Araya Artisan Chocolate

The people at Araya really get it. They make beautiful chocolates that taste fabulous, and present them in lovely boxes designed to keep each little sculptural piece in pristine condition.

I sampled 28 of their luscious line of 35. Each fulfilled my quintessential idea of dessert. The shells were all tempered to a lovely shine and adorned with an appealing array of abstract designs, making them visually tantalizing.

Araya uses El Ray couverture from Venezuela, which isn’t surprising as the three founders, Stefano Zullian, his wife Carla, and her sister Silvana, are from that part of South America. All three quit their day jobs and studied with local chocolatiers before choosing Houston, Texas as their company’s home base.

Araya is the name of a Venezuelan town that straddles the lush rainforest where many of South America’s finest cocoa beans are grown and the parched land across the peninsula where a salt mine stands.

I thoroughly enjoyed every bite from this collection. Some of my favorites were:

Manhattan, a dark ganache infused with Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Vermouth and cherry juice. I would happily order a box of those, all by themselves.

Dulce de Leche, the classic caramel blended with milk chocolate ganache. Another winner.

Orange Marzipan, a deliciously tropical riff on marzipan.

Margarita, truly stellar, housed a dark ganache with Jose Cuervo Tequila and lime zest. It was finished with a few grains of salt and couldn’t be better.

Peanut Butter and Berries, an inspired combination of dark chocolate ganache and peanut butter topped with blackberry pâté de fruit.

Chipotle, an ultra silky 61% Venezuelan ganache perfectly balanced with smokey chipotle heat.

Chai Spice, a gustatory trapeze artist poised on the brink of black tea cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. A true melding of flavors where the whole was far greater than the sum of its parts.

Passion Fruit, the essence of this marvelously addictive flavor in a white chocolate mousse.

Strawberry Balsamic, just enough rich vinegar reduction to heighten the strawberry ganache.

Acai Pomegranate, another layered affair with acai berry pâté de fruit atop a pomegranate dark chocolate ganache. Heaven.

Salty Caramel Rum, a sublime deep caramel and chocolate ganache with anejo rum and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Araya aims to please. If the alcohol infused chocolates appeal to you you can order a box of just those flavors. Ditto for the Dark, Milk, or Nuts collections.

They offer a few different package designs. All are lovely and would make a welcome gift.

Coco Polo Stevia Sweetened 70% Chocolate

Even if you don’t have to avoid sugar, these Stevia sweetened bars from Coco Polo are an excellent way to get your chocolate fix. All are 70%, and they come in six tantalizing flavors.

I adored the Tart Cherry, with its chewy dried fruit and crisply tempered glossy chocolate. This chocolate is bittersweet, intense, and has a nice mouth feel. I liked how the cherries added an acidic kick, and great texture.

Their Almond bar is full of whole, crunchy nuts and a perfect counterpart to the cherry. I could happily alternate a square of each all day.

Ginger is a smooth bar with spicy ginger. It gives up that unique ginger kick without adding any sugar encrusted rhizome.

Elderberries, one of my all-time favorites for their nutritional profile, is another smooth treat with lovely berry notes in every bite.

Cocoa Nibs provides a constant crunchy experience that takes this bar up a few notches on the cocoa-meter without adding any bitterness. I don’t know how they managed that feat, but the end result is incredibly satisfying.

Their Pure 70% is just that. Unadulterated chocolate balanced beautifully with some vanilla. (Actually, all the bars have added vanilla which gives them extra body and complexity.)

The gold foil liner is housed in a prettily designed sleeve with lovely artwork, and the bars have 15 easily breakable squares.

Now, you have the perfect gift for someone avoiding sugar who loves dark chocolate.

NOTE:

I just tempered some of their plain chocolate for a lacy bark with sun-dried mulberries, roasted cashews, and brown rice crispies.
My little confections turned out fabulously, and the chocolate tempered perfectly.

Here’s the technique, in case you’d like to try it:

Break one bar into 15 sections.
Set aside four of them.
Chop these four into small shards and divide equally.
Put the remaining 11 into a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup and nuke on 75%-100% power for one minute.
Stir until chocolate is completely melted.
Add one group of the chocolate shards. Stir until melted and repeat with the other one.
Add in whatever appeals to you.
I used about 1/4 cup sun-dried mulberries, 1/4 cup chopped roasted cashews, and 1 1/2 cups organic brown rice crispies.

Stir until everything is coated well.
Turn out onto a piece of aluminum foil or waxed paper, and spread out with the back of a wooden spoon.

Let sit at room temperature until chocolate re-tempers, about 20 minutes.

Quick and Easy Chocolate Tempering

True chocolatiers visibly flinch when I suggest tempering chocolate in the microwave, but for personal consumption, less mess, and speed it works well.

Here is my tried and true method:

In a four cup Pyrex measuring cup put 3/4 of the amount of chopped chocolate you are tempering. (I use anything from three ounces to a pound. If you are using chips, just measure out one cup and divide it into two portions, one with 3/4 cup and one with 1/4 cup.)

Take the remaining 1/4 and divide it into two equal portions. Chop this into pea sized pieces.

Nuke the chocolate in the measuring cup on high for one minute. Stir. If it is not completely melted nuke it again for another 10-15 seconds. Stir until smooth.

Add one portion of the remaining pea-sized chocolate and stir until smooth. (This may take a minute, or two, so be patient. Don’t re-nuke the chocolate. You’re seeding the melted chocolate to bring down its temperature.)

Add the last portion of chocolate and stir until smooth.

Now, you are ready to make barks, clusters, or chocolate covered anything.

I like making a bark with crisped rice cereal and maple-sugared nuts. Just mix in whatever ratio of ingredients to chocolate you like, stir and spread out on a sheet of foil, or drop by teaspoonfuls.

(To make easy glazed nuts put 2 TBSP. maple syrup—the real stuff—in an 8-9″ skillet and heat on medium until it bubbles and reduces by about a third. If you want to add a bit of cayenne, chipotle chili powder, smoked paprika, cinnamon, or curry powder, do it now. A dash of sea salt always points up flavors. Add about 1-1 1/2 cups of chopped nuts and stir until nuts look dry in the pan, about 5-7 minutes. Pour onto a piece of aluminum foil and let sit until crispy, about a few minutes.)

I have coated pieces of halvah, small cookies, home-made caramels, etc. with melted bittersweet chocolate and they have been delicious.

Almonds, dried cherries, different cereals, peanuts, pretzels, cacao nibs, dates, walnuts, and anything else that appeals to you will probably work. The simplest things are often the best, like dark milk chocolate (62-70%) with corn flakes.

If you feel artistic, you can make mendiants by dropping tablespoonfuls of chocolate on a foil sheet. Round them out with the back of the spoon, and place a beautiful whole nut, piece of glaceed fruit, caramelized cocoa nib, and dried fruit on top. Just gently press your additions into the chocolate so they won’t fall off.

Note: Every chocolate hardens at a different rate. How quickly your chocolate will harden depends on the humidity. Some will set up in minutes, while others may take more than an hour.

Guittard Semisweet and Milk Chocolate Chips

August is probably the least chocolate-centric month of the year, but the desire for a chocolate fix knows no calendar. By the end of the Summer I am yearning to bake. Fortuitously, the people at Guittard sent me some chocolate chips to sate that desire. Nature cooperated with a cool spell, and I made a batch of chocolate chip gingerbread, which was even better than I remembered it.

Typically, I don’t buy chocolate chips because I cut up whatever chocolate is lying around and make my own little chunks. Guittard’s milk chocolate chips are more than twice as large as their semisweet cousins, and they have only one more gram of sugar. Both varieties are made with real vanilla, and are delicious; though, uncharacteristically, I was more smitten with the milk chips. There was something so luxuriously decadent about them, and they were perfect in the gingerbread, my adaptation of Alice Medrich’s recipe. It’s an unusual gingerbread as it calls for half a cup of freshly grated ginger. The oven mellows the spiciness and the rich milk chocolate chips are an incredible riff on a very classic treat. (Here’s a link to the recipe: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/02/gingerbread-with-milk-chocolate-recipe.html)

Guittard’s semisweet chips were a step up from the typical brand and are wonderful in trail mix, cookies, or strewn through brownies. Both bags had very appealing recipes for Pots de Creme, Shortbread Rounds, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Molten Chocolate Cookies.

Old Chocolate Bar Brownies

Yes, I do buy too much chocolate, and throwing it out doesn’t appeal to my frugal sensibilities, so I created this recipe. 

 

OLD CHOCOLATE BAR BROWNIES

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in the middle. 

Line a 9″ square metal pan with foil, and grease the foil.

Three 3-3.25 oz chocolate bars chopped into little pieces (You might want to keep to a theme here: choose bars with flavors that harmonize.)

In a small bowl mix:

1 cup flour (whole wheat pastry flour, or a mixture of barley and finely milled spelt flour) 

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

In a 2 quart saucepan mix the following over low heat, stirring :

Two of the chopped chocolate bars

1 TBSP butter

4 TBSP olive oil, or you can use all butter, if you prefer

When melted, cool for three minutes off the stove. 

To the melted chocolate mixture add and beat in:

2 extra large eggs

1 tsp vanilla (You may also add a TBSP of some liqueur whose flavor would marry well with the chocolate you have chosen.)

1/2 cup real maple syrup

1/3 cup brown sugar

Add the flour mixture to this.  Stir until all combined. 

Add remaining cut up chocolate and stir to distribute.

If you like nuts I suggest putting them on the top of the batter and pushing them in a little bit with the back of a spoon.  That way, they get toasted as the brownies bake. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 21-25 minutes.  If a tester inserted about two incles from the rim comes out with crumbs clinging to it you will have fudge-like brownies.   If you want cake-textured ones just bake until the tester comes out clean when inserted in the center of the pan.