Lakrids Licorice with Chocolate

We all have a few strange food combinations we love. I used to adore peanut butter with sliced avocado and Sriracha, for example.

Similarly, the concept of black licorice with chocolate may seem a bit unlikely, but it works. I just sampled three different varieties of this combination from a Denmark confectionary called Lakrids.

Johan Bülow, the founder of Lakrids, always knew he wanted to create something original and delicious. He thought since Scandinavians have traditionally loved licorice, he would start with that. Together with production manager Tage, Johan developed the idea to coat the licorice with chocolate. They were told that it couldn’t be done…always an incentive for creative souls. By 2007 Johan was rolling out chocolate coated licorice.

To me, Johan’s concept of using licorice as a spice, like anise in five spice Chinese dishes, is quite ground breaking. That it works is even more exciting.

My favorite of the three I sampled was the dark with coffee. It was the least sweet and offered a trove of textures: chewy, crunchy, creamy; and flavors: mocha (the classic mix of coffee and chocolate) licorice, and 63% dark milk chocolate. The crunch came from tiny bits of ground coffee. Just fabulous. One orb was incredibly satisfying.

His Milk chocolate flavor is a bit misleading, as Johan uses a 63% dark milk to coat the licorice centers. I think it’s an excellent choice as the addition of milk adds a lovely rich flavor and velvety texture that makes the chewiness of the licorice really dance with the chocolate.

White chocolate infused with passion fruit was the sweetest of the three, though the white chocolate here is a 51% with vanilla, so it’s a much more complex animal. Creamy yet fully capable of awakening my taste buds with the juxtaposition of slightly acidic passion fruit and anise flavors. A very dessert-like treat.

There are many other flavors available, like salt and caramel, red currant, habanero, sea buckthorn, vanilla mango, and strawberry and cream. You can be sure Johan is devising new delights as I write this.

If you know a chocophile who is always looking to try a new rendition of their favorite food, this would make a great gift.

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Potomac Chocolate

Res ipsa loquitor is a Latin phrase used in legal parlance to mean the thing speaks for itself. Potomac’s chocolate bars truly speak for themselves, each in its own chocolate lexicon.

Ben Rasmussen, Potomac’s founder, is a truly gifted chocolatier. I first reviewed his bars in 2011. I loved them then and I’m even more smitten now. Each has its own personality, yet you could do a seamless tasting with any or all of them.

The beans must be in chocolate heaven as Ben has managed to deftly coax them into beautifully tempered, silky textured, bars. Each has a charming little school of fish etched on its surface, with one little straggler trying to catch up from the bottom. So whimsical, poetic and enchanting.

Packaging is important to me and these reclosable envelopes ensure freshness, even after opening, while keeping all the little fishies safe and sound.

The Duarte bar, 70%, made with Dominican Republic beans is luxurious in every way. Its velvety texture releases beautifully balanced fruity flavors with low acidity. This allowed me to concentrate on the more subtle nuances of this eminently addictive chocolate.

The 70% San Martin bar from Peruvian beans melts a bit more slowly, sports a slightly dryer finish and has an edgier vibe of banana, raisin and berries.

Tumaco, 70%, is a limited release from Colombia. I tasted dark fruits with floral notes in a texture of fudgy chocolate.

The above three bars are made with only two ingredients: beans and sugar. No vanilla to distract you from the beans releasing their true nature and personality.

The two milk bars I tried were as different as chalk and cheese. The 65% Dark Milk with Peruvian beans from San Martin has a distinctly caramel presence. The Toasted Milk, 49%, made with beans from Peru and the Dominican Republic, is creamier, even more redolent of caramel, with the added complexity of toasted whole milk powder.

Upala 85%, from Costa Rica is super rich, chocolaty, and earthy. Coffee and roasted nut flavors predominated.

The limited release 70% Peppermint bar is made with Doscher’s Old-Fashioned Peppermint Candy Canes. (Doscher’s has been making these candy canes using the same recipe and equipment since they opened in 1871.) I adored this perfectly balanced bar…a little sweetness, deep chocolate flavor and perky, crunchy bits of peppermint candy. Totally addictive.

70% Dark with Coconut was another favorite. This is a combination of beans from Peru and the Dominican Republic. Crunchy, chewy coconut was balanced by velvety textured chocolate.

The 70% with Sea Salt bar has a piquancy that points up the chocolate in a different way, highlighting the bean’s bright citrus notes. These beans are from the Amazonian highlands of San Martín, Peru.

Spice, 70%, with the same Dominican Republic beans as the Duarte bar, is spiced with cinnamon, sea salt, and aleppo chili pepper. A heady mix that simultaneously gives you warmth, spiciness, and that slightly salty edge. If you love Mexican hot chocolate this is for you.

Bread, 70%, made with those delicious Duarte bar beans, was unique and craveable. Ben uses his homemade, lightly toasted sourdough breadcrumbs to add a wonderful delicate crunch, and perks up the flavors with a hint of sea salt.

These are all the work of a very talented and creative soul. I could taste the love, creativity and attention to detail in each bite.

Cacao Hunters

 

Founded in Popayan, Colombia by Carlos Velasco, Cacao Hunters is a sustainable development project designed to support Colombian farmers and their families. Another part of their mission is finding, preserving and promoting the production of varieties of regional cocoas. Unlike many chocolate companies, the chocolate is made in Colombia, keeping all of the profits in the country of origin.

I sampled three dark bars and one dark milk.

Magdalena 71% had a very marked coffee presence for me with a crisp temper.

Perla Negra 74% had a creamier consistency, woody caramel notes and a slightly dry, yet lingering finish.

Arhuacos 72% , from a 500 year old bean, was my favorite of the three dark bars. Its slight tobacco flavor melded beautifully with velvety texture.

I loved their 2016 gold medal award winning 53% Tumaco Leche dark milk. An incredibly well-rounded mix of rich chocolate flavor with butterscotch undertones made this an incredibly delicious chocolate.

Aldi Choceur Dark Hazelnut bar

Another delicious UTZ certified chocolate bar from Aldi at a bargain price.

Actually, I had completely forgotten about this bar, but on a whim bought one the other day. What a delightful surprise! So texturally balanced and satisfying.

Weighing in at 7.05 ounces it has 7 generous servings. The 50% dark chocolate is a little sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, with 10 grams of added sugar per portion.

Not only is this super crunchy and chock full of roasted fresh hazelnuts, it’s very attractive to look at. The velvety texture of the chocolate provides a perfect foil for the nuts.

Over the years, I have found most dark bars, even dark milk bars, last well past their expiration date; however, when it comes to bars with nuts it’s best to adhere to the dates as the nuts can get rancid. Thankfully, most Aldi chocolates have an expiration date that’s, at least, six months into the future.

Not only is this a really yummy treat but it provides 10% of your iron, 4 grams of fiber with 160 calories. Considering it’s a chocolate bar, that’s fairly healthy.

Moka Origins Chocolate

I wanted to share Moka Origins mission statement: “To create employment, heal the environment and reinvent the way consumers shop for chocolate and coffee. We strive for the betterment of farmers and their families around the world. By maintaining and investing into our own farm in Cameroon, and by uniting with farming partners around the world, we generate real social change.” I am 100% behind those values, which seem to be part of a larger trend in the craft chocolate bar community, and a welcome one. Of course, it helps when the chocolate is as delicious as these bars from Moka Origins. If you’re more deeply interested in their social impact you can view a beautiful short description here: https://mokaorigins.com/pages/social-impact.

I sampled eight of their 3.5 ounce bars. New varieties appear regularly and can sell out quickly, like the Strawberry White Chocolate. I’m reviewing it anyway, just in case it comes back into rotation, or they offer another white chocolate bar. Typically, I avoid white chocolate and think of it as an oxymoron. Luckily, I like to be wrong. This pretty pink bar was studded with cocoa nibs adding a surprisingly wonderful and unexpected texture that riffed off the uber-creaminess of the strawberry infused chocolate.

The Toffee Almond Chocolate (70%) made with Camino Verde beans from Equador, was another revelation. I expected something cloyingly sweet. What I got was an extraordinarily complex experience of flavors, textures, and aromas all in a visually enticing bar. The topping was a tad sticky, but it appealed to the three year old inside me. The chocolate was beautifully tempered with a glossy finish and nice snap. This was the most adult rendition of these flavors I could imagine…actually, it was beyond my imaginings and quite crave worthy. Despite that, it’s not addictive. Two squares truly sated my desire.

Another stunner was their Cherry Chocolate (72%) with Zorzal Cacao from the Dominican Republic. The earthy, satisfying almost-heavy tasting chocolate was a perfect partner to sweet, slightly acidic chewy dried cherries. The more I ate this, the more aware I became of the cherry undertones in the chocolate itself.

Lemon Ginger (73%) with Brazilian beans, was an incredible combination of textures, tastes, and visual beauty. Also a tad sticky, like the Toffee Almond bar, it was generously strewn with bits of chewy ginger and lemon. Again, I was thrilled with the overall sweetness level of this bar as it was clearly made for people who don’t want a sugar rush. Both this bar and the Toffee rendition are amazingly desserty and feel like a huge treat.

Their 72% plain dark bar from Brazilian beans is rich, dense with chocolate flavor and has a slightly dry finish. It also comes in a rendition with blueberries adding some extra acidity and chewiness from the fresh tasting dried fruit.

Even though it has the same 72% cacao content as the Brazilian beans, the Sea Salt tastes very different. The salt is imbedded on the surface of the chocolate, which looks lovely, and adds a slight crunch, while making the bar more complex and astringent.

Last but not least, is their 70% Espresso with Camino Verde beans from Ecuador. Finely ground coffee, from Moka Origins, is sprinkled generously across the surface of the bar adding both textural interest and a hint of caffeine.

I enjoyed the whole range, though the standouts were the Toffee, Lemon Ginger, Cherry, and White Chocolate with Strawberry and Nibs.

They offer a chocolate of the month club where you can get two bars for $20 including shipping.

UPDATE:
Looking for a wonderful rendition of Peppermint Bark? Moka Origins has one they only offer before Christmas. It has a slab of their marvelous white chocolate topped with a layer of 70% dark and sprinkled liberally with pieces of peppermint candy. Each piece is a desert unto itself.

Gallette Chocolates

Gallette Chocolates was founded in São Paulo, Brazil by electrical engineer Gislaine Gallette. Her attention to detail, ethical sourcing, and sustainable business practices are all evident in the chocolate bars and truffles she crafts.

Each of the well tempered 100 gram bars are molded into a beautiful modernist design of 21 squares with bas relief edges.

40% Milk with Almonds scattered on the bottom is made with Trinitarian beans from Brazil. The chocolate itself is rich, creamy and velvety. You can also buy this in a plain version.

56% Dark Milk, also made with Trinitarian beans from Brazil, is a more adult version of the 40% Milk bar. A great choice for people who want a smooth dark bar without any acidity and plenty of plummy fruit flavor.

65% Fazenda Catongo is a satisfying deeply flavored bar with a slightly dry finish.

70% Forestero from the Amazon is the most complex of those I sampled. It has an earthy, chocolate flavor with a lovely smooth texture.

Elegant packaging makes this chocolate a wonderful gift.

Askanya Haitian Chocolate

I am going to focus my review of the actual chocolate from Askanya as the following link will take you to an excellent write-up of the company, its founders, their history, and vision: http://kreyolicious.com/askanya-haitian-chocolate-industry/24851.

I sampled four 55 gram bars, all of which had a fairly fudgey consistency. The colorful wrappers are beautifully designed, as is the company logo: a profile of a Haitian woman with a large flower in her hair. The bars themselves sport a beautiful curvilinear design in bas relief with a hibiscus in the center.

I don’t usually gravitate towards milk chocolate, but Askanya’s Paradis 47% dark milk was so redolent of caramel it beckoned me. Unlike many milk bars, a small square left me totally satisfied.

Their other milk offering, 50% Wanga Nègès, was completely different. More rustic texturally (though not like a stone ground bar), it lent itself to the deeper, richer, raisin and plummy notes of the bean.

Next up was their 60% Minuet dark bar. A good choice for people who might not think they like dark chocolate as it had no discernible acidity, tobacco or edgy aspects to it. Easy to eat with a dry finish.

Askanya’s 90%: Perle Rare, brings you right to Haiti’s earthy doorstep. Intense without being bitter, it delivered a chocolate hit with a short finish.

SoChatti Chocolate

Jessica Halstead, the chocolate maker behind SoChatti, is truly innovative. I sampled her pourable chocolate this morning and it was an absolute delight to work with. At first, I must confess, I was daunted by the delivery system, an eight ounce pouch of hardened chocolate that I was supposed to soften in water at 110 degrees. The temperature was crucial and it was not to go above that mark. Being a bit of rebel I kept adding warmer water to keep it at 110 which meant it sometimes went a bit above that target. Apparently, there’s more wiggle room than I thought. After about 20 minutes and a few massages of the bag to evenly distribute its contents, I was ready to experiment. Since the chocolate was such high quality I didn’t want to over-adulterate it by adding too many ingredients, so I stuck to making mendiants and decorations.

I played with all sorts of free-form chocolate decorations on a piece of wax paper, just to test how user friendly the pouch delivery system would be. It’s incredibly easy to maneuver. I was able to get thick or thin strands of chocolate, curvilinear lines, and all sorts of shapes…even building up the chocolate for more 3D decorations.

The mendiants were a breeze: I put little dollops of chocolate on the wax paper and pressed either a lightly candied maple pecan on top, or a roasted pistachio with a freeze dried cherry or raspberry. All the chocolate began to harden at room temperature fairly quickly. (I stored it in the fridge as I have come to love the extra crisp temper of refrigerated chocolate.)

The batch from Ecuador and Tanzania (#18002) was a deliciously fruity chocolate with just the right amount of acidity to add complexity. SoChatti offers a variety of chocolates from Tanzania, Peru, and Madagascar. At $19.99 including shipping from Amazon they are also a very good value.

Not only is this a great way to unleash your own inner chocolatier it’s also a great project to do with children as the half pound pouch gives you plenty to play with. Your imagination is the only limitation. Not feeling particularly ambitious? Just empty the melted chocolate into a bowl, add your favorite ingredients, stir, and make a big slab chocolate bark. What could be easier or more fun when those chocolate cravings strike?

SoChatti is unique, delicious and versatile. If you follow the directions (and they will soon offer a warmer to make it even easier) you can create incredible chocolates without having to go through the more traditional and slower tempering process. If you are curious about making high quality, single origin chocolates at home, and don’t want to invest in an expensive tempering machine, try SoChatti and experiment to your heart’s (and palate’s) delight.

Goodnow Farms Chocolate

I must confess, when I look back on my life and whatever joys I’ve been lucky enough to have savored, chocolate is among them. While it doesn’t compare to motherhood or connecting deeply with a loved one, it’s far more reliable. I know, because I have been eating dark chocolate for decades. It has been with me through thick and thin, a gustatory anchor in a constantly ebbing and flowing world.

These days, you can find very good chocolate pretty easily. Excellent, even exquisite, chocolate is less ubiquitous.

As one’s palate gets increasingly educated it becomes ever more exciting to discover new chocolates with their different flavor profiles and unique characteristics.

Goodnow Farms Chocolate has a range to please all your chocolate proclivities while broadening your discernment of subtle differences between percentages and beans.

I usually don’t quote from people’s websites, but the descriptions by owners Tom and Monica Rogan are so evocative I am going to include some. Let’s start with the farmers who grow the Asochivite bean.

“The remote Guatemalan village of San Juan Chivite is perched on the side of a mountain, reachable only by foot. Part of the journey requires crossing a long, narrow wooden and steel cable footbridge across which all harvested cacao is carried by hand.

At the start of the Guatemalan civil war the village was part of a coffee farm, but when coffee prices declined the owner sold the farm and the land ended up in the hands of 64 indigenous Maya families who had been displaced by the war. They began by growing both coffee and cacao but switched entirely to cacao in 2002.

There are now 125 families living in San Juan Chivite, all of whom are descendants of the original 64 families.

When we first visited the village in 2015 the villagers told us one of their most pressing needs was to replace their old and inadequate fermentation and drying area with a new facility that would allow them to improve their post harvest capabilities. We were impressed with the villagers’ commitment to producing high quality cacao and Goodnow Farms agreed to fund the construction of a new fermentation and drying area. The villagers built the new facility themselves, with technical advice from Cacao Verapaz, and began using it for the 2016 harvest.”

The Asochivite 70% bar with maple sugar has only one more gram of sugar than it’s sibling, Asochivite 77%, yet that extra gram, as well as the slightly lower cacao percentage, gives it a beautifully rounded taste. In contrast, the higher chocolate intensity of the 77% lights up the bean’s fruitiness, slight acidity and long finish. I loved both.

The El Carmen bean hails from a Nicaragua farm just outside the town of Matagalpa in Nicaragua’s Central Highlands about an hour’s drive northeast from Matagalpa.

I tasted both bars made with El Carmen beans: the 77% and a 69% with finely ground coffee. The former delivered a real taste of the Nicaraguan terroir without being too earthy. The luxurious, silky texture (something highlighted by the thinness of all their bars) carried notes of dark fruit and raisin to my deliriously happy taste buds. The bar with coffee seamlessly matched the chocolate’s richness with single origin lightly roasted coffee (also sourced from Nicaragua). Sheer delight for those of you who love mocha.

Their Esmeraldas 70% comes from the Salazar farm in Southern Ecuador. The bean is a hybrid of the now-famous Nacional, known for its mellow, fruity flavor. One of the most satisfying chocolate experiences you could ever hope to have. Not surprisingly, it won a Good Food award in 2018.

The 70% Ucayali bar comes from an area at the headwaters of the Amazon in Peru. The beans are sourced from small cocoa farms whose trees line the river’s banks.

I thought this was worth noting: “The Ucayali region is on Peru’s east coast and has long been known for growing coca. While many farmers there once grew coca they have increasingly been turning to fine flavor cacao as an alternative. Part of the reason for this change is the increased price that craft makers like us are paying for premium cacao, and another is an initiative being undertaken by the Peruvian government to eradicate coca crops and thereby reduce the endemic crime it brings.”

The Ocayali bar is beautifully tempered, as are all Goodnow Farms’chocolates I sampled, I was struck by the way its sweeter, fruity presence was punctuated by herbal and slightly acidic notes. Complex and very satisfying.

Almendra Blanca bars, a 60% with almonds and a 77%, look like milk chocolate at first glance, but they aren’t. It’s the lighter color of the “White Almond” beans that threw me off for a second. Tom and Monica give these beans a short, gentle roast which allows the naturally bright, fruity flavor to shine.

The beans are sourced from an 80-year-old family farm in the Mexican state of Tabasco run by Vicente Alberto Gutierrez Cacep. He strongly supports community initiatives and local businesses, including those owned by women.

The Almond bar is creamy, rich, and slightly crunchy as the nuts are finely ground and evenly infiltrate the chocolate. The 77% bar is also velvety, though the intensity of higher cocoa content allows the bean’s natural complexity to sparkle.

If you are seeking a superb chocolate experience, even if you have tasted some of the finest bars out there, I suggest you try Goodnow Farms’ bars. And, while you’re at it, enjoy the beautiful watercolors on their website.

If you sign up for their newsletter you get 10% off your first order.

New Chocolate Sensory Wheel from Barry Callebaut

For those of you who host chocolate tastings, or want to, the following link will take you to a new Chocolate Sensory Wheel from Barry Callebaut. You can also download a copy of it (free from the accompanying text) from the right side of that page.

https://www.barry-callebaut.com/news/2018/01/barry-callebaut-introduces-sensory-language

Aldi’s Single Origin Moser Roth Chocolate bars: 35%, 65% and 75%

Just a quick heads up…at least, for my American readers…Aldi is now experimenting with selling their single origin bars as a regular item. Of course, if no one buys them they will quickly disappear. If you love truly fantastic chocolate I strongly suggest hightailing it over to your local Aldi store and loading up on their 65% and 75% single origin bars. The 75% from the Dominican Republic is delicious. All are UTZ certified, and only $2.49 for a five bar pack so you can scarf them down with a clear conscience.

Batch PDX Chocolates

The three most striking things about Batch PDX chocolates is their beauty, intensity, and originality. These chocolates wowed me with their explosions of taste and texture. In a world of options, it’s easy to develop a jaded palate. Batch PDX took me into undiscovered chocolate realms, each a little planet of delight.

Jeremy Karp, the mastermind behind Batch PDX, uses organic cream and butter for his unforgettable creations. He believes in “simplicity of design.” This puts the focus where I want it most, on the tastes and textures that hook and maintain my interest.

Think you’ve tasted a passion fruit truffle? Think again. Jeremy’s Spicy Passion is composed of two layers housed in a white chocolate shell whose sculptural top looks like an origami fold. While I am not a fan of white chocolate, it is the perfect foil of creaminess to balance the spicy acidity of ghost pepper and passion fruit. A hint of orangey Cointreau adds a subtle subtext.

Vietnamese Iced Coffee has a dark chocolate exterior containing one of the most deeply flavored coffee ganaches I have ever sampled.

Nutty Crunchy has Paillete Feuilletine (French for crepes dentelles, lovely little shards of nanosphere thin crunchy wafers) with the added super crunch of chopped hazelnuts and almonds. Jeremy’s rendition of the classic combination of chocolate and hazelnuts is blissfully textural but not too sweet.

Almond n Coconut is a dark chocolate carapace enclosing a filling reminiscent of marzipan, but with far more chewy depth from bits of coconut strewn throughout.

Dulce de Leche comes in a lovely marbleized shell. Its creamy caramel colored interior is beautifully balanced between the sweetness of Dulce de Leche and rum.

Yuzu Gimlet is a divine combo of gin, chocolate and yuzu puree. The yuzu stands in for lime and the result is another coup: slightly acidic, juniper berry-ish from the gin, in a lovely dark, velvety ganache.

Earl Grey creates more subtle joy with its bergamot scented tea infused ganache in a dark shell.

Almond Crisp has an interior both creamy and crunchy with ground almonds and crispy rice.

(If you were wondering, as I was, what PDX stands for, it’s the Portland, Oregon airport code.)

More evidence for the health benefits of dark chocolate.

The following link from Forbes magazine details the latest research on chocolate’s benefits to mind and body.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2018/04/27/dark-chocolate-may-boost-brain-function-immunity-and-mood/#22d863046087

Hershey: Better Late Than Never

Here’s a link to some new programs Hershey is initiating in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, areas historically rife with child labor, and other travesties.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-03/hershey-to-invest-500-million-in-making-more-sustainable-kisses

Edwart Chocolatier

There is something really irresistible about chocolates that come in a beautiful black box with a copper coat of arms. It’s not actually a coat of arms, but it’s a fabulous rendition of a ship sailing under a sky of cocoa pods. Add to that the magnetic closure and you have a presentation that sates your aesthetic senses before you even taste one of the little gems inside.

These are chocolates to savor slowly, each a mini-meditation on perfectly tempered couverture, sublimely wrought ganaches, and lovely visuals.

If you seek novel flavors, like mascarpone with Dominican dark chocolate, but also covet the classics, like a mint ganache enrobed in Venezuelan dark chocolate, Edwart is for you. Each square is a well-thought out pairing of interior and exterior. The Criollo with almond praline and Yoichi (Japanese whiskey) with a fruity chocolate from the Dominican Republic are only two examples of their creativity. Of course, it’s also nice to have some old favorites, like feuilletine…those delightfully crunchy bits of crêpe dentelle. The ginger, gianduja, sesame, curry, and mini rocher completed a lovely selection fit for your most discerning chocolate connoisseur.

Looking for wonderfully whimsical and beautiful chocolates for Easter, or any other holiday? Check out their website: http://www.edwart.fr.

If you plan to be in Paris consider taking one of their workshops. Trip Advisor has reams of glowing reviews for the plethora of chocolate offerings beyond the ganaches I sampled.

Wise Sons Chocolate Babka

What makes for an exquisitely delicious chocolate Babka? To start, the flavors and proportion of chocolate to dough have to be perfectly balanced. Not too sweet, not too bready; not simply a dense mass of chocolate, but enough to sate your cravings.

Over the past holiday season I let it be known I was on the hunt for a great chocolate Babka and my family did not disappoint. I will not name all the loaves I tried in the vain hope of finding something reminiscent of my grandmother’s sublime version. Suffice it to say: Nine of the ten I sampled shall remain nameless.

One stood out high above the rest: Wise Sons of San Francisco. The ingredients alone tell you how fabulous this Babka will be: organic wheat flour, chocolate, milk, butter, sugar, cage-free eggs, brown sugar, water, cream, cocoa powder, vanilla, yeast, cinnamon, and salt. The loaf is beautifully adorned with a streusel topping that is somehow not too sweet. The interior is marbled with deep fissures of dark chocolate. The dough is like a breadier brioche, but that description doesn’t do it justice. My daughter, who went to culinary school, thought it was like a combination of brioche and puff pastry. Indescribable? Perhaps. But definitely capable of satisfying the most jaded Babka palate.

When I was growing up in NYC I used to have a hard time limiting my Babka intake as I found it very addicting. Probably because it was too sweet and I was a kid. This version is so satisfying that a modest portion is enough to sate even a major Babka jones.

If you’re not lucky enough to live near the Wise Sons bakery you can mail order this through Goldbely.com. It’s definitely a splurge, but each Babka will give you tons of gustatory joy and it freezes beautifully.

Aldi Chocolate Bars: Whole Hazelnuts in either Dark or Milk Chocolate

I recently had a chance to taste two of the newly imported Cailler bars (on Amazon at $27.64 for 13.8 ounces), one with hazelnuts, blueberries and almonds, and the other with cranberries and almonds. Both are beautiful, jewel-like creations with fruits and nuts imbedded into delicious thick slabs of UTZ certified dark chocolate. I bought them on Amazon, but they seem to have sold out. Having become a devotee…a chic way of saying addicted…I tried the Aldi roasted hazelnut bars in milk and dark chocolate, as they were UTZ certified and I thought might be worthy contenders. Of course, the enormous cost saving was also a big draw.

The verdict?

The Aldi bars were worthy contenders, though not as visually arresting as Cailler’s. They weigh in at a smidge over seven ounces each, are are really semi-sweet at 50% cocoa, and for $2.25 a pop they’re an extraordinary bargain. The chocolate is delicious, especially the dark bar, and the roasted whole hazelnuts perfectly crunchy and rich. One portion, a seventh of a bar, is a dessert unto itself. If you like milk chocolate you will probably prefer that version. For me, the dark one is really stellar.

Now, I just wish Aldi would offer their single origin mini bars on a regular basis. They were truly amazing.

BronxGrrl Chocolate

Regina Monaco has a PhD in Chemistry, and her research is in the areas of physical chemistry, thermodynamics, and biochemistry. As a chocolatier, she always tries to use her scientific background to understand every step of chocolate-making process.

Regina likes to study the characteristics of every batch carefully: is the roast dark or light, considering the type of cacao used? Is the body smooth, light, creamy, rich, and flavorful or sticky, heavy, grainy, bitter and thin? She analyzes so she can maximize the positive attributes and minimize any negative notes, textures, or flavors.

Her mission at BronxGrrl chocolate is to make unique, quirkily imperfect chocolate with personality. Each batch is just a little different.

I tried a Maple Pecan Bubble. It was creamy, perfectly sweetened, and, with its crown of crunchy nuts and dusting of maple sugar, very satisfying to eat and look at. The chocolate itself was tempered beautifully. The texture dense, and the flavor profile earthy but still sophisticated. I actually ate it in two installments as I wanted it to last.

You might also try her Bubble with Pecans and Cranberries and the heart shaped truffles with raspberry, sour cherry, maple ganache, made with their family’s maple syrup. Both sound divine to me.

Double Spiral Chocolate

Stuart & Mhairi Craig, creators of Double Spiral Chocolate, named it after an ancient Celtic symbol resembling the Taoist Yin-Yang. Two opposing spirals emerge from a single line to signify how opposite components can find balance. The opposites they speak of are taste & nutrition. One of the guiding forces behind their company is minimal processing with only 2 or 3 organic ingredients sourced by Direct or Fair Trade: cacao beans (70+%), unrefined cane sugar (non-centrifugal*)and a whole food ingredient like mint leaves, raspberry, ginger, etc.

I sampled the Tanzania 75% Kokoa Kamila and the Haitian 73% with freeze dried banana. While two bars is not a comprehensive review of their wares, it does indicate attention to detail and quality. Their lack of cocoa butter makes for a slightly drier finish. I was quite taken with the banana bar as the character of the chocolate was a great match for the tiny pulverized pieces of freeze dried fruit. The Tanzania bar had a pronounced rustic quality.

Check Double Spiral out if you are a purist who seeks a minimally processed bar that connects you with the bean’s true nature.

*Non-Centifugal Sugar (NCS) – This organic, fair trade, traditional raw sugar is obtained by evaporating water from sugarcane juice. Importantly, there is no centrifugation step to remove the nutrient rich molasses. NCS is produced in sugarcane growing regions around the world, and known by many different names such as panela, rapadura, jaggery, gur, kokuto or muscovado. These have superior nutrient content compared to other ‘brown sugars’, such as turbinado, demerara or refined sugars mixed with molasses.

Chocolate Map

Here’s a link to a really neat chocolate map from Bloomberg News (you have to scroll down the page a bit to see it). It’s not complete, but gives you a visual for many of the locations and their predominant tastes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-28/how-to-pick-the-best-chocolate-bar-your-money-can-buy

Hexx Chocolate

When I was in high school I had a short period of fascination with witchcraft. Pretty quickly, I discovered it was mostly a mind game. Spells, hexes, and voodoo all seemed to rely on the intended subject knowing what good or evil was being created for them with dolls, potions, or boiling cauldrons. Chocolate is partially a mind game, too, but of a very different nature. Great chocolate casts its spell by creating an altered state of consciousness where your five senses collaborate to take you somewhere captivating, delicious, and new.

Hexx bewitches its customers with their wide array of single origin dark and dark milk bars. All of which are sure to carry you into a chocolate reverie and away from whatever harshes your mellow.

The look of these bars is also entrancing. Each is shaped into many little, flat hexagons with the double X design in bas relief.

All are sweetened with raw palm sugar, made from nectar found in the flower buds of the coconut palm tree. This nectar is then air-dried to form a crystalline sugar that’s naturally brown in color and rich in a number of key vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, including potassium, zinc, iron, and vitamins B1, B2, B3 and B6. Palm sugar has a low-glycemic index. It tastes and acts almost exactly like sugar, but it is unrefined.

I sampled four of their eight bars:

47% Camino Verde (Ecuador) dark milk is reminiscent of vanilla, caramel, fruit and cream. Easy to eat, but also very rich and satisfying in small amounts.

47% Sambirano Valley (Madagascar) dark milk is lighter in color and more gentle on the palate. A great choice for people who are afraid to up their cocoa content and want a milky, soothing bar.

70% Kokoa Kamili (Tanzania) is a very assertive offering with coffee, raisin, and a little astringency. It has a lingering, slightly dry finish.

70% Maranon Pue Nacional (Peru) is redolent of fruity biscuits, deep chocolate flavor, and fruity undertones. This is a classic in the chocolate pantheon and deserves attention from anyone who loves cacao.

Vivra Chocolate

I may eat chocolate all day, but I usually don’t start until mid morning, at the earliest. When I wake up thinking of a particular bar with anticipation I know it’s a stellar offering. Vivra’s 70% Alto Beni Bolivian bar is worth an early morning reverie. Wild harvested in 2015 this chocolate boasts an incredible blend of flavors: sweet ripe fruit and green olives which beautifully rounds out all the fruitiness with a hint of acidity.

The next bean to bar offering is a 70% from Haiti. PISA is a new bean cooperative located in the Acul de Nord region of Haiti. PISA works with an association of 1,489 smallholder farmers, 476 of whom are female. I have come to deeply appreciate Haitian beans and this Trinitario is no exception. Also harvested in 2015, it’s organic, direct trade, and has a drier finish. Not too sweet fruity flavors predominate.

Last up in this category is their OKO Caribe from the Dominican Republic. OKO Caribe has perfected the art of working with small holder farmers in the San Francisco de Macoris region. Also organic and made with beans harvested in 2015, it is creamier than the Pisa bar and beckons with notes of dark fruits, honey, and roasted peanut.

Their 31% milk chocolate offerings are delicious and fun. Take the Chili Crunch with toasted tortilla bits, sea salt and red Naga chili. It won a ton of awards, most recently the 2016 gold medal for best milk chocolate with inclusions. The heat is subtle, the crunch unlike anything else out there, and the chocolate decadently rich. I also loved their milk chocolate PB & Pretzel bar. Generously studded with bits of peanuts and pretzels it gives every bite crunch and nutty flavor. Too easy to eat with abandon. The last milk bar I sampled was the Curry Cashew. Another creative melding of flavors and textures. The curry somehow warms up the richness of the cashews and the milk base just makes it all taste remarkably luxurious.

The three 65% dark bars with inclusions were: Sienna Fig with Dottato figs, salted Sicilian pistachios, and pignoli. Here, the ingredients were added with a lighter hand which gives the finished product more of a choral effect than a solo performance. Orange Passion, with orange zest, passion fruit powder, and sea salt has an alluring orange scent right out of the package. The zest is not chewy as the pieces are fully amalgamated into the chocolate. I liked how the passion fruit gave this bar an extra edginess. English Garden is another multi-award winner, including the 2016 gold medal for best mixed chocolate bar. This unique and complex offering sports sweet basil, thyme, Meyer lemon, olive oil, and bits of French candied violets.

Clearly Vivra offers a wide selection catering to every taste, which makes it an excellent one stop destination for all your chocoholics.

How Chocolate Is Made

This is a great post from the people at Bar & Cocoa on how chocolate is made:

https://blog.barandcocoa.com/about-chocolate/how-is-chocolate-made/?utm_source=Choco+Rush+Co+Main&utm_campaign=0d054fc834-Welcome2_v1+How+Chocolate+Is+Made&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e0e12b9905-0d054fc834-262551345&goal=0_e0e12b9905-0d054fc834-262551345

Dark Forest Chocolate Two New Dark Milk Bars

Dark milk chocolate is the perfect choice for people who say they don’t like dark chocolate but want to eat it for its health benefits. They get a more intense cacao experience without any of the bitterness, acidity, tobacco, coffee, or terroir flavors often associated with a 70% bar. In addition, I have also found friends will try a dark milk and be more open minded about tasting a truly dark chocolate. For me, a lover of dark bars, these dark milks provide a dessert-like interlude with their incredibly creamy texture and slightly higher sugar content.

I just sampled two great dark milk bars from Dark Forest Chocolate, a bean to bar maker in Lancaster, NY. I first reviewed their wares in 2015 and was enraptured by a Goat Milk 50% chocolate. Luckily for those of you who love it, or haven’t tried it yet, it’s still in their repertoire. (See the review here: https://chocolateratings.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/dark-forest-single-origin-bean-to-bar-chocolate/)

It takes great skill to add just the right amount of heat to chocolate so it accentuates the properties of the bean while providing something new and exciting. Dark Forest Chocolate has achieved that elusive balance. Their 50% dark milk Cinnamon Pepper bar has no black pepper, just cocoa beans, sugar, cacao butter, whole milk powder, Ceylon cinnamon, and cayenne. It was delicious and satisfyingly complex. I also love the 24 little rectangles the bar neatly breaks into. Each piece provides the perfect morsel to savor this luscious combination of velvety textured chocolate and heat.

I also sampled their Salted Malted Milk Chocolate bar, another dark milk offering with unique malted milk undertones that triggered memories of malted milk balls…though at a far more adult level. Barley malt (the main component of malted milk powder) adds an retro flavor reminiscent of old fashioned soda fountains where malted milk, egg creams, and ice cream sodas were the coin of the realm.

Madecasse’s Impact Report on Chocolate Farmers in Madagascar

I was so heartened to read this report (see link below) from Madecasse about improving conditions for cocoa farmers and workers. Thankfully, they, Singing Rooster, and many other chocolate companies are changing the economic landscape of the industry. It may seem like a drop in the ocean compared to the impact of huge chocolate companies, but they are all doing what Gandhi suggested: Being the change they want to see, and I am grateful.

https://madecasse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Madécasse-2017-Impact-Report.pdf?utm_source=Consumer+E-mail+List&utm_campaign=8fc9f743ef-Impact_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_225ed42655-8fc9f743ef-108196097

L’Amourette Chocolat

Apparently, L’Amourette means a little love affair in French. Perhaps, the intensity of a fling is a good way to describe the allure of these bars, but I could easily turn them into a long term relationship.

Andre V., founder of L’Amourette, says their company’s driving philosophy is the belief “in the uncompromising production of quality chocolate and confectionery, while not limiting our customer base to the wealthier layers of society.” In this day and age, when high quality, artisanal chocolate bars often go for $10, or more, for a 1.25-2 ounce bar, Andre offers a plethora of choices starting at $5 for large 3.5 ounce bars.

I often think of chocolatiers as gustatory explorers, and Andre is no exception. His Grenada Criollo Fine Estate 75% bar a case in point. He found a new Criollo that captivated him so much he experimented with making a small batch. If it garners the same interest in other chocolate lovers he will continue producing it. It’s that innovative and flexible attitude that distinguishes small batch producers from larger companies that can’t afford to take a chance on a smaller run. This aspect of bean-to-bar chocolate making is fairly new and incredibly creative. As consumers, we get the opportunity to refine and broaden our taste as new beans get added to the larger chocolate repertoire.

While I didn’t sample the Criollo bar, I did try two bars that point up both Andre’s desire to produce wonderful chocolate at an accessible price while also offering higher end single bean bars. I sampled one of each, starting with the estate variety: Arauca. This Columbian bean hails from the banks of the Arauca River, and has a very fresh, clean scent. It’s redolent of petrichor. (According to the Oxford Dictionary this means “a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.”) The 80% Arouca bar has beans that were coached for 48 hours, which makes it incredibly creamy. The flavor is as chocolatey as it can get and lingers with a sustained full, dense, rich presence that seems to be intensified by using only two ingredients: cacao and sugar.

The Dark Chocolate bar with Pomelo Peel, 72%, is made from a combination of Rio Caribe and Carenero Superior beans from Venezuela. The Pomelo flavors, similar to grapefruit, are a wonderful contrast to the mellow and intriguing notes of the two beans. With a velvety texture and a deliciously lingering finish, this is a definite keeper. The candied Pomelo is very well integrated into the bar, so there are not big chunks of it…just enough to enhance the chocolate’s fruitiness. I also have to mention the bright turquoise inner foil wrapping that contrasts to the yellow cardboard box adored with an Art Nouveau design. Just lovely.

Andre offers a cornucopia of 3.5 ounce bars with add-ins including: 72% Dark Chocolate Flavored with Bacon & Salami, 72% Dark Chocolate with English Toffee, 72% Dark Chocolate with Cayenne Chili & Cinnamon, and 72% Dark Chocolate with Dried Figs.

New Studies on Chocolate’s Health Benefits

The following new studies show how chocolate can help stave off atrial fibrillation and memory issues, while helping improve cognitive capacity after sleep deprivation:

http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/nutrition/cocoa-chocolate-cognitive-abilities-memory-04999.html

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/020717/older-adults-can-benefit-from-a-daily-dose-of-dark-chocolate.html

http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2017/05/01/heartjnl-2016-310357

K’UL Chocolate: 4 New Bars

I was delighted to see K’UL Chocolate has four new bars, and even happier to sample them. Their product development is our collective joy.

The most intriguing of the four is 70% Golden Spice with Turmeric (600mg per 1.45 ounce bar), Ginger, Ginseng, and Goldenberries. As someone who adds turmeric to my vinaigrette, rice, and morning porridge I was already a convert to its health benefits. Here, it adds extra depth to an already great base chocolate. The ginger and ginseng are delivered with a light hand, and the goldenberries add a delightfully chewy texture. Another winner, especially if you have been wondering how to get more turmeric into your diet.

70% Espresso Crunch with nibs is aptly named, as the crunch is evident in every bite. Looking for an afternoon shot of energy with only 9 gams of sugar in 1.23 ounce bar? Well, here’s a great option.

70% Matcha Mint with matcha green tea and peppermint is for those who want a pick-me-up from a little caffeine but aren’t in the market for an espresso buzz. Enlivened by mint, this bar is creamy, dark, and refreshing.

85% Dark is a blend of Caribbean and Latin American beans. With only 5 grams of sugar in a 1.23 ounce bar it has a very silky texture, balanced flavor profile with only a hint of acidity, and plummy/raisin notes. In addition, it offers a nutritional powerhouse of 30% of your iron, 4 grams of protein, and 5 grams of fiber. If you love super dark bars I wouldn’t miss this one.

If, like me, your love of chocolate extends to its manufacture, you might want to check out this great video of the K’UL factory tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uV-Vd3Q-sY

Firefly Organic Bean to Bar Chocolate

I am always in the mood for something different from the chocolate world and Firefly organic bean to bar chocolate provides that new experience. This is an earthy line of bars, all of which, no matter what their cocoa content, speak a chocolate language developed centuries ago before the bean became so intertwined with sugar. More like a food, less like a confection. Because the beans are roasted and coached at the lowest possible temperature this is a perfect choice for someone who loves raw chocolate.

I like the phrase Jonas Ketterle, founder of Firefly Chocolate, uses on his wrapper: “This is not sweet chocolate, nor is it bitter–it is simply high vitality chocolate lovingly made in small batches from the bean…”

I sampled six of his bars, the most unusual of which was a wild harvested Bay Nut bar with 40% cacao, 30% bay nuts and 30% coconut sugar. While never having experienced bay nuts, I found the chocolate quite intriguing with its hickory-like, smokey flavor in a super creamy texture. The lingering taste reminded me of lychee nuts, and it was surprisingly un-sweet for its 40% cocoa content. Apparently, bay nuts were eaten by native people of California. They had a super long shelf life and once dried, stored well for years. The nuts were then roasted in ashes.

Firefly’s 85% dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt had chunks of nuts on the underside of the bar and was made with beans from Tanzania. The chocolate was intense, as you might expect from an 85% bar, and accented well with the roasted almonds.

The 60% Coconut Cream bar, made with Jonas’ stone ground coconut butter, was very creamy and less sweet than you would expect a 60% bar to be.

Maca is known in Peru as a stamina builder and hormone balancer. Firefly’s 77% bar with Maca was similar to the other chocolates in this range from Tanzanian beans: intense, full of terroir, and very earthy.

Last but not least, was the 77% Wildberry with beans from Belize. The berry notes were very light but enough of a presence to add another layer of flavor.

Jonas has a free monthly give-away you can sign up for on his website at the bottom of this page: https://fireflychocolate.com/handcrafted/vision/

Weaver Nut Sweets & Snacks

Whether you’re a chef, home cook, or just love chocolate, Weaver Nut Sweets and Snacks has you covered. Their website, with its abundance of candies, chocolates, and nuts, is easiest to navigate if you type in what you are looking for in the search box, as opposed to looking through the huge range of products listed under “chocolate.” That said, you could come across some old favorite candy by searching in more global categories or by brand. For example, if I have a craving for Bonomo Turkish Taffy I now know where to get it.

In addition to their cornucopia of candy, they offer some excellent chocolates and their prices are very reasonable. In fact, some of them were great deals.

I sampled four of their high end covertures starting with Callebaut’s Dark 53.8% Couverture Callets/Chips (#04453). As you might imagine, these are on the sweeter side, which makes them a high end substitution for generic semi-sweet chips. They would also be a good choice as couverture for nuts, coffee beans, or nibs.

Callebaut’s 65% Inaya Couverture Pistoles ( #04621) boast a captivating deep chocolate presence with dark fruit notes and roasted cacao. An excellent choice for baked goods, drinks, and mousses.

Callebaut’s São Tomé 70% dark chocolate callets/chips (#04610) are wonderful for tempering as mendiants, couverture, barks, or in ganaches. They have a more robust flavor than the Inaya. Callebaut chefs recommend using it with fruits that have a moderate to high acidity and sweetness. Slightly bitter ingredients such as walnuts or mild coffees and spices such as Sichuan pepper also marry well with its dark red fruit flavors.

My absolute favorite was the Cacao Barry Tanzanie 75% (#04611). A fantastic chocolate that would be good for anything. It was simultaneously gentle, like a Criollo, and powerful with an intriguing flavor profile combining ginseng, ripe black fruits, slight smokiness and a lingering edgy finish.

They also carry Barry Callebaut Ghana Origine Milk Callets 41%, Callebaut Fairtrade 811NV 53.8% Dark Chocolate Callets, and Cacao Barry Venezuela 72% Origine Rare Dark Callets.

Weaver is definitely a great resource for bulk couverture as well as nuts, dried fruits, and candy decorating supplies.

Harper Macaw

One thing that really captivates me these days in the chocolate universe is a great dark milk bar. Harper Macaw makes one. It’s a 57% Brazilian rainforest direct trade sourced, perfectly tempered, smooth, creamy indulgence that is far too easy to scarf down. Dark milks offer the child in me something a little sweeter and the adult that higher cocoa intensity. If you’re doing a chocolate tasting this would make a great counterpoint to darker, single origin bars.

In that category Harper Macaw has you covered. Their line offers three dark single estate varieties: 74% Vale do Juliana, 75% M. Libânio, and 77% Tomé Açu. I did not sample those, but focused on their limited release 73% Bourbon Barrel Aged bar as a contrast to the dark milk. It was fabulous. Crisply tempered, redolent of bourbon’s lingering presence, rich, velvety, slightly acidic, with a hint of astringency, it sated my craving for a unique chocolate experience. I especially appreciated the slightly dry lingering finish as it etched its flavors into my memory.

Speaking of etching, each bar has a unique design that reminded me of the more angular elements in furniture created by Charles Rennie Macintosh. Just beautiful and unique. The outer wrappers are also works of art, as is Harper Macaw’s logo.

They also have a collection of bars with add-ins related to one’s political leanings. Titled: Tea Party, Left Wing, Red State, Flip-Flopper, Filibuster, and Taxation Without Representation, their inclusions run the gamut from butter toffee to peanuts and pretzels.

Harper Macaw is dedicated to conservation. When you buy their chocolate you help restore and protect deforested or vulnerable rainforest in northeast Brazil. Through partnerships with Instituto Uiraçu, American Bird Conservancy, and Rainforest Trust, they reinvest in the expansion of Reserva Serra Bonita, a cutting-edge rainforest conservation initiative. As Earth’s second most threatened terrestrial biome and the focal point of Brazil’s cacao industry, it is crucial to the survival of their cacao economy and the region’s biodiversity. By supporting innovative approaches in cacao farming Harper Macaw helps insure the health and stability of the region.

Wm Chocolate

Will Marx is young, creative, entrepreneurial, and dedicated to his craft. Pairing ethically traded single origin cocoa beans with a passion for chocolate that excites the senses, he has crafted a line of bars to tempt even the most jaded palate.

Here’s a rundown of the four I sampled, none of which had lecithin or vanilla.

68% Belize Moho Valley 2016 harvest bar: In a word, excellent. Very rounded and super satisfying with fruity, caramel flavors, a slightly dry finish and a ridiculously smooth texture. Beautifully tempered.

75% Ghana Rainforest Alliance 2016 Harvest: Another audibly tempered, glossy finish bar, equally delicious, but quite different. Light coffee notes, a hint of roasted chestnut; rich and supremely satisfying. Just the right amount of unrefined cane sugar for that butterscotch undertone.

70% Honduras Wampusirpi 2016 harvest bar with Hawaiian Red Salt: If you love salted chocolate you have to add this to your stash. The beans hail from a remote part of northeastern Honduras. The Hawaiian Red Salt, sprinkled with a deft hand on the underside of the bar, adds a note of astringency to a fairly creamy chocolate.

In the let’s get creative category I tasted a limited release 80% Markham Valley bar with Sweet Corn and Ancho Chile. Apparently, in Papua, New Guinea they dry their beans by a wood fire. You can definitely taste the smokiness in the chocolate, making it a perfect foil for the Ancho powder (medium heat) and crunchy morsels of corn scattered on the underside.

Will also offers drinking chocolate and tasting squares. As someone who has hosted a number of chocolate tastings I can attest to the good karma they generate. Everyone seems to leave happy.

Santa Barbara Chocolate

I have just tasted one of the best single origin chocolates, and that’s saying a lot, as there are plenty of excellent options out there. It’s a 73% bulk wafer from Vietnam offered by Santa Barbara Chocolate. The flavor is round, full, fruity, floral, balanced, and complex with a slightly dry finish. Like an edgy criollo. I love criollo beans, but they can sometimes seem a bit too gentle and predictable on the palate. This chocolate, which contains cocoa butter and vanilla, delivers all its fascinating flavors in a velvety texture.

Making this a 73% was inspired as it heightens all the nuances of the cacao with just the right amount of sugar. At $39 for a three pound bag it’s also an incredible bargain. One two ounce bar tempered into an ornate mold in fancy packaging would easily fetch $10, or more. I would suggest transferring some straight from the bag into a pretty glass jar and giving it as gifts…economical, unique, and luxurious.

While I temper chocolate as a moving meditation, I found these Vietnamese wafers almost impossible to adulterate with anything. They’re irresistible right out of the bag; and, their size and shape couldn’t be better for a perfectly timed melt at body temperature. At some point, I will make mendiants with maple glazed pecans or pistachios and thinly sliced dates or dried mango, but not now. Today I want to bask in the glory of this bean. (Two days later…ever the experimenter, I tempered some of this extraordinary chocolate and added dehydrated raspberries. The acidity of the fruit brought out even more floral fruity notes from the chocolate. So, even though it stands alone, it also plays well with others.)

I also sampled their organic Hispaniola 100% chocolate wafers sourced from the Dominican Republic. They have a very robust, intense, super chocolatey flavor noticeably without leather, soil, licorice, or tobacco notes that makes them perfect for baking. I tempered some and added 25% demerara sugar. The slight sweetness and crunch of the crystalized sugar was a fascinating foil for the Hispaniola flavors.

The 60% version of this bean is very versatile with its lush fruity flavor and lends itself to tempering, baking, or just eating out of the bag. A fun fact about this bean: it was the first cacao Christopher Columbus tasted when he arrived in the New World.

Then there were the 70% organic dark chocolate chips without soy lecithin. I can’t remember having mini-chips with such a deep, refined chocolate presence and a sublimely balanced flavor profile. They were a great addition to a batch of maple tahini chocolate chip cookies.

My last treat was their Caribbean 67% which also had a fruity presence and a slightly dry, lingering finish. In my experience, these fruitier beans are just excellent for couverture and desserts as they support a galaxy of flavors, like citrus, berries, nuts, seeds, coffee beans, and spices.

In addition to a great selection of products for the professional or avocational chocolatier, Santa Barbara Chocolate makes beautiful large organic truffles. Mine arrived in a stunning tall red faux leather box adorned with a sumptuous black silk ribbon. The box itself opens up sideways to form four smaller boxes that each contained four truffles. These are incredibly rich, vegan, and infused with organic coconut milk and organic honey. A memorable gift for someone you love or want to impress.

Santa Barbara curates a very special collection of cacao. Each item is handpicked for its unique properties, whether organic, Rainforest alliance certified, or coconut palm sugar sweetened, you can be sure it will be both high quality and a good value.

I focused this review on their dark offerings, but they also have milk, white, and compound chocolates, cocoa, drinking chocolate, and beans.

While I didn’t sample the Belgian Dark Chocolate Grand Aroma, I thought you might enjoy the following recipe from Santa Barbara’s owner and chocolatier Jason Vishnefske.

INGREDIENTS FOR BELGIAN BEER CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Beer Ganache:

8oz. Belgian Beer
3oz. Honey
1lb. 4oz. of our Imported Ever the experimenter, I tempered some of this Vietnamese chocolate and added dehydrated raspberries. The result was just what I had in mind: the acidity of the fruit brought out even more floral fruity notes from the chocolate.
3oz. Butter

Additional Chocolate Ingredient:

Belgian Milk Chocolate Couverture

PREPARATION OF BEER TRUFFLES:

Boil the Belgian beer with honey.
Pour onto the Belgian Dark Chocolate and mix so it is smooth.
When the ganache reaches 87F add butter and mix with a hand mixer.
Pour ganache into a parchment lined sheet pan and let it crystallize for 14 hours at 60F.
Temper the milk chocolate couverture and spread a thin layer of the tempered Belgian Milk Chocolate on the ganache side.
When it’s crystallized, turn the ganache and spread another thin layer of tempered Belgian Milk Chocolate on the other side.
Cut into 1/2″ by 2″ rectangles.
Lastly, dip each ganache rectangle into tempered Belgian Dark Chocolate Grand Aroma.

Quintessential Chocolates

Many years ago, when I had energy to burn, I made a four layer dark chocolate rum cake covered in a blanket of white marzipan adorned with flat pink marzipan hearts. Just thinking about it evokes nascent yearnings. While I am not inclined to spend the good part of a day baking at this juncture, I still love the combination of alcohol and chocolate. So far, I have had to sate my cravings with some homemade ganaches infused with Benedictine or Nocello. Yes, there are truffles with Grand Marnier, Amaretto, and rum, to name a few, but the alcohol presence always seems fairly mild to me. Not so for the alcohol filled batons and truffles from Quintessential Chocolates. I recently sampled a few of their confections and was delighted with their intense flavor.

The truffles were appealing in their pretty Tiffany blue sleeve box with windowpane for viewing. Jamaican was deliciously rummy. The dark couverture with delicate white swirl was the perfect thickness to complement but not overwhelm its creamy center. MayaCaya, enhanced with cayenne, offered light heat and a hint of cinnamon. Fortunate No.4 Sea Salt Caramel had a smaller center and thicker shell. Here, though, it worked perfectly, as the sweet caramel was a excellent foil for the chocolate’s unique fruity-floral flavor profile. A wonderfully luxurious experience. Their Bittersweet Truffle was a classic dark chocolate ganache in a thinner shell. The sweetest of was a Belgian Milk Truffle.

Quintessential’s alcohol filled chocolates, six to a box, are encased in a sugar crust, which keeps the filling liquid, and coated in a thin layer of semi-sweet chocolate. Flavors included: Amaretto, Cabernet Sauvignon, Enchanted Rock Red Wine, Pecan Street Rum, Garrison Bourbon, and Republic Anejo Tequila. The boxes weigh 1.85 ounces, or 52 grams. I like the enclosed map of flavors so you know what you’re biting into, and I’m always a fan of variety. All of them were a far cry from the imported alcohol filled chocolates I have sampled from Germany with their cloyingly sweet, thicker chocolate shells. These were the perfect juxtaposition of chocolate and alcohol. Liquid, crunch, and silky textured chocolate all at once.

Quintessential also offers fruit nectar and coffee filled chocolates, and a wide variety of barks that look very appetizing. The truffles are only available in their Texas based store, but everything else can be ordered online.

RECIPE: Blue Cheese Chocolate with Maple Roasted Pecans and Rosemary

I have been tempering chocolate in the microwave for many years. (Here’s a link to how: https://chocolateratings.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/quick-and-easy-chocolate-tempering/) My latest obsession is mendiants, those beautifully adorned small chocolate discs with a mosaic of fruits, nuts, and/or spices on top.

One of my favorite mendiant recipes is made with blue cheese powder (see link below for the one I use) and maple roasted pecans. Today, I added a bit of freshly chopped rosemary to the recipe. They looked lovely and tasted divine. Of course, when adding blue cheese powder I find it best to keep these in a covered container in the fridge.

Here’s my recipe for BLUE CHEESE CHOCOLATE WITH MAPLE ROASTED PECANS AND ROSEMARY

Lay out a large piece of aluminum foil on a flat surface.

MAKE THE NUTS by adding 2 TBSP real maple syrup to a frying pan with, at least 2″ high sides. Cook on medium heat until syrup bubbles.
You can add a little cayenne or Serrano chile powder if you like a bit of extra heat, or skip it.
Quickly add about 1 1/2- 2 cups of pecan halves.
Stir on medium heat fairly continuously until all the moisture from the syrup is absorbed, about 5-7 minutes. You want them golden brown.
Dump out on the aluminum foil, separate any nuts that have stuck together, and let cool completely.
(I make this recipe with all sorts off different nuts and keep them in the fridge in jars. They are also wonderful on salads.)

Temper the chocolate. I usually only make a small batch, using 8 TBSP 70-75% good quality chocolate, chopped.
Set aside 2 TBSP from your total of 8.
Put the remaining 6 TBSP chopped chocolate in a one cup Pyrex measuring cup and nuke for 30-70 seconds on high or medium high power. When all the chocolate can be stirred to a smooth mass it’s done. This can be tricky because the chocolate make look as if it’s not melted, so you have to stir it after 30-40 seconds to check how far it’s come.

Add 1 TBSP of the remaining chocolate. Stir until amalgamated.
Do the same thing with the last TBSP chopped chocolate.

Add 1/2-1 tsp. finely chopped rosemary, if using. Stir well.

Add 1 1/2 TBSP blue cheese powder. Stir until combined.

On a large piece of waxed paper, put about 1/2-3/4 tsp melted chocolate in a blob and make it into a circle using the back of a teaspoon.
You should have about 25 discs about 1 1/4″ in diameter when you’re done.

Top each with 1-2 pecan halves.

They should solidify at room temperature, but if, after an hour, they haven’t, put them in the fridge.

https://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Cheese-Shaker-Rogue-Creamery/dp/B00CU6VWVS/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1493909725&sr=8-1&keywords=blue%2Bcheese%2Bpowder&th=1
(Note: This lasts well when refrigerated for years. Yes, years.)

Nuance Chocolate

Nuance. What a great name for a chocolate company. After all, nuance celebrates the subtle differences between similar things. Isn’t the awareness of different aspects of chocolate what we seek to discern and appreciate? What accounts for those differences that we gradually train our senses to notice? Is it the terroir, the bean’s handling, the phase of the moon when the beans were harvested (thank you, Rudolph Steiner for biodynamic farming), fermentation conditions, storage, shipping, conching, the addition or omission of vanilla, packaging, and other multifarious causes and conditions? Clearly, all contribute to the ultimate arbiter of taste: one’s own body-mind state when eating chocolate. Your internal conditions are affected by externals, like: climate, whether you’re tasting solo or in company, the aesthetics of your surroundings, ambient sounds, aromas, darkness, light, time of day, etc.

A Hershey bar might taste like manna from heaven in a prison cell, while the most beautifully packaged, carefully sourced, and perfectly tempered chocolate could taste like ashes if eaten after bad news.

The nuances are where it’s at. Kudos to Toby and Alix Gadd, creators of Nuance Chocolate, for coming up with such a fitting and inspirational name. Their bars are worth the time it takes to cultivate discernment. To eat this chocolate mindlessly would be sacrilegious.

Toby and Alix use premium cacao beans from ethical sources, which they roast in small batches and grind for up to three days. The dark bars I sampled had no added vanilla. If you’re looking for a super luxurious mouth feel it’s necessary to grind the beans a long time.

They have a huge assortment of bars on their website (www.nuancechocolate.com). Here are the ones I sampled:

Marañón 70% Peruvian bar, made from rare cacao from the Marañón River Canyon. I have tasted this bean on numerous occasions. It’s highly touted because of the fruity, slightly floral notes and gentle presence on your palate. Nuance’s rendition is velvety and full of those subtle layers of flavor that distinguish this bean from many others. When tasting something so refined I like a thinner bar, and that’s exactly how they made it.

Toby sent me a tasting flight of 16 gram batons with six squares each. I followed his suggestion for the order in which to try them:

Uganda 70% Dark, Forestero. Astonishingly good, I was struck with it’s creamy texture, beautiful temper, no acidity, and rounded flavor. If you’re searching for a 70% bar that doesn’t scream of soil, earthiness, coffee, or leather, this is it.

Next up was the 90% bar from Ghana, another Forastero, but far more intense with a much drier finish. If you’re exploring super dark chocolates I would suggest you give this a try. It had a definite presence from a long fermentation, and plenty of depth. I found the finish lasted for minutes and left me quite sated.

Number three was the 70% Fiji bar from Mataswalevu farm. Also Forestero beans, this one was fruitier with definite caramel notes and a very round finish. No bite or acidity.

Their 70% Criollo bean bar from the Ocumare Valley in Venezuela had a creamy texture, nuttiness balanced with floral notes, and finished with a soupçon of acidic edginess.

The bar from Papua New Guinea, a Forestero, has beans that were dried over an open fire. This is quite unusual, as most beans are dried in the sun or on racks. I definitely tasted the smokiness, which surprised my senses but not to the point where I missed the ultra-creamy texture or complex layers of dark fruitiness and terroir.

The 70% from Cuyagua, Venezuela is a more assertive Criollo. It intermingles acidity, dark fruits, earthiness (atypical for a Criollo), and hints of nutmeg for a complex, intriguing experience.

The 70% Moho Valley, Belize Criollo/Trinitarion bar is fascinating. It’s full of cherry, lychee, and walnut. The lovely dry finish is perfect against the chocolate’s creaminess.

Dark Milk bars are the darlings of the current chocolate scene and for good reason. They take milk chocolate into adult realms. Nuance’s 55% Chantilly Cream bar with Forestero beans from Ghana, is made with heavy cream, not milk, and the result is just ambrosial. Lush, rich, balanced, and satisfying, it’s different from every other dark milk I have ever sampled. If you love dark milks, this will vastly expand your repertoire.

Nuance’s 55% Dark Zurich Milk bar, also a Forestero from Ghana, evokes Dulce de Leche with its creamy caramel flavors and soothing finish. Here, the milk is full-fat from Holland. Both these dark milk bars have vanilla beans added for an extra layer of interest.

For you mocha lovers, they offer Bean Cycle #1, a collaboration bar of Ethiopian coffee beans and Trinitarian cacao from Madagascar. Unlike many other coffee and chocolate combos, Nuance’s rendition is smooth as silk. Coffee here is a presence, not a crunch. Different and delicious.

This is a company to watch. Their exacting standards, ability to coax a bean’s personality from its natural state, and know when to mix things up, makes them respectful of nature but also creative chocolatiers.

SmartBARK!

I love chocolate bark so much I regularly temper my own, but when I don’t have the time there’s SmartBARK! They use the same great ingredients I would use at home: organic, Fair Trade, 70% chocolate, real vanilla, with high quality nuts, grains, seeds, and dried fruit.

Each bag of SmartBARK! is 4 ounces and contains three generous servings of 40grams each. They’re fairly low in sugar, ranging from 10-14 grams per serving, contain 15% of your daily requirement for iron, 3-4 grams of fiber, and have between 3-4 grams of protein.

A tiny pet peeve of mine has been the dearth of fruit juice sweetened cranberries. SmartBARK! uses apple juice sweetened cranberries in their Cranberry Bark and it makes a big difference. The plump, fresh, chewy fruit is still a bit tart, with just enough sweetness to take the edge off. This bark is thicker than the others I sampled which initially surprised me until I saw how the fruit really benefited from a higher ratio of chocolate.

Their thinnest bark is Quinoa, chock full of crispy puffed quinoa. I loved it. The way the well-tempered chocolate riffed off the tiny grains of quinoa was like a gustatory celebration.

Almond bark had both thinner and thicker pieces of chocolate and crunchy whole roasted almonds.

Trail Mix was crammed with currants, pumpkin seeds, cacao nibs, and sunflower seeds. Their recipe had just the right balance between the slightly chewy-sweet currants, crunchy seeds, and delicious dark chocolate. Like the Quinoa variety, it was slightly thinner. Of course, as SmartBARK! feels, looks, and tastes like an artisanal product the thickness of each batch might vary.

Everything was fresh and conveniently packaged for tucking into a briefcase or bag. All four options would make great travel companions without taking up too much space.

If you check out their website: http://www.sweetdesigns.com, you can find other interesting bars, like the one with ginger and walnut, and specialty items like Chocolate Truffle Filled Figs.

…

I have always loved sci-fi, science, and space exploration, so I have to share this fun fact: NASA astronauts ate Sweet Designs Chocolates on the Space Shuttle.

New Chocolate Podcast: The Slow Melt

Simran Sethi hosts The Slow Melt, a new chocolate-centric podcast you can subscribe to on iTunes.

In all the years I have been eating and reviewing chocolate, I have never heard anybody present it in such fascinating, thorough, and captivating ways.

Simian artfully combines a little memoir, information on tasting, packaging, climate, social issues, feminism, and a plethora of other topics into a mesmerizing show.

Endorfin Foods Chocolate

Years ago, when I was raising my children, we belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program). It was a wonderful experience that brought us closer to the farmers who grew our food. Apparently, the idea appealed to bean-to-bar maker Brian Wallace, founder of Endorfin Foods, and the world’s first Community Supported Chocolate (CSC) box. Just like a CSA, it creates a relationship between the grower and the consumer. Brian’s program sends out a box of chocolates every month with your subscription. These are a combination of products made exclusively for the CSC, like: chocolate covered exotic fruits, truffles, barks, their whole bean drinking chocolate, and a couple of bars from his regular range. Of course, you don’t have to belong to his CSC to enjoy his chocolate as it can be purchased any day from his website.

Brian’s beans are never roasted. They are: fermented and dried on site, then cracked and winnowed, crushed, and stoneground with coconut sugar and coconut mylk before being milled, tempered, then molded into bars.

Like other bean-to-bar companies, Endorphin Foods is trying to be the change it wants to see by paying farmers higher rates for their beans and working only with cacao grown by small farmer cooperatives and estates in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Madagascar. This, as you know, bypasses the slavery and child labor used by 70% of cacao farmers in Western Africa.

I sampled five of Brian’s bars, all of which are sweetened with coconut sugar, dairy free, soy free, gluten free, agave free, and GMO free.

From the 80% single origin line I tried the Madagascar bar. Made from Criollo beans, its creamy texture enhanced a dark, fruity flavor profile.

Dark Coconut Mylk Chocolate, 56%, is sweeter with a melt in your mouth texture. It’s a completely different experience from traditional milk chocolate as it has a higher percentage of cacao solids. The coconut milk does not taste like coconut but somehow creates a milkier bar.

Dark Coconut Mylk Chocolate with Coffee and Cardamom, 60%, is a delicious combo of warm spice and coffee.

Dark Coconut Mylk Chocolate with Ginger and Rose, 56%, woke up my palate with its lovely gingery edge and floral essence. Unusual, creative, and very satisfying.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Mylk with Anise and Wormwood, 70%, used a darker base to balance out the heady flavors found in Absinthe liquor: Grand Wormwood, Anise, Sweet Fennel, Melissa (Lemon Balm), and Mugwort. The resulting bar is complex, rich, and slightly addictive.

At the time of this review, you can use the discount code “farmtotable” to get 30% off the first month of your own subscription box at http://www.endorfinfoods.com/subscriptions

Singing Rooster Haitian Chocolate

If you regularly read this site, you already know I was totally blown away by K’UL chocolate. A few days ago I received an email from Molly Nicaise, the CEO of Singing Rooster, the company that exports fermented cocoa beans from Haiti used in K’UL’s bars. Once I started reading about their mission I became even more enraptured. Not only is the chocolate divine, they are an über socially responsible company that is making a difference in the world. As I believe their work deserves more attention, I want to review Singing Rooster’s chocolate bars, and share a bit about the way they work their magic.

Singing Rooster was established in 2009. They partner with small-holder growers of coffee and chocolate to alleviate poverty in Haiti.

They serve as:
Agricultural and business consultants
Organizers of pre-harvest financing
Primary buyers of crops and products at premium prices
Product transformation: creating higher value items (like roasted coffee or chocolate bars)
Business guiders, developers, and cheerleaders
Equitably distributing economic gains
Creating new markets and special sales opportunities

Singing Rooster offers an opportunity to directly support vulnerable farmers, help reforest Haiti, and build rural economies.

Singing Rooster exceeds every aspect of fair trade: they pay farmers a minimum of $3/lb for coffee crops & return another .50 cents from sales.

They use proceeds to help farmers with agriculture improvements, business management, and replanting Haiti’s deforested lands with tens of thousands of coffee and cacao trees. Haiti gets a whopping 66% from every sale!

There is minimal job stability in Haiti with 70% of Haitians unemployed; sustainable jobs are required for autonomy. Haiti’s potential as a self-sustaining country rests, in part, with economic development: job creation, product improvement or design, and opening up international markets for Haitian goods like coffee, art, and chocolate.

Meaningful employment is one path to autonomy, self-sustainability and dignity.

According to The World Bank, economic growth in agriculture is more than twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors of the economy. Coffee and cacao play important roles in Haiti’s rural economy: they provide income diversification. There are thousands of jobs in coffee and cacao, and new seedlings are environmentally essential for reforestation and soil management.

So far, Singing Rooster has put over $1,000,000 directly into the pockets of farmers.

Unlike the bulk of the world’s cacao, Haiti’s organic crops represent the top 3% of cacao produced on earth.

I sampled four of their bars, all of which were made with 70% Kafupbo single origin chocolate, a luscious Criollo/Trinitario hybrid.

Orange Crunch, a gustatory celebration of vibrant citrus flavor with roasted nibs, is complex, wildly textural, and full of super rich chocolate flavor. Each aspect of this bar compliments the others, creating a unique combination of sweet and slightly acidic flavors in a velvety chocolate base.

Lemon Ginger is a delicious blend of organic cocoa beans, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, sunflower lecithin, and natural crystalized ginger with lemon oil. It’s positively addicting with the yin/yang play of sweet crunchy ginger and slightly tart lemon. Deep, dark, creamy Haitian chocolate rounds out the experience.

Pure Dark offers an unadulterated experience of that lovely smooth texture, hints of licorice, red fruits, and jasmine.

Cinnamon was just fantastic, but I love a little heat with my chocolate. The combination of chile and cinnamon was like a far more complex Red Hot with creamy dark chocolate. A real winner.

You can buy those, plus other chocolate bars, nibs, and coffee from their website: http://www.singingrooster.org.

Thinking Elvish Fantasy Chocolate

The multi-talented husband and wife team of Timothy and Lacy Christ was creating high end fantasy inspired costumes and jewelry before being captivated by the world of bean-to-bar chocolate. One look at their Elf-inspired website will give you a sense of their artistry. They source organic ingredients from Fair Trade purveyors, and their wares are soy-free, dairy-free, and non-GMO.

I sampled three of their bars, starting with the 50% almond milk infused dark milk bar made with Peruvian criollo beans from the Norandino cooperative in the Tumbas region. I have tried and loved many dark milk bars, even one from Dubai made with Camel’s milk, and each is fairly different from the next. By using almond milk, Timothy has created a velvety textured chocolate with caramel and molasses overtones.

Their 70% bar from the Lamas region of Peru transported me into a gustatory reverie with its beautiful, snappy temper, super rich, creamy texture, and multi-layered flavor profile of figs, walnuts, and terroir. The beans are a hybrid of trinitario and criollo. I also loved the slightly dry, tannic finish as a counterpoint to the sweetness and velvety texture preceding it.

Another offering from Peru (Norandino) is their 85% bar. An astonishingly flavorful high cacao content chocolate that, like the 70%, had me from my first morsel. Its crisp temper made an audible crack when I broke off a piece. The beans are just sublime. A deep chocolate flavor that’s earthy, with notes of coffee and plum. This 85% chocolate wakes up whatever nascent chocolate yearnings may be lurking in your unconscious. It would make a fabulous addition to a chocolate tasting, or a gift for your favorite chocophile; especially, one who is just venturing into the 80% and higher cacao stratosphere.

They also offer a quartet of cocoa butter bars with various add-ins: pistachios, cashews, almond milk & vanilla, and coconut.

In addition, they make beautiful small domed pyramids of chocolate that can fit into tiny tins you can take anywhere.

All bars are packaged in 1.4 ounce squares with their logo in bas relief.

If you’re lucky enough to live in Buffalo, take a trip to their Elmwood Village location and where you can taste the actual cacao beans and load up on gifts for all your chocolate loving friends.

NEW! Thinking Elvish just came out with a new bark: Yggdrasil’s Seed with pumpkin and sunflower seeds on 70% dark chocolate. Just fabulous! The bark is very thin so the proportion of toppings is perfectly balanced with the chocolate. Be warned, though, it’s highly addictive.

Interested in the Norandino cacao farmers? You can read more here:
https://thewellingtonchocolatevoyage.wordpress.com/peru-norandino-3/
https://www.theochocolate.com/node/17356

Snorting Cacao

I thought you might be interested in reading this article on snorting cacao:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2017/01/why-i-snort-raw-cacao/

Let me be perfectly clear: I AM NOT RECOMMENDING IT!

You can get a plethora of psychoactive benefits from eating dark chocolate in the 70-100% range. You can also use raw cacao in your smoothies, add it to coffee, make hot chocolate, bake with 100% cocoa, or creatively throw it in anything else that gets it in your system without compromising your heath.

K’ul Chocolate II

I am truly smitten with the single origin Farm to Bar offerings from K’ul. The four bars I sampled would make a fabulous addition to any chocolate tasting with their combination of depth, character, beautiful tempering, and subtlety…assuming I wouldn’t scarf them down before the guests arrived.

Their Marañón River Peruvian Fortunato No.4 (also known as Nacional) made from the world’s rarest white cacao beans is just sublime: fruity, fresh, with a hint of acidity, it showcases the nuances of this special bean.

Fazenda Camboa, Bahia, Brazil is another wonder. Actually, I have had my share of Nacional and always love it. This organic Forester bar was more of a revelation: super creamy texture, caramel undertones, and a lovely finish.

Hacienda Limon, Los Rios, Ecuador is another delectable treat made from heirloom cacao. Like the Fazenda, it delivers its buttery rich flavors in an über creamy base.

Kafupbo, Petit Bourg, de Borgnes, Haiti is an organic chocolate with complex licorice undertones perked up by red fruits in a velvety texture. It could easily become my new favorite. Super luscious and satisfying.

In the realm of K’ul’s add-in creations is the Electrobar, beguiling me with bananas, evaporated coconut water, toasted coconut, electrolytes, and Cyprus sea salt. Its crunchy, chewy, immensely satisfying and rejuvenating. When K’ul adds ingredients, they do it with a very generous hand. This bar is chock full of flavor and textures, making each bite a slightly different gustatory adventure.

Their hand-roasted Marcona Almond bar in 70% dark chocolate is also easy to scarf down and great for an outdoor adventure.

I strongly recommend you get on their email list as they offer various promotions throughout the year, and you can keep up with their new products.

Georgia Ramon Bean To Bar Chocolate

While Keats once said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” when it comes to chocolate it’s all about the ephemerality of the experience. Perhaps, the beauty that fades quickly is precious because of its fleetingness. When I eat a piece of amazing chocolate and know the flavor, texture, and aroma are with me for only the briefest moment, I can savor them with a different kind of attention. Chocolate from Georgia Ramon reminds me how great chocolate can bring me fully into the moment. The visual joy of their packaging, the tactile and auditory pleasure of the reclosable interior cellophane sleeve, and the quality of their beans all invite a gustatory reverie.

Georg Bernardini and Ramona Gutmann founded Georgia Ramon in 2015, but this is no novice chocolatier. Bernardini has over 27 years experience in chocolate, patisseries & confiserie. His career has taken him from Bonn and Munich to Paris and Toulouse.

In 1992 he and Oliver Coppeneur founded Confiserie Coppeneur et Compagnon. While there, he set up the company’s bean to bar chocolate line. Ramona spent two years working at Confiserie Coppeneur in Bonn as a shop manager.

Georg wrote the definitive book on artisanal chocolate: “Chocolate – The Reference Standard.”

Georg and Ramona value sustainability using many organic ingredients and beans sourced from cooperatives, or plantations Georg has been working with for years.

Before I even tasted any of the eight bars they sent me, I was captivated by the flat, rectangular cardboard envelopes adorned with unique designs that went from an insanely beautiful Dia des Muertos themed painting on their Haitian 80%, to a floral hippie-inspired pattern on the 100%.

Each bar is 50 grams, but the packaging, flavor intensity, and lovely bas relief of Mondrian-like squares made me think it was larger.

Let’s start with the wildest chocolate combo I have ever eaten: Broccoli and Salted Almonds in White Chocolate. This khaki green beautifully thin slab is conched with de-oiled almond flour and air-dried broccoli powder. Then, they add Sicilian roasted and salted almonds. There are 42% cocoa solids. It tastes creamy, green, fresh, and comes studded with tiny bits of crunchy nuts. If you have a curious palate I would highly recommend experiencing this unique vegan bar.

At the opposite end of the cacao spectrum is their 100%, Mountains of the Moon. Made with a combination of Forastero and Trinitario beans from the Congo, it is well-tempered and incredibly intense. The earthy flavor redolent of coffee, spices, and leather.

Georgia Ramon’s 80% made with Haitian Trinitario and Criollo beans is crisply tempered, almost black, rich, and balanced. I am a fan of the 80% range and find products differ greatly. This one is so satisfying that even a small rectangle sated my craving for an exquisitely smooth chocolate with flavors of fig, roasted nuts, and cognac.

Their 70% dark from the TCGA Cooperative in Belize is a gentle, sweeter bar. Like its siblings, it’s beautifully tempered. The flavor is earthy and more straightforward with a slightly dry finish.

If you love the combination of dark chocolate and sea salt, Georgia Ramon offers a 70% with sea salt flakes from the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. It has the same amount of added sugar as the plain 70%, but a vastly different flavor profile. The salt is subtly added, achieving the exact right balance. Enough to perk up the essence of the beans while not overwhelming them.

Super finely ground coffee from the jungles of Ethiopia and cocoa nibs infiltrate every bite of their 55% bar. Unlike many others in this cacao content range, it is not particularly sweet, with 13 grams of sugar in the whole bar. An inventive, perfect combination that once tasted seems as if it should have been ubiquitous for years.

38% white chocolate never dreamed it could embrace beetroot and coconut, but it all deliciously comes together in this bar. The dark ruby-amethyst color looks amazing while the flavor and texture surprise your taste buds. Crunchy-chewy coconut pieces are a perfect counterpoint to the beetroot’s sweetness and ultra creamy texture.

Their 66% Brazilian Trinitarian dark milk bar was delightfully deep, full of terroir, and ground but not conched. Its mildness combined with memories of the bean’s earthy origins, making it another original from Georgia Ramon.

Desbarres Chocolate

What do you really want from your chocolate? An energy boost? A calming break in your day? A gustatory joy? I expect a lot from my chocolate. Deep, rich taste, snappy tempering, a texture that enhances all the above, appealing packaging, and ethical sourcing. Quite a tall order.

Luckily for me, there are many incredible options out there. One of the newest is Desbarres from Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada. A micro-batch bean to bar manufacturer and brainchild of Ariane and Erik Hansen. They currently offer six different bars from Madagascar, Ecuador, Tanzania, and Trinidad, all in the 72-85% range. A distinguishing characteristic of all their chocolates is the two ingredient factor: the bars contain only chocolate and organic cane sugar. This, combined with their penchant for higher cocoa percentages, enables you to taste the bean in its least adulterated form.

Ariane designed all the packaging and it is lovely. The inner cardboard sleeve has a reproduction of a map drawn by Giovanni Batista from the 16th century. It shows the Tropic of Capricorn as a reference point, since chocolate is grown between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, 10 degrees north and south of the equator.

All four of the bars I sampled were beautifully tempered with a nice gloss, and a satisfying snap. Each weighs 38 grams. That may sound like a small portion, but the chocolate is so satisfying I found a few bites truly sated my cravings.

The 72% Ambanja from Madagascar tasted of citrus and berries with a slightly dry finish. The circus was non-acidic, just there to add some complexity and balance to the berries. The beans are lauded by other chocolatiers and hail from the Akesson Estate in northern Madagascar.

The Ambaja 85% bar was a different cat altogether, even though the bean was the same. Here, the citrus berry combo was accented with a deep earthiness. If you are looking for an intense, uber chocolate experience, this is it.

Kilombero, from Tanzania, 78%, was also earthy, with coffee and caramel notes.

Camino Verde, also 78%, from Ecuador was the fruitiest of the four, and had a creamier finish.

All delivered a satisfying chocolate experience designed to highlight the nuances, complexities, and unique characteristics of each bean.

Beans needed for chocolate research

Dr Xiaonan Lu has been chosen by IUFoST for the “Young Scientist Award 2016”

The University of British Columbia needs 50 beans from as many origins as possible. Please send some.

Dr Lu, University of British Columbia, is conducting a study about the cacao beans profile to see if he can correlate their origin to one or several of the parameters he is measuring and maybe develop an automatic recognition of the origin of any bean or other automatic recognition he would find.

He would like to get as many origins as possible. Can you send him some of your beans and ask your friends / suppliers / contacts to do so?
He needs 50-100 beans of each type to conduct the experiments. The more types (and locations), the better. He will be happy to share the results with you after.

Please email us to let us know what you can do and send the beans to “Pierre Gruget, 5971 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, BC, V7W2S1, CANADA”

And please give all the information you have on the beans (country, province / state / town, village, farm, elevation, and whenever you know: age of the tree, when it was picked from the tree, any comment on the growing condition (use that pesticide 3 years ago…surrounding (vegetation such as coffee trees, or any significant activity (wood oven at 20m, lake… at 50m, sulfuric acid emitted 5 km away …), variety if you know it, orientation (NW or SW) of the hill if any, soil if you know it, any analysis you may have, even old…
Only the country is mandatory today but more information would be great. If providing several samples don’t forget to identify them Lot 1 Lot 2…

All information will be kept anonymous.
If needed, we will be happy to reimburse you the costs.
Enjoying that research, sincerely yours.

Pierre Gruget

UBC Chocolate (Non Profit Group supporting Research on Chocolate at University of BC)
UBCchocolate @gmail.com

Research conducted by Dr. Xiaonan LU, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Food Safety Engineering | Food Nutrition and Health Program
The University of British Columbia
Office 604 822 2551 | Fax 604 822 5143
xiaonan.lu@ubc.ca
http://foodsafetyengineering.landfood.ubc.ca
Publication in Food and Chemistry journal
Volume 202, 1 July 2016, Pages 254–261

Kirkland Signature Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds with Turbinado Sugar & Sea Salt

I have never been to a Costco, but I heard about these almonds and bought some on Amazon. They are so amazingly delicious I have been buying them monthly ever since.

What makes them crave-worthy is the perfect amount of 70% dark, ethically sourced chocolate encasing each crunchy roasted nut. Apparently, some great chocolatier calibrated the exact right ratio of creamy chocolate to nut. Believe me, it’s not easy to do. Too little chocolate and I’m left wanting more. Too much and it overwhelms the nut presence.

Then, they add just a touch of sea salt and turbinado sugar crystals, both of which amp up and balance out the other flavors and textures. The result is divine.

Adding to my joy is the relatively healthy nutritional profile for dessert: 1/4 cup (40 grams) has 14 grams of sugar, 3 grams of fiber, 55 mgs of sodium, and 4 grams of protein. Not so bad for something so incredibly satisfying.

By the way, I have tried similar products from other makers and they are not as good.

At the time of this review (6-22-16) a 32 ounce bag was selling on Amazon for just under $25 with free shipping.

Eating Evolved Primal Chocolate

I love gustatory experimentation, so when a few coconut sugar sweetened bars from Primal Chocolate came across the transom, I was intrigued. Coconut sugar is touted by some for its lower glycemic index than table sugar. Other nutritionists say it’s on a par with honey, though vegan. Regardless of the conflicting theories, it is an alternative sweetener that comes from the sap of the coconut palm.

Eating Evolved’s motto is: Chocolate: It’s food, not candy. I completely concur. At least, the chocolate I usually gravitate towards that is lower in sugar. As a matter of fact, dark chocolate is one of the 15 superfoods and chock full of phytochemicals, healthy fats, fiber, iron, etc.

I tried three of their bars:

Their signature dark rolls in at 72% and is a very satisfying, earthy bar with a creamy texture. Easy to eat and quite satisfying. Crunchy Caramel is 85% cacao, yet it has the same 7 grams of sugar in a 28 gram portion as the signature dark. Both have a dry finish. Almond Sea Salt, my favorite of the trio, also has 7 grams of sugar per 28 gram serving with the addition of slivers of almond and a sprinkle of sea salt. The added dimension of flavor from the almonds and sea salt made this bar the most interesting and flavorsome, while the nuts provided a lovely crunch.

MilkBoy Swiss Chocolate

A few years ago, there was an article about Japanese workers going into the forest for a day of rest and relaxation. The salubrious effects of this outing were obvious to all, especially the researcher investigating what he called Forest Therapy. When he was asked how he de-stesses while working in a windowless lab all day he said he used essential oil of Balsam Fir Needle. I tried it, and it beautifully transports me to a deep glade in an emerald wood.

MilkBoy’s 60% dark bar with essential Pine Tree Oil reminded me of that relaxing experience. I would have thought pine and chocolate might clash, but they are an inspired combination. The citrusy edge of pine with a creamy medium dark chocolate creates a balance of flavors and velvety texture. It’s perfect for the gustatory explorer in you.

As you already know, the Swiss are famous for their super creamy chocolates, especially, the milks. If you love milk chocolate, their velvety Swiss Milk chocolate bar is an indulgent option. They also offer a Lemon and Ginger version and one with Crunchy Caramel and Sea Salt. As you might imagine, the latter is quite sweet; yet, the addition of sea salt perks up the caramel flavors to the point of making the bar interesting and complex. For a dark chocolate lover like me, the Lemon and Ginger was a revelation: tart with just the right amount of acidity and a hint of ginger, it elevated the milk chocolate into adult territory.

85% is more my thing, and their 85% bar is super smooth, low in sugar, and beautifully tempered. The taste is rich, sophisticated, with a slightly dry, lingering finish. The vanilla is applied with a light touch so it gently enhances the bean’s flavor.

MilkBoy also makes a plain milk bar for those who love a pristine version, and a white chocolate rendition with bourbon vanilla.

All the bars are a generous 3.5 ounces and come in a lovely cardboard package adorned with black, paper cut silhouettes evoking an Alpine village, complete with cows.

K’UL Chocolate Bean-to-Bar

I love innovation. Not for innovation’s sake, but when it truly improves something. K’UL (pronounced cool) Chocolate is definitely innovative. Founder, Peter Kelsey, calls his bars Superfood and I can see why. Chock full of nuts, seeds, anti-oxidants, and supplements each bar is its own little powerhouse of nutrition. It’s food, not candy. Vegan and gluten free.

K’UL Chocolate travels to the cacao farms, selects the beans and imports them. Then they roast, winnow and grind the beans. They make it their mission to improve the lives and environment of the farmers. Luckily, this kind of ethical agenda drives more and more chocolate companies.

The bars are designed by athletes for athletes. If you are into endurance sports or big adventures, K’UL Chocolate has a bar for you. The packaging itself is water proof and pocket sized. This means that even if you are hiking the Amazon and your chocolate melts, you can still neatly squeeze out its soft goodness.

I sampled a few and found them brimming with add-ins. My favorite was the Maca & Fruit bar. Maca is an ancient root that is used for energy, but it does not contain caffeine. (Here’s a link to more information on its benefits: http://draxe.com/top-5-maca-root-benefits-and-nutrition/) The combination of cherries, cranberries, raspberries and pomegranate is divinely chewy, and plays beautifully with the 70% chocolate.

All the chocolate they use is 70%. The pure bar has an earthy profile with a slightly dry finish and undertones of dark fruits, like raisins and plums. While I liked it, I was a bigger fan of the bars with add-ins, and not just for their added nutritional punch, but for their visual appeal. The fruits and nuts are mixed in so you can still see them peeking though the chocolate, quite beautiful.

Saltsensation, with sea salt flakes, was delicious. That little bit of sodium really amped up the chocolate’s flavor giving it a multi-layered, nuanced taste.

Peanuts & Currants was very satisfying, and a perfect choice for a hike or a briefcase.

Endurance, enhanced with Pumpkin seeds, Guarana and cranberries had a marvelous combination of crunchy and chewy textures. Guarana is like caffeine on steroids, so be warned if you are sensitive to its effects. On the other hand, if your body thrives on that extra burst of energy, this bar’s for you.

The folks at K’UL are always creating new combinations, so keep checking out their website for new temptations.

NOTE: They have a special introductory offer on their website where you can buy a variety pack of four bars for $11.99, including shipping.

New York Times Article on How Making Chocolate Is Like Mixing Cement

Dave’s Sweet Tooth Toffee

Everyone has a little child inside them. No matter how mature or sophisticated you become that little child will always crave a certain amount of attention. One delicious way to give your inner child the chocolate attention they so rightly deserve is with Dave’s Toffee. In one fell swoop, it sates your adult cravings for something handmade with real ingredients and your inner child’s desire for a crunchy, slightly sweet, nutty, chocolate treat.

When I was younger, I used to love dessert. Ice cream, cheesecake, chocolate mousse cake, and this amazing peanut butter brownie bombe draped in a dark chocolate ganache. It ticked all the boxes of my sybaritic self. Now, I find architect Mies van der Rohe was right: less really can be more.

It’s amazing how a smaller amount of something truly satisfying can feel so decadent and enough.

Dave’s Toffee is affordable, but it feels incredibly luxurious. It’s visually attractive, super fresh and would appeal to almost anyone of any age. So, not only does it make a beautiful gift, but it is also something you can enjoy on a regular basis.

While I can still appreciate the most amazing handmade passion fruit truffle enrobed in 73% Vietnamese chocolate; luckily, I haven’t lost my ability to enjoy something classic and perfectly executed.

I sampled five of their offerings.

The uber-crunchy coffee toffee infused with little bits of coffee bean was amazing. What a great way to get a bit of extra energy in the afternoon.

The dark chocolate with cherry was a delicious combination enhanced by the lovely counterpoint of tart sweetness from the cherries.

Plain milk and dark versions are anything but plain, as the generous portion of nuts makes them texturally craveable.

The peanut toffee was also delicious, and a great choice for people who can’t get enough of that peanut/chocolate combo.

All Dave’s Toffees have an incredible texture that is perfectly friable in your mouth. In other words, it starts out crunchy and then in the most amazing alchemical way becomes tiny shards…I know that doesn’t sound appealing, but believe me it’s a wonderful experience…as those delicate fragments of toffee somehow melt in your mouth.