instead. Roughly half of these use it as a brewed liquid; the rest use the dry grounds straight from the bag. There are 21 recipes, all of them on this page.
Two ways it goes into a recipe
Worth knowing before you pick one, because they buy you different things - and one of them needs no brewing equipment at all.
You brew a pot, then cook with it
Use the brewed liquid wherever a recipe wants coffee or water. This is how the tiramisu works - ladyfingers soaked in brewed Choffy instead of espresso - and where the hot chocolate and the spiced latte get their body. Recipes written this way usually want it strong.
Straight from the bag, by the tablespoon
The grounds go into the batter, the cream or the rub. Nothing is brewed and nothing is strained. The creme brulee steeps them into hot cream; the filet mignon uses them dry as a rub with salt and pepper. If you do not own a press, start here.
Yes, you can eat the grounds
Choffy grounds are roasted cacao and nothing else - the same thing sold as cacao nibs, only ground for brewing. Unlike coffee grounds, they are food before they go near water, and they are still food afterwards.
Roasted bean, cracked into pieces
Nibs are cacao beans roasted and broken up. People eat them by the spoonful, scatter them over yoghurt and bake them into things. Ours is the same bean taken one step further - roasted, then ground.
Roasted bean, ground for brewing
Ground fine enough to brew and coarse enough to strain. Straight from the bag they go into batter, granola, a smoothie or a savoury rub by the tablespoon, exactly where a recipe would ask for nibs or cocoa.
What is left after pressing
Cocoa powder is what is left after most of the cacao butter has been pressed out, and US labelling requires it to be declared as "processed with alkali" when it has been Dutched to darken it. Measured across commercial powders, heavy alkalization cut total flavanols by about nine out of every ten (Miller et al., J. Agric. Food Chem. 2008). It dissolves rather than brews, and there is less of the bean left in it to taste.
Choffy Tiramisu
The recipe that explains all the others. Ladyfingers soak in brewed Choffy instead of espresso - a straight one-for-one swap with no technique to learn. Make it once and the rest of this page stops needing explanation.
Read the recipe →
Desserts
The largest group, and the most forgiving place to start. These recipes are already built to carry a bitter, roasted note, which is exactly what Choffy brings.
Four cups of brewed Choffy and a can of sweetened condensed milk. The simplest way in, and the one to...
Three and a half tablespoons of grounds steeped into heavy cream with cinnamon and vanilla. Nothing gets brewed, so no...
Ladyfingers soaked in brewed Choffy instead of espresso, layered with mascarpone. The clearest example of a straight coffee swap.
A lightened version from Cooking with Ruthie - the flavor kept, the calories cut back. Good for a dinner party...
Cocoa powder and Choffy grounds together in the dough. Keeps for days, and it goes with a mug of the...
Neufchatel and sour cream in the batter for a denser crumb. The birthday-cake option.
Individual bundts from the same batter family as the cupcakes. Portioned, so nobody has to cut anything.
A caramel apple with a Choffy layer over the caramel. The autumn one.
The Choffy goes into the syrup rather than the batter. A breakfast recipe that eats like a dessert.
Ten to twelve ounces of really strong brewed Choffy, plus a spice mix you make yourself from cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves...
Snacks, smoothies and cold drinks
Smaller, faster and mostly no-bake. Several are built around what is in the bean rather than around its flavor, which is why they turn up with chia seeds and dates in them.
Under five ingredients: dark chocolate, Choffy grounds, peanut butter, honey and chia. They live in the fridge.
Rolled, chilled, and aimed squarely at the mid-afternoon dip. No oven involved.
A date-and-nut base under a chocolate Choffy top layer. The biggest batch of the lot, and the one most likely...
Four tablespoons of grounds into almond milk and chia, set overnight, layered with orange and grapefruit.
Banana, dates, and half a cup of used Choffy grounds from this morning's press. Post-workout, and it costs nothing.
Chocolate and peanut butter, blended. From Cooking with Ruthie, and about as fast as a recipe gets.
Brewed hot, poured over ice, hazelnut creamer stirred through. Cinnamon and coconut creamers work just as well.
Eight ounces of chilled Choffy over ice, caramel syrup, a splash of creamer and a small pinch of kosher salt.s
The blender version of the iced one. Chilled Choffy, a cup of ice, half-and-half, caramel sauce and syrup, run until...
Savory
The least obvious use, and the one to try if you have only ever had Choffy sweet. Roasted cacao behaves in a rub the way a dark spice does: bitter, earthy and good against fat.
Choffy grounds, salt and pepper rubbed straight onto the steak, wrapped in bacon and grilled. Four ingredients.
Eight ounces of hot water and four tablespoons of Choffy, then finished under the broiler for something close to a...
Pick the bag you will cook with
Read down for the estate, across for the roast. Medium is the one most of these recipes are written around; French is the one to reach for when the recipe is standing in for coffee. Add it here without leaving the page.
Brewing the Choffy your recipe calls for
Three methods are published for Choffy and all three use the same ratio. Pour-over cones, percolators and overnight cold steeping are common ways to brew coffee, but no grind or ratio guidance is published for them, so they are not covered here.
French press
The strongest brew, and the one to use when a recipe says really strong. Stir, steep three minutes, then repeat once or twice depending on strength. The longest of the three methods.
Drip machine
Best when you want enough for a recipe and a pot to drink alongside it. Use a permanent gold or nylon mesh filter - paper clogs with Choffy grounds. Fill with cool or lukewarm water and select the hottest, boldest setting.
Single cup
For one serving, or a recipe that needs only a few ounces. Choffy single-serve cups are compatible with Keurig(R) brewers. A tea infuser also works: boiling water, four to six minutes. An AeroPress works too.
Make it your own
Choffy takes additions the way good coffee does. Cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom go into the grounds before brewing. A square of dark chocolate melts into a hot mug. Steamed oat or whole milk gives a creamier pour. Sweeteners behave differently here than they do in coffee, and it is the thing regular drinkers experiment with most. If a recipe comes out flatter than you wanted, the fix is almost always more grounds rather than less water.
“The dark roast is great if you enjoy the dark, almost burned flavor. The flavor is rich and full and it is very easy to modify the taste with creamers and sweeteners. Try brown or raw sugar. Awesome flavor.”
Mark Morris, verified buyer, on Ivory Coast Dark RoastQuestions about cooking with Choffy
Can you bake with Choffy?
Yes - most of the recipes here are baked or chilled desserts: cupcakes, bundt cakes, biscotti, creme brulee, mousse. Choffy goes in either as a brewed liquid replacing the coffee or water in the recipe, or as dry grounds measured by the tablespoon straight into the batter or the cream.
Do I use Choffy grounds or brewed Choffy in a recipe?
Read the ingredient line. If it gives a volume in ounces or cups (four cups brewed Choffy) it wants the liquid. If it gives a tablespoon measure (three and a half Tbsp Choffy grounds) it wants the dry grounds out of the bag. Recipes that use the grounds dry need no brewing equipment at all.
How much Choffy do I use per cup?
Two tablespoons of Choffy per six ounces of water. That is the published ratio for both the French press and the drip machine, and it does not change between them. When a recipe asks for really strong Choffy, add grounds rather than reducing the water.
Can I substitute Choffy for coffee in a recipe?
In the recipes here, that is exactly what happens. The tiramisu soaks its ladyfingers in brewed Choffy where the traditional version uses espresso, and the pumpkin spice latte is built the same way a coffee latte would be. Choffy brews darker and less sharp than coffee, so expect a rounder cacao note where the coffee bitterness used to be.
Can I reuse Choffy grounds?
For one recipe on this page, yes. The Chocolicious Choffy Smoothie calls for half a cup of used Choffy grounds, the ones left in the press after brewing. Use them the same day. For anything baked or steeped, start with fresh grounds, since the used ones have already given up most of their flavor to the cup.
Do I need a special filter to brew Choffy?
In a drip machine, yes. Use a permanent gold or nylon mesh filter. A paper filter will clog with Choffy grounds, because they are ground cacao rather than coffee and they behave differently in the basket. A French press needs nothing extra; its own mesh screen is the filter.
Which roast should I cook with?
For baking and for savory rubs, a dark roast gives you the most flavor to work with, since it has the deepest, most roasted character to carry through butter and sugar. For smoothies and cold drinks, where nothing is cooking the flavor down, a medium roast keeps things lighter. If you are not sure yet, a variety set lets you taste across the roasts before you commit a whole bag to a cake.
Can you eat Choffy grounds without brewing them?
Yes. Choffy is 100% roasted cacao, which is the same thing sold as cacao nibs, only ground. A good number of the recipes on this page use it dry, straight from the bag. It is unsweetened and bitter on its own, so most people put it into something rather than eat it by the spoonful.
Are Choffy grounds the same as cacao nibs?
Same bean, same roast, different particle size. Nibs are cracked into pieces; ours is ground for brewing. Anywhere a recipe asks for nibs you can use the grounds, and the finer grind means the flavour comes through faster. What you give up is the crunch nibs give on top of something.
Everything here starts with a bag of grounds
Cooking with Choffy runs through the bagged product. It is what you measure by the tablespoon, what you brew for the recipes that call for a cup, and what you steep for the ones that call for an infusion. The bag picker is just above.