Finally there’s some big media coverage of the FDA’s new proposal to replace cocoa butter with other vegatable fats.

Robert Noel of ChocolateGuild.com & Gary Guittard of Guittard Chocolate on CBS 5 in the Bay Area.

I picked up these Koppers chocolate morsels called Cayenne Pepper Savory. They were powerful strong. Every once in a while I would eat another one and I’d be back to my original assement, “It burns! It burns!” (Review over here.)

But I really liked them and thought there might be a way to use them in something else that would temper that sizzling aftertaste.

So I dug out the traditional recipe for Nestle Toll House Cookies and mucked around with it.

375 F Degree Oven - Bakes 9-11 Minutes - Makes 48 cookies (I make mine big)

Here’s where I diverged from the regular recipe ... I didn’t have the 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar the traditional recipe calls for so I just made up the difference with white sugar. Really, this is a bad compromise. Get yourself some brown sugar - the cookie part was just too bland and didn’t have that good crystalized crunch that brown sugar gives it.

Second divergence, I only had 1 cup of the Cayenne Chocolate, so I chopped up another cup of a mix of milk and dark chocolate Wilbur Buds. (That probably saved the cookies from being totally noxious.)

Third divergence, I prefer Pecans in my chocolate chip cookies. But I didn’t have those. So I took some raw whole almonds, chopped them up coarsely and stuck them in the pre-warming oven to toast up.

I used my new KitchenAide mixer and place the butter and sugar in there and blended on low with the mixing paddle until it seemed pretty smooth. Then I added one egg at a time and let those beat in. Then a dash or two of vanilla.

In a separate bowl I combined the other dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. Then poured that in, in thirds, to the mixer and let it mix together on one of the lower settings.

Then I pulled out the beater paddle and mixed in the two cups of chocolate and the nuts (remember to let the nuts cool, I didn’t, and they can make the batter a little runny).

Scoop small spoonfuls onto a clean, ungreased cookie sheet and place in center of oven to bake.

Mine ended up going about 13 minutes each. It might have been the change of the brown sugar/white sugar that made the difference, or I might just prefer mine a little crispier.

If you’re looking for a cookie recipe that you can make and not end up eating all of them at once, well, this might be for you.

I give these a 4 out of 10. (My husband gave them a 7 out of 10, but he doesn’t have the same issues with overly spicy things that I do.) I don’t like having to pick the chocolate out of my chocolate chip cookies. What was I thinking?

Yes, it’s Easter morn in my house. Though the Easter bunny no longer visits, I still have plenty of goodies to chomp on. And of course lists to make for the big sales that start tomorrow ... after all, Easter is the last Candy Holiday for Candy Season.

Did you see this clip from the Conan O’Brien show? BJ Novak (of The Office) has an interesting rant. (Good Enough Cook tipped me off in the comments section to check the downsizing of the Cadbury Creme Eggs this year.) Just a note, Novak mentions that the Cadbury site denies changing the size, however, that is the UK site. The CCEs he presents for his demonstration are the American ones, made by Hershey’s. So if you’re buying CCE’s on sale, you might need more than past years.

What are you going to stock up on?

Just a few more days until Easter and I thought I’d throw out a few more “green” choices for the Easter baskets.

Pure Fun sent me some Fair Trade and Organic Cotton Candy last year (who knew such a thing existed?). It’s really not that they created a more socially responsible treat that got me, it was that they made it in Root Beer and Maple flavors! This year I got to visit them at their booth at Expo West. Let me say that they’re the best kind of candy people - friendly, inviting and eager to share. I see the whole ample samples as a sign of confidence in their product.

And I’m not let down. Their candies don’t look like a compromise when it comes to all the best things about hard candies: they look tasty. Glossy, luminous, brightly colored and with a wide assortment to please most folks.

The Citrus Slices are drop dead gorgeous. And the taste does not disappoint. They’re tart, flavorful and just the right size (a little smaller than a regular starlight mint). Lime, Orange & Lemon. (Everyone knows I would also like to see a grapefruit in this mix.)

Barrels of Fun - root beer float with vanilla. I would have preferred a straight root beer barrel, but this was nice. More on the smooth and creamy side of things than the zesty tingle of a root beer.

Chocolate Meltdowns - tangerine, raspberry & pepsin with chocolatey centers. These were the ones I liked the least of all of them. The flavorful outsides were great, but the lack of chocolate punch on the inside made me wish they were just plain old solid candies.

Fruit Rocks - goji berry, pomegranate, honey lemon & sour green apple. Really sassy and flavorful. I can’t say that Goji Berry is really my favorite flavor in the world, but the honey lemon was great and a less artificial tasting green apple rocks.

I tried Yummy Earth last year at the All Candy Expo when they introduced their all natural Organic Lollipops. Not just the plain old flavors like lemon and orange but also pomegranate, raspberry and watermelon.

They have a line of hard candies to go with their lollies in both fruity flavors and peppermint. These are a little different, a little smaller than regular hard candies.

Larger than Altoids but smaller than regular hard candy disks.

I covered Wet Faced Watermelon, Cheeky Lemon & Pomegranate Pucker over here. The new flavors for me were:

Mango Tango - this pretty little swirled candy. I’m not sure what the mango was tango-ing with, but it was definitely tropical. Kind of like a Bonne Bell lipsmacker with a REAL kick of flavor.

Peppermint (not shown) - this was very strong, much like an Altoid only smoother. I took these on Whale Watching trips all winter.

Either one of these brands has the right attitude ... don’t make your candy look all mousy and plain ... jazz it up with vibrant colors to match their vibrant flavors.

Of course they’re a little more expensive, but my guess is that the economies of scale will kick in as more people demand organic and all natural stuff and the prices will drop.

I’ve seen some of the Yummy Earth in Whole Foods but you can also buy direct from them on their website and Pure Fun is available at Whole Foods.

Both products are organic, gmo-free, no artificials flavors, no synthetics, no gluten, no casein, kosher, vegetarian ... and vegan ... whew!

Here’s the proposal ... I’m going to do another drawing for some free tasty goodies.

I don’t know what the actual prize is yet, but I can tell you that it will be GOOD chocolate.

How can you get some? You have to help get the word out about the open comment period on the FDA’s proposed changes for the definition of chocolate.

(Don’t worry, I’m not telling you what to say, you can go on there and comment in support of mockolate if you want. I want the FDA to actually hear from the citizens who buy the stuff and not just the industry action groups.)

For each one of the actions below, you can earn a virtual raffle ticket. The more you do, the better your chances:

Here are a few extra rules:

Please do not comment on the FDA site if you’re not in the United States or an American living abroad. That doesn’t mean that folks outside US can’t enter, you just don’t qualify for that particular point. (I could be wrong about foreigners commenting ... someone correct me.)

You are limited to five entries (though you’re free to make greater efforts, but only the first five will count).

You are responsible for calculating your “raffle tickets”. Just come here and leave a list of your deeds (you don’t have to list them all on the same day).

You must comment with a valid email address, don’t worry, no one sees it but me (how else can I tell you that you won?).

Final note, the object of this challenge is not to create a bunch of empty chatter, but to just widen awareness of this issue by engaging you, sweet readers, to pass the info along. So keep in mind that we’ll all win if we Keep It Real.

Deadline for all comments here is April 25th at 11:59 PM PDT.

UPDATE 4/17/2007: The first prize will be a $100 Gift Certificate to Chocosphere

Also, since folks have asked, yes emailing your friends also qualifies. (Just don’t spam them over and over again ... but you wouldn’t do that.)

UPDATE 4/26/2007: Contest entries are now closed. I’ll announce a winner later. Since the comment period has been extended by the FDA I’ll start a new raffle with a new prize.