We think our chocolates come from the cocoa bean. But the scientific name of the chocolate tree is Theobroma cacao. “Cacao” became “cocoa” through mispronunciation and popular usage.

♦ The Mayans of Mexico were using cacao as far back as 600 AD. They worshipped the bean as an idol — a gift from the heavens.

♦ The Aztecs (14th-16th century) used the cacao bean as currency. One rabbit was worth 30 cacao beans, one turkey egg, three cacao beans.

♦ The Aztecs considered chocolate an aphrodisiac and all food made with chocolate was strictly forbidden for women. Modern research shows chocolate contains the chemical phenylethylamine — also known as the “love drug”.

♦ It’s been reported that Napoleon carried chocolate on his military campaigns and ate some when he needed quick energy.

♦ During WW II, Germans designed the Chocolate Bar Bomb, made of steel with a thin covering of real chocolate that would explode seven seconds after the piece of chocolate at the end was broken off.

♦ The first machine-made chocolate was produced in Barcelona in 1780. In India, Cadbury started manufacturing in Mumbai in 1946.

♦ White chocolate isn’t chocolate at all. It’s fat — vegetable oil or cocoa butter — and sugar, without any cocoa solids.

♦ UK’s Thorntons holds the Guinness World Record for the largest chocolate bar, weighing nearly six tonnes (5,792.5kg).

♦ The most expensive chocolate in the world, according to Forbes, is the La Madeline au Truffe, created by Fritz Knipschildt in Connecticut. It costs $250 for 1.9oz (53.86g). So, a Madeline the size of your average 100g bar would come for Rs 27,000.

And who can forget Chocolat?! Adapted from Joanne Harris’s eponymous novel, it’s the story of a young mother, played by Juliette Binoche, who opens a charming chocolate shop in a French village and changes the lives of the people there. All that chocolate — liquid, solid, dark, spicy — and a dishy Johnny Depp to boot, no wonder Chocolat was a blockbuster! t2 stat warning: Don’t sit to watch this movie without a bar of chocolate.

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CHOCO LAVA JOLBHORA
(Recipe courtesy: Balaram Mullick & Radharaman Mullick)

Ingredients
Cottage cheese (chhana) 1 kg, sugar 200g, cocoa powder 100g, Cadbury Dairy Milk 150g, cream 100g.

Method
Mix the cottage cheese, sugar and cocoa powder and cook in a pan till it takes a semi-solid form. Pour the mixture into cupcake moulds and allow it to cool. Make a hollow in each mould.

In a separate bowl, mix melted Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and cream. Make a ganache of the mixture. Pour the mixture in the hollows. Cover with a small portion of sandesh. Your Choco Lava Jolbhora is ready to be served.

CHOCO-NUTTY ROLL
(Recipe courtesy: Felu Modak)

Ingredients
Cottage cheese 1kg, sugar 250g, Cadbury Dairy Milk grated 150g, Cadbury Diary Milk melted 450g, cashew and almond (grated) to taste.

Method
Cook the cottage cheese with sugar on a low flame for 20 minutes. Take it off the flame and continue stirring so that it does not stick to the pan. Spread the mixture on a dish and leave it to cool for 10 minutes. This is your sandesh. Divide the mixture into 40 portions. Wrap each sandesh in grated Cadbury. Next, shape the sandesh into a roll. With a spoon, pour melted chocolate on each sandesh roll covered in grated chocolate.

Place the sandesh pieces on plain paper, garnish with grated cashew and almond. Let the Choco-nutty Roll cool for 25 minutes before serving.

CADBURY CHOCO PIE
(Recipe courtesy: Ganguram)

Ingredients
Cottage cheese 2.5kg, sugar 400g, Cadbury Dairy Milk (grated) 300g, dark chocolate powder or solid for added colour.

Method
Cook the cottage cheese with sugar on a low flame for 20 minutes. Take it off the flame and continue stirring so that the mixture does not stick to the pan. Spread the sandesh on a dish and leave it to cool for 10 minutes. Then, divide into portions and stuff each with dry fruits and pieces of Dairy Milk. Shape each portion into a ball. Put each ball in a small plastic cup.

Melt Cadbury Dairy Milk by double boiling it and add dark chocolate to make chocolate truffle sauce. Pour the chocolate truffle sauce on the chocolate sandesh balls. Garnish with cubes of Dairy Milk. Your Cadbury Choco Pie is ready to be served.

*All recipes make 40 pieces

For more Cadbury Mishti delights, drop in at your favourite sweetshops as part of the Cadbury Mishti Shera Shrishti campaign, being held across town with Anandabazar Patrika and The Telegraph

What’s your message to chocolate on Chocolate Day? Tell t2@abp.in