Chocolate-covered Coffee Bean Brittle

Today I thought I'd try out making chocolate covered coffee beans-- the perfect combination of two flavors: coffee and chocolate. Yum!

Upon searching on the internet, it appeared this is easy to do-- just chocolate chips and roasted coffee beans. Most of the directions went like this: melt chocolate, dunk the beans and drain through a slotted spoon onto waxed paper. Cool. Eat.

There were several variations of recipes-- but commonly I found:
1/3 c. coffee beans
1/2 c. Chocolate chips

Here goes my experiment!

Chocolate chips of your favorite flavor: I chose dark and milk chocolate
Coffee beans- the more recently roasted and better quality will give the best flavor

other tools and ingredients
Waxed paper
slotted spoons or forks
shortening
cocoa*    I didn't try this, but some recipes talked about dusting in cocoa powder

* update on cocoa powder-- this helps the beans separate better so you have individual beans and not clumps/brittle. But depending on your level of sweetness in the chocolate, you may need to sweeten the cocoa a little? A sprinkle of cinnamon also is nice-- giving that mexican chocolate flavor.

You could melt in a double boiler on the stove, but I chose to melt in the microwave. I found that 2 minutes at 50% power worked well for me. You should melt at a lower temperature rather than at full power so you don't burn the chocolate, a definite no-no!

After the chocolate has melted, dunk the beans and then drain through a slotted spoon. This sounds much easier than it is. I found that the chocolate was a lot thicker than I imagined. Maybe I didn't make it hot enough? Then I tried adding a 1/2 tsp of shortening which seemed to help the liquidity without changing the taste.

I also discovered two forks worked better for me: I used one fork to drain the beans and the other to shove off onto waxed paper.

The first batch clumped together a lot. So I got my forks and raked through the beans to separate them on the waxed paper. Using two forks to drain worked a bit better, but if you leave them close together you end up with "brittle" instead of individual beans. (Brittle isn't so bad-- I could add some coconut on top and really be buzzing!)

Here's the hard part- letting it cool. I put in the freezer on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes and this speeded up things.

Meanwhile, you could lick out that cup you melted your chocolate in. I discovered why so many recipes have a larger ratio of chocolate to beans-- more to lick out with your finger later!! I tried to get a picture of my chocolate covered finger, but the camera refused to work, so I only got one picture, but I do confess that it was finger licked. See ducky doesn't lie.

I'll just have to try this a few more times, but ultimately this is an easy recipe and a great snack. I think that the key is to have the freshest beans and a chocolate that you like. You can't go wrong!

Lastly, I thank instructables for allowing me to explore  things creatively and post them to a friendly audience of similar minded folks!