Chocolate Frito pie

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. I seldom order desserts when dining out, and when as kids we’d ride our bikes to 7-11, while the others would spend their allowances on confections, I’d always opt for a bag of Fritos.

I love Fritos. This humble little Texan chip is snack perfection for me. Its delicate curve, its strong yet light crunch, its toasted, sweet corn flavor brought out by its salty coating—all glorious! I’ve been known to just pop a Frito in my mouth and suck on it like candy, drawing out all of its corn goodness until the chip finally dissolves into a pile of mush. OK, that probably sounds odd, but trust me, it’s fun! And when you eat Fritos, you can pretend they’re good for you, as the ingredients are just corn, oil and salt—nothing artificial about these babies, they’re practically a whole food.

One of the best Frito dishes is something called Frito pie. It’s a bag of Fritos topped with chili, cheese and diced onions found at county fairs and football games all over Texas. But we’ll discuss that another day. Right now, I’m here to talk about a crazy concoction I created for Sugar High Friday hosted this month by David Lebovitz.

I’ve been doing lots of cooking with Mexican chocolate lately, and I have in my possession a large inventory of Chocolate Mayordomo, an unsweetened mix of cacao beans and almonds made in Oaxaca. It’s Mexican baking chocolate and not only have I used it for hot, frothy beverages but I’ve also used it in my chili and my mole. While I’m not prone to making sweets, after reading about a fancy-pants Manhattan chocolatier selling chocolate-covered tortilla chips for $20, I said to myself, I can do that! So with a bag of Fritos and a block of Mexican chocolate on hand, I decided to come up with a recipe for chocolate-dipped Fritos.

I melted the Mexican chocolate in a double boiler and added some sugar, some ancho powder, some cinnamon, some vanilla and a big handful of Whole Foods chocolate chips. After it melted, I tried to coat a Frito with the sauce, but it wouldn’t stay—it just clumped. Now I’m not a baker, and it was probably foolish of me to try and go about this sans recipe. But, the chocolate sauce tasted so delicious I just couldn’t bear to let it go to waste. So I threw the bag of Fritos in the pot of chocolate, stirred it up and voila—chocolate Frito pie!

Now I don’t know if everyone would like this dessert, but I found the first couple of bites tasty. The interplay between the chocolate, Fritos and ancho powder was balanced: not too sweet, not too salty and not too spicy. And the Fritos provided a sturdy, crunchy backdrop to the fudgy, nutty chocolate. If you’ve ever enjoyed chocolate tamales or chocolate-covered corn nuts, you know how well these flavors play together.

So I won’t leave you with a recipe, because I’m not sure what exactly I did. But if you have any ideas on how to make chocolate-dipped corn chips, let me know!