Here's a link to an article about possible health benefits to eating dark chocolate. https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20030827/dark-chocolate-is-healthy-chocolate#1

There are a number of articles out there about dark chocolate being the healthy chocolate.

I'd be glad to take it off your hands. Hee, hee!

Madonna

booberry, I don't like it either. In my old age I have developed a fondness for high quality ($$$$) chocolate....but not dark.

I'm thinking that the darkness could be lessened in a cup of milky hot chocolate.

How about re-gifting? Not one of my favorite things to do, but needs must.

Make Hot Fudge Sauce where the cream (and some sugar) would lessen the inpact. The Sophia Loren recipe on the Recipe Exchange Forum should be really good.

Good luck! Kate

I'm not sure about peppermint dark chocolate in cookies, but it would be great sprinkled on ice cream. Brownies might be better than cookies, but I'm still not sure about the peppermint.

If you have some white chocolate, you could melt that with the dark chocolate and add some sugar to it.

Yes, you can break it up into cookies, but the melting will be unpredictable. Bar cookies might work better, well greased pan. Also, in or on a cake, or as texture in a mousse or pudding or cream pie filling. You can make the cocoa into a fudge or ganache. But you can’t get it not to be dark chocolate.

I agree with giving it to someone who likes it rather than punishing yourself by doing all that work. Choose the item you think you'll like the best and give it a nibble. Then you can honestly say you ate some and shared the rest, and you enjoyed it, thank-you. And if the part you enjoyed most was delighting a dark chocolate lover, well that's in the spirit of the season, and perfectly okay.

I will take all your excess dark chocolate off your hands, and will in exchange send any milk chocolate that comes my way. I don't want any chocolate that comes with marshmallows but other than that, I'm glad to be of assistance.

Oh, what a dilemma, LOL. I love dark chocolate, and I like milk chocolate too, but I do like the dark stuff better.

I just made some soft chocolate cookies with chocolate mint chips and Elery says they taste just like Thin Mints but not crunchy. I think the peppermint chocolate would make a nice ganache for brownies or for filling a rolled cake. The brickle bars could make frosting for brownies, probably. A spoonful of the dark hot cocoa mix might be nice in a cup of coffee, but I can't help you with the marshmallows at all!

Annie

grate that nasty stuff into slightly softened ice cream.
I love dark chocolate....not so much milk chocolate....and the darker the better....80% is really good!

And you can make milk chocolate from dark chocolate....there are recipes all over. Basically it's adding milk or cream and sugar....sometimes by adding sweetened condensed milk, sometimes just milk.
I didn't used to like dark chocolate....when I was young and foolish.

I absolutely cannot eat dark chocolate. It is just too bitter for me. I know it is good for me, and I still can't eat it.

Did you know that what you like to eat is influenced by your genes?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191111084916.htm#:~:text=%22Your%20genetics%20affect%20the%20way,choice%2C%22%20said%20Jennifer%20L.&text=Everyone%20inherits%20two%20copies%20of,bitter%20tastes%20from%20certain%20chemicals.

My genes indicate I am what is called a 'super taster'. Coffee, dark chocolate and brussels sprouts are all too bitter for me to tolerate. I wish I had known bout that as kid when I wasn't allowed up from the dinner table until I finished by brussels sprouts.

Lynda, I didn't think I was a supertaster—I like dark chocolate and like a lot more foods than I'd read supertasters do—until someone in the forum said she thought I likely was. I got a test kit, and sure enough, I tested very strongly on All three compounds. It was amazing. And it also explained why I was arguing with people that all uncooked/undercooked eggplant is bitter and nasty—though I adore eggplant thoroughly cooked. Brussels sprouts are a flat no. I can't even chew it. It's not an enviable club to be in, but it’s supposed to keep you from eating poisonous herbs.

I don't like dark chocolate either. You're not alone.

Hmm. I was tested by my doctor, who said I was a "supertaster". However, I like dark chocolate and brussels sprouts and love my morning coffee.

What I don't like are things like red wine, beer or other alcohol, sour pickles, olives, anything very salty. Soy sauce is a big offender, I can use a tiny bit but think most dishes that use it in a sauce have far too much.

It's not all that uncommon, something like 35% of women are super-tasters, we just have more taste buds than other people. More women are supertasters than men, only 15% of men have those extra taste buds.

Annie

As I understand it, there are extra sensors (my words) who have more taste buds, so their perceptions are amplified. That sounds like what's up with the soy sauce, et al..like having sensitive ears and going to a concert.

Then there are three types of supertasters who have specific genes that enable them to perceive specific compounds. You can have zero, one, two or three of these genes, and you can have Zero, one or two alleles of each one. If you have one, you can perceive the compound but it doesn't bug you. If you have two alleles, you probably think the compound is truly revolting. On the first two tests, I was all take it away, that's disgusting, it burns. The third compound is perceived differently, sweet, sour, etc., depending on the person, and it's whether it can be sensed at all that's important. On that, I tasted sour, as it moved into eew bitter bad awful. I tried to do the tastebud test, but the dye wouldn't stick to my tongue!

Annie, I like dark chocolate, too, but it's a challenging flavor. Coffee is also challenging. I don't seek it out, I don't choose it, but I don't spit it out. I never get anywhere with Brussels sprouts because I can't chew them. The sulphur is so overwhelming, I have to spit them out. I'm sensitive to the perception of sulphur. I don't know if that's genetic or idiosyncratic. I had to give up some really good multivitamins—they'd been masking the sulphur of the B vitamins with artificial vanilla. They took it out without a replacement so they could claim all natural. Couldn't choke 'em down! And I rarely cook cauliflower because of the sulphur smell. But I don't think that's part of the supertaster thing.

I do think, however, that we learn to deal with challenging things. I don't know if I have the cilantro gene or not. I think my father did, so perhaps I have one copy of it. I don't like it and tend to avoid it, but having grown up on Mexican food, it just tastes Mexican to me, not soapy, and I can accept it in small quantities. But, it's possible I have two alleles of the gene and just have been inoculated by exposure.

I tried to like dark chocolate because it is supposed to be good for you, but I just don’t like it. I love white chocolate, which my sister despises.

I don’t care for anything that is bitter. I cannot abide beer. I love Brussels sprouts. Are they bitter?

I love kale sprouts which are teeny tiny kale-looking heads that grow on a Brussels style rolling pin of a stalk. They stink to high heaven while cooking, making the house smell bad, but they cook up all crunchy crispy on the outside and creamy good on the inside.

Brussels sprouts are too challenging for me to even know if they're bitter, but my overall impression is that they're cabbagy. Cooked cabbage isn't bitter, and raw there's some complexity which likely has a bitter compound which is part of the cabbaginess, but it's not full out bitter like kale. I have learned to eat kale, the way I've learned to eat other bitter things. It’s never going to be yummy, but it's interesting. I can't eat it straight.

@Bbstx, you like white chocolate because there isn't any chocolate in it. It’s cocoa butter, the fat of the cocoa bean, but none of the actual chocolate. Plus butter, milk and sugar. Gravely disappointing to someone seeking chocolate, but luscious for someone just looking for richness.

I still say give away the chocolate you don’t like. Life’s too short.

A good guess is that pure ingredients are much better for us. Add loads of cream and bad sugars like cane makes bitter pure ingredients palatable but turns it into junk hollow fat calories.

Is pure dark chocolate a superfood?. Maybe...or not.(I doubt it but just an opinion). Pure food is always a better option. Palate training for less sugars/cream is never a bad thing.

You could blender your bars to a near dust, then dip a rolled cookie dough into the top half, then smash like one does with many cookies on the sheet. Add a bit of sugar to the 'dust' ?. Add the sugar dust to your hot chocolate with a bit of milk/cream to make it hot milk chocolate. The marshmallow dark covered will melt into the milk/cream. ?

No need to force a dislike. Make it acceptable to your palate. It should be enjoyed.

Not a big deal in moderation.

I tested as a supertaster many years ago....since them I suspect chemo may have fried a few taste buds and enhanced others. I am renowned among my friends and family because I can taste a dish and tell what's in it. And I can detect preservatives a mile away... Certain breads and "boughten" cakes and pastries make me gag.
Hate brussels sprouts....always did, but I love cabbage raw or cooked. Hate mature kale but love baby kale...love radiccio, and escarole, love me a good hoppy beer, and love dark chocolate.
I grew up with my mother cooking a wide variety of foods, I didn't necessarily like them but was exposed to them. There were things like tongue both fresh and pickled, finnan haddie, pickled pigs feet, fried eggplant, head cheese Limburger, Leiderkrantz ( how I miss it!) Camembert and Brie and some stinky beer case my father bought. I had Halavah and candied kumquats. My mother cooked liver once a week and fish of some sort once a week at least. I ate raw clams and oysters and liverwurst and sliced onion sandwiches, as well as the ususal things like roast chicken and steaks and ham and cottage cheese etc.
I think that people who as kids, only tasted bland foods have to learn to like that bitter tang or that really salty or spicy stuff.
So while I taste all the flavors...I don't dislike them!

No dark chocolate for me. I like the milk chocolate!

Sue

So the great cookies experiment is on! The first cookie I made was with the hot cocoa mix. I actually had several miscellaneous hot chocolate mixes around. So it was a mixture of three of them. I used a recipe from here:
Hot Chocolate cookies

DH said that they a comparable to his favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe I make. These are not GF, so I did try them.

Next chocolate brickle / toffee cookies....

As for what to do with it, mix it with nuts, raisins and dried cherries that are very sweet. Their sugar provides an enhancement to the dark chocolate. That's how I get rid of the dark chocolate pieces in my Dove mix.

Those sound good, B! I'm glad your hubs liked them. The brickle sounds like a pretty good cookie too.

Merry Christmas.

Annie

So my last two cookie experiments were with the dark chocolate / brickle / toffee candy bar. I followed the recipe on the back of a package of Heath Bar toffee bits; smashed up the candy bar & used the heath toffee bits to make up the difference. They were good (but not as good as the hot chocolate cookies). A good used of a candy bar that would otherwise sit and take up space.

I also made an M & M cookie, but instead of using M & M's I broke up the peppermint bars and added those. Those too, were good. Surprisingly, not overwhelmingly pepperminty. All & all the hot chocolate cookies were the best.