Last-minute Chocolate

You’ve got four days to get this right. Monday is Christmas, and the best gift you can give your favorite chocoholic is not that cheaply-wrapped, chemical-packed, commercially-produced drugstore special you’re about to grab off the shelf between the cereal boxes and incontinence products.

There’s time to do this right. Specialty grocery stores and markets carry the good stuff at this time of year. It’s a little late for shipping, unless you want to pay half a paycheck in shipping costs. But here are some gift ideas you can still use:

A gift certificate to Worldwide Chocolate:  Not sure what they want, or how much? Get the gift that lets your recipient decide. Worldwide ships everywhere and has chocolate from every region, from bars to baking blocks, from cocoa nibs to candies, mints, squares and sampler packs. They offer vegan, gluten-free and organic products, too.

Homemade hot chocolate mix: A nice Mason jar filled with 3 1/2 cups sugar, 2 1/4 cups high-quality cocoa powder and 1 Tbsp. salt. Mix thoroughly, cover and tie with a festive ribbon. Add two mugs and instructions to use two tablespoons of mix to one cup of milk.

Look around the nicer grocery and ethnic stores. Most of the year, the high-end chocolate manufacturers aren’t as easy to find. During the holidays, you’ll find Chuao, Valrhona, Vosges, Cote d’Or, Lake Champlain and Michel Cluizel. Buy a variety of bars in different cacao percentages or with a variety of fillings, fan them out in a gift basket (the better to see the artistic labels), cover with clear wrap and a silver-flecked brown bow.

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Speaking of gifts, here’s my review of two recent tastings:

Caffarel Firenze Milk Chocolate: I’d never found this Italian beauty in a local store before (hence my suggestion above to check your local groceries around the holidays). This one is milky-smooth with good vanilla undertones and not overwhelming sweetness, even at 41%. It’s a grown-up’s milk chocolate bar.

Castronovo Nicalizo Nicaragua 70% (Silver Award Winner 2017, International Chocolate Awards; Silver Award Winner 2017 Academy of Chocolate): This is 28 squares of gold-wrapped greatness, proudly wearing those two awards on the white-and-purple outside package. Who got the gold awards? Who cares! This Florida native deserves raves the moment you open it. You don’t need more than a square to appreciate the fruit and toast notes; strong but balanced. Keep every piece for yourself.

 

Small shop goes to the ICAs and brings home the gold

At the 2015 International Chocolate Awards Americas competition:

Two thousand entries.

Over 65 judges.

Four days of trying, tasting, selecting and deciding.

And it came down to three major awards for Stuart’s Castronovo Chocolate:

• A gold and silver award in a single category (Micro-batch – plain/origin milk chocolate bars; the gold for their Columbia, Sierra Nevada Dark Milk 63% and the silver for their Dominican Republic Dark Milk 50%).
• An overall gold award in the specialty category for their Rare Cacao Collection (Columbia, Sierra Nevada Dark Milk 63%).

Looking over the extensive list of gold, silver and bronze award winners, it’s obvious that Castronovo Chocolate is in an illustrious league with the world’s best: the winners’ list includes names like Soma (Canada), El Rey (Venezuela), Pacari (Ecuador), and many U.S. micro-batch chocolate makers, such as Amano, Rogue, TCHO, Chuao, Dick Taylor and Dandelion. It’s a big deal to get this far, and it’s the constant attention to the literally small details that bring a chocolate maker to the ICA: making 100-pound batches, using single-origin beans that are sorted by hand, a bean at a time, roasted in small amounts and crafted into bars and confections that are sold in their shop, online and in select stores in the area. And doing that every day, experimenting with different beans, different roasts, different flavor combinations and the hard part: painstakingly convincing the three-bars-for-a-buck crowd that your artisan product is not just better-tasting, it’s better quality and better for you. It’s going to greenmarkets, coffee bars, specialty markets and gourmet grocers and getting your product out there.

This achievement isn’t something done by the dilettante or the part-time candy hobbyist. To get to this prize-winning level, you have to live with and work at this far more than full-time. You have to love it, and want everyone you come in contact with to love it, too.

Oh, and there’s one more stop on the awards trail: the International Chocolate Awards’ World Finals, coming up in October and taking place in London. We’ll be watching.

Castronovo Chocolate, 555 Colorado Ave., Stuart, FL. Phone (561) 512-7236 . Hours: Mon-Sat 2:00 pm-8:00 pm.

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Two bars from my stash, both from Italy, both from my Chicago trip:

La Baretta Di Golosi di Salute Luca Montersino 72%: It certainly deserves a salute! Creamy, buttery and sharp with notes of raisins and berries.It’s a lot of name for a chocolate bar, but worth the purchase.

Domori Morogoro-Tanzania 70%: Four squares of elegant, slightly smoky, roasty goodness. Neither sweet nor bitter, but somewhere in between. The kind of chocolate I want after a large meal.

 

Castronovo Chocolate: Round 2

They are closing in on the May 1 opening date for the Stuart store, but Denise and Jim Castronovo still found time to introduce me to two more chocolates in their line: the 71% Criollo Cacao Peru, which I admit I’ve had stashed in the chocolate fridge, saving for the right tasting time, and their latest creation, the 72% Wild Amazon Cacao from Venezuela. When I stopped at their booth at the Palm Beach Gardens greenmarket last week to pick up the Venezuelan, I had the opportunity to talk the ears off of two very nice ladies who were looking over the Castronovo’s bars, trying to decide if they were worth a try.

I told them about my previous experiences with organic chocolate and explained why it was important to support a local artisan making quality product. They did buy, hopefully because they wanted to and not to make me shut up. No doubt they thought I was a company “plant” disguised as an ordinary citizen who just happened to wander into the market.

No shill here; just a happy consumer who’s pleased to find local organic chocolate that tastes like no other organic chocolate out there. You can find out more about the company at https://www.facebook.com/CastronovoChocolate.

As for the two new bars:

• The Venezuela bar is sweet on the nose, but bitter on the bite. It’s got a nice snap, good shine and the cacao flavor is very pure, with a classic bittersweet “tang” on the end. You can easily enjoy the entire 1.25 ounce bar.
  The Peru bar has less tang, more mildness and a mouthful of fruit flavor, with strawberries very pronounced; so much so, you’re almost looking for seeds between your teeth. But no dental floss needed here. This is a great way to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Related articles

• Game-Changing Organic Chocolate (achocolatelife.wordpress.com)
• I Want, No Need More Theo in My Life: Theobroma Cacao, that Is. ~ Jennifer Radhika Lung (elephantjournal.com)
• Review: Amazonas 60% + Ecuador 70% by J.D. Gross (beantobar.wordpress.com)

 

 

Can Inexpensive Chocolate Be Good?

Moser Roth – chocolate from Aldi (Photo credit: lightsight)

I visited an Aldi store that opened recently near my office, and of course, I had to find out if there was any chocolate on the shelves.

If you know anything about the Germany-based Aldi chain, you know it’s a discount grocery store that carries very little in comparison to most American supermarkets. No floral, photo, pharmacy, fresh bakery, salad bar or deli counter. Just the basic, mostly private-label choices of produce, prepackaged breads, dairy, fresh meats, frozen seafood, paper products and health and beauty goods.

I’ve written about the chain for another online publication, but not about their chocolate. I found two bars to try, and decided for the price (less than $3 for each eight-ounce bar), it was worth the risk. If they were awful, it proves that money can and does buy the best. If they were at least acceptable, it proves that quality can come at a favorable price.

The two bars I tried, Choceur Dark 45% and Moser Roth 70% were tasted at the same time of day (7 a.m., which is my normal tasting time) on two different days.The Choceur Dark is from Austria, and the best thing I could say is that it was pleasantly OK. The bar had shine, but no snap. The flavor was a little tangy, not as sweet as you would expect this percentage, but there just wasn’t much to distinguish it from any drugstore bar.

The Moser Roth was closer to what you’d expect from a high-end bar. Bitter, with a decently deep chocolate flavor, but nothing that would make you buy more of it, even for the price. It’s not bad, just not very satisfying.

Both bars contain vanillin, the artificially synthesized vanilla flavor, which certainly didn’t help the flavor profile. If you’ve eaten the highest-quality chocolate for a while, even a small amount of the poor or middle-of-the-road stuff is unpleasant to the palate. I understand the need for products like these. It’s an opportunity for people of limited financial means or those with a genuine lack of chocolate knowledge to obtain the best. Both are a step up from the mass-produced morass. Not a very strong step, but a step nonetheless.

 

Related articles

• Stone Brewing / Iron Fist / Ken Schmidt Mint Chocolate Imperial Stout (thisiswhyimdrunk.wordpress.com)
• Delicious Recipes; Chunky Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies (36xty5.wordpress.com)
• Rocky Road’s (bakewithclaire.wordpress.com)
• Financially Fit Friday: Comparing Grocery Stores (lessonslifeteachesme.wordpress.com)
• Paul A. Young: Flavour Alchemist and Master Chocolatier (onefinestay.com)

 

The End Is Near: The NYC Stash Is (Almost) Gone

From Top Of The Rock to the end of my stash: I miss NY

A year ago, I brought nineteen bars of chocolate from New York City home in my backpack. I walked streets and rode subways, scrutinized store shelves, endured cold, rain and the TSA at Newark to get them here. Amazing how time goes by, yet the city, and in fact the entire east coast is facing another freak storm, like last year at this time (except this one is bigger, badder, colder, wetter; a superfreak version of the 2011 storm).

And they are nearly gone. Only two bars remain and one will be reviewed here.

It’s been a learning experience so far, to put it mildly. I’ve spoken to artisan chocolatiers and people who just love to eat the good stuff. I’ve faced blank stares from people who don’t understand why I do this, and big smiles from those who totally get it. I’ve had my requests for information ignored, and also been welcomed with open arms, all my questions answered and a taste or two of product along the way. I’ve found that just like in any other profession, you have some really good folks who want to share their passion, and some who think that anyone who is asking about their process is a spy out to ruin them. I’m learning not to take rejection personally, and cultivate the connections I make, while enjoying the new products along the way.

Along with some of the products I found at the recent Fort Lauderdale show, here’s the penultimate NYC stash bar:

• La Maison du Chocolat Marao 60% Dark with Bursts of Roasted Almond: I loved it when I found this shop on a rainy Thursday afternoon in Manhattan. All decorated in shades of chocolate brown and serving cakes, coffee, teas and silver trays of chocolate, it was a chic reason to get out of weather. This bar is a little on the sweet side for me, and the almond addition doesn’t burst so much as melt away pleasantly, because the pieces are so small. But it’s a good bar, one you can share with a friend or a child who isn’t fond of bittersweet bars.
• Cacao Art Palet d’ Or: from the Miami-base chocolatier (http://cacaoart.com/Chocolates5.html), this little work of art is so dense and dark it will actually make you shiver. And the bit of 24K gold leaf on top is just a bit of gilding on an already perfect lily.
• Sweet Treats Brigadeiro Pistachio Truffle (http://sweettreatsbrigadeiro.com/): I used a knife to slice through this, just to see what the texture was like. The best way to describe it is “mud pie consistency.” The website refers to the inside of the truffle as “dough,” which is probably a bit more elegant. Suffice to say it’s somewhere between frosting and fudge, and the nuts are just there for fun. Their classic truffle, with a 70% shell covering the same center, is a bit closer to what truffle “purists” probably consider a “real” truffle. What can I say? It’s different in Brazil, but it’s not a bad thing. Sweeter, heavier and guaranteed to feed your fix with just one.

Related articles

• What are truffles and what country do chocolate truffles come from? (proflowers.com)
• Different Types of Chocolate Truffles (proflowers.com)
• How to Mix Truffles, Wine (foxnews.com)
• Expensive Chocolates for Those With a Taste For Luxury (berries.com)

 

Are You Smarter Because Of Chocolate?

Dr. Franz Messerli, a Swiss-born hypertension expert, has put forth a theory that is interesting to many and surprises not a single person whose daily habit includes at least a bite of high-quality chocolate:

Smart people very likely eat chocolate, and it may even help their cognitive function.

In a paper recently mentioned in Forbes and published by the New England Journal of Medicine, Messerli presented mathematical correlations between the number of Nobel prize winners per 10 million population and the consumption of chocolate per capita. He ran the numbers in 23 countries, and the results place Switzerland in first place for both the number of Nobel winners and per capita consumption: 31 winners and a per capita consumption of 13 kilograms (28 pounds, 10 ounces) per year. Sweden was second with the same number of winners as Switzerland but a much lower per capita consumption at 6 kg (13 pounds, three ounces) per year, and Denmark, in third place, got the numbers back to their expected levels: 25 winners and 9 kg (19 pounds,13 ounces) per person per year.

And the United States? A mid-pack runner at 10 Nobel winners and a per capita consumption of 5.5 kg (12 pounds, two ounces) per year per person. At the bottom of the list are China and Japan. If Sweden is excluded as the exception to the rule, the results are pretty linear and support the theory, which Messerli admits arriving at by observing the history and not by any type of random, controlled trials.

Is Messerli just having fun at the expense of the world’s geniuses? Or is there something more to his hypothesis? Is his paper one more piece of proof that chocolate is not only good for the body and the soul, it’s also good for the brain?

While you ponder that deep thought, consider these recent bars and truffles I’ve tasted recently:

• Cafè Tasse Noir: A dark chocolate with a distinct vegetable taste. There’s a corn note at the beginning, which I’ve never experienced before, followed by the classic dark, strong Belgian chocolate. The bar has good snap and a slight wine aftertaste.
• Christopher Elbow #1 Dark 70: This bar smells deep, snaps deep and it’s shiny. It’s a 70% that’s 100% excellent. It leans more towards the fruit/wine spectrum rather than the sweet side, This is a bar you can eat, use for confections or for fondue. You will savor it in any form you use it.
• Cacao Art Limón Truffle: A truffle I found at last week’s Fort Lauderdale Festival of Chocolate. The expected rich pillow of smooth chocolate, and then the sudden hit of lime on your tastebuds like a just-mixed mojito. Is it a lime truffle with a chocolate chaser, or a chocolate truffle with a lime kick? Doesn’t matter – it’s good!
  

  Will these make you smarter? Or are are you already intelligent enough to eat a few a day?

Related articles

• Chocolate Is Clearly the Preferred Treat of Geniuses the World Over [Chocolate] (jezebel.com)
• Want to win a Nobel? Try eating some chocolate (rep-am.com)
• Study links eating chocolate to winning Nobels (todayonline.com)
• New study: Eating chocolate linked to the Nobel (mnn.com)

 

The Chocolate You Find In Strange Places

Kentucky (Photo credit: lalunablanca)

I’ve always been an advocate of getting off the interstates and main roads and finding what moves you in places you don’t expect to find much of anything. If you travel, you know the grim progression of gas stations, fast food joints and souvenir stands that line this nation’s roadways like tourist-teasing sentinels, out to get your money in exchange for what you think you want, as well as what you need.

But sometimes, getting off the road gets you a special find – like a chocolate bar you haven’t tried before.

On my recent trip up north, I found most of my best chocolates in small artisan shops in North Carolina and Ohio. But in a chain grocery store in rural Kentucky, I got lucky. We stopped to pick up sandwiches for a picnic lunch, and I wandered over to the candy aisle, just to check and see what kind of confections rural Kentuckians were consuming. And there I spotted it: a chocolate bar called Heidi Grand d’ Or 75%.

The bar is made in Romania, and it turns out that it is one of a line fine bars, including an 85% and several spice, nut and fruit combinations (cranberry, orange, mint, coffee, almond), pralines and seasonal novelties. A helpful map on their website (http://heidi-chocolate.com/store-locator/) shows that the company’s reach is fairly extensive, with stores in the U.S., Canada, Australia, China and parts of Europe and South America. While you cannot order the product directly from the company’s site, you can check the locator map for a store near you. The map for the U.S. locations isn’t really helpful, but it’s a start. Or you can head to a Kroger in rural Kentucky and find it there.

And the taste? Dark, rich and intense, without heavy sugar and too-strong woody notes. The 75% is a balanced and enjoyable bar, with one square going a long way.

Gourmet shops and artisan chocolatiers are always going to be a great source of true favorites and untried chocolate. But take time to take a side trip, leaving the Google map or Garmin behind. Something new could be as close as that shack near the tracks – or the shelf at the local grocery store.

 

Chocolate, Ale and Wine Just Fine in Columbus, OH!

The modern and elegant interior of Le Chocoholique

There’s this shop on the south end of High Street, the main north/south drag through Columbus, Ohio. And although it’s wishful thinking that they could move closer to me, it’s just a good thing that this place exists at all, in a city I happen to like and visit once a year.

Le Chocoholique, open since 2010, is a dark and elegant space with cafe seating, coffee drinks, a wine bar offering chocolate-friendly wines, ales and cocktails, and trays of impossible-to-try-them-all pastries and chocolates. You’d have to visit many times to work through the selection, and even then, you’re likely to get frustrated (in a good way), since flavors get switched out and new ones added regularly

Where to start? Just look at the adult beverage list, with offerings such as Joel Gott Relative Red 2000, Vinum Africa Chenin Blanc and Steele Cuvee’ Chardonnay, plus a variety of dessert wines. For ales, there’s Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate Stout, Hell or High Watermelon Beer and Well’s Banana Bread Beer. Want a chocolate-covered pretzel martini, or a dulce de leche martini with those truffles? You can get them here. Coffee drinks are available in everything from black pepper fig to cardamom rosewater to ginger passionfruit, plus classic espresso, Americano, cappuccino and hot chocolate.

But you are here for the chocolates. And please, try a variety of the most unusual: the Velvet Elvis (with peanut butter, banana and bacon), Hellishly Hot Peanut Butter, Olive Oil, Ghost Chili, lavender Fleur de Sel, rosemary caramel, Limoncello espresso, Bleu cheese and any of those flavored with liqueurs and spirits (Courvoisier, Absolut, Maker’s Mark and Remy Martin). There are plenty of “standards” flavored with fruit, nuts, maple syrup, spices, coffee and honey, too.

Le Chocoholique also does pies, brownies, cupcakes, chocolate fondue, gelato and specialty desserts including tiramisu, creme brulee, Sacher torte and cheesecake. It’s a cocktail boutique, a coffee lounge, a chocolate specialty shop, a bakery, a wine bar; it’s enough calories for the day and sweet selections for several months. And it’s a can’t-miss stop in the Short North district.

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The shop also carries a selection of bean-to-bar chocolates, including a brand I had not tried: M. Recchiuti. I bought the Orchard Bar, which is a semisweet chocolate bar studded with caramel syrup-coated mulberries, toasted almonds and currants, and the Dark Milk Bar. Dark Milk sounds like a contradiction of terms, but the taste is anything but confusing. It’s an excellent compromise between on-the-mild-side milk and fruity-finishing 85% dark. If you are on the fence when it comes to either milk or dark, this bar will knock you right off your perch.And while the Orchard Bar sounds like too much going on in a three-ounce package, it isn’t. There’s enough fruit and nuts to keep you interested, but not so much as to mask the chocolate quality. A thumb’s up for each of these!

Le Chocoholique (http://www.lechocoholique.com/v1/), 601 North High Street, Columbus, OH. Phone (614) 223-4009. Hours: Monday through Wednesday, 7 a.m, to 10 p.m., Thursday and Friday 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6: 30 p.m.

 

Chocolate good for you; the EFSA says so

Callebaut cherry chocolate bar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An article in last week’s Wall Street Journal online mentioned one of the good guys of the chocolate world, and a recent accomplishment for him. Switzerland-based Barry Callebaut AG, one of the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers, recently received the blessing of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) to stake the claim that the flavanols found in dark chocolate are good for blood circulation.

While a final decision on the issue will come from the European Commission sometime next year, the declaration is a good, but not surprising sign for anyone who loves their daily dark dose. And perhaps even better, Callebaut (European) customers who use their chocolate in such products as cereal bars and beverages could also, by extension make the same health claim. Callebaut did almost two dozen studies over the last seven years, perfecting a process to preserve the majority of flavanols, rather than use a more conventional process that destroys them. The company’s hard work paid off, making them the first chocolate manufacturer in the EU to be allowed to use the health claim.

There is an economic side to all this, of course. According to Euromonitor, the sales of food and beverages in the health/wellness category is slated to be somewhere around $691 billion by 2015, up from $601 billion in 2010. Of course, some cynics would say that all this is just pushing the junk food envelope even more. Add dark chocolate to cookies and suddenly they become good for you? No one is suggesting that the addition of dark chocolate or cocoa means going through an entire bag or package with complete impunity at a single sitting. You still have the fat, calorie and sugar component to consider, dark chocolate or not. All this news does is add a little more fuel to the discussion fire, and provides one more reason for those of us who were going to indulge in our daily fix anyway to go ahead and do so.

And speaking of fixes, the NYC stash is finally starting to get whittled down. Here’s a few more samples:

• Snake and Butterfly 67% Venezuelan: A California-based company, this was exactly four little squares, 1.75 ounces of chocolate in the entire bar. And it’s not enough. But ten times the amount would not be enough. It’s labeled as “Organic Live Chocolate.” Whatever it means, it’s good. Sharp, tangy, butter-deep flavor.
• TCHO Madagascar Organic 67% Citrus: This San Francisco-based company offers another small bar with a long story on the package on how the beans are grown, harvested and roasted. The citrus is light but present from beginning to end, and this is honestly one of the few organic bars I can handle.
• Pacari Ecuadorian 72%: The good news: it’s kosher, USDA-certified organic. Not so good: grainy, chalky and pretty much in line with most organics I’ve had.

 

Spend and Stock Up: Are We Running Out of Chocolate?

For chocolate lovers worldwide, a recent article published in Great Britian’s Daily Mail probably sounded much like the big hand of the Doomsday Clock as it moved one more minute forward.

According to British chocolatier and magazine editor Angus Kennedy, the world is facing a chocolate shortage, and it has nothing to do with the weather. It’s all about politics and violence.

Forty percent of the world’s cacao beans comes from the Ivory Coast, and political unrest and a lack of protection for farmers and traders who are risking their lives to make a living has caused many growers to flee that nation, and buyers to avoid going there and start looking for other sources. And according to Kennedy, even if the civil war between different factions supporting the current president Alassane Ouattra, and those who support the former president, Laurent Gbagbo (who has yet to acknowledge or accept his electoral defeat in elections that took place in November 2010), it would take several years for the farming of cacao, sustainable or otherwise, to return to peak levels.

So, where is the remaining 60% of the world’s supply of cacao, and if there’s that much left, why is it an issue?

Part of the problem is that the number of fair trade growers has gone down with the issues in the Ivory Coast. Fair trade matters to a lot of buyers and consumers. For a grower to earn that label, it means the farmers get a fair price for their product, and they are not engaging in farming practices harmful to people, including child labor, enforced slavery, kidnappings, and unsafe working conditions. Only ten percent of the world’s 5.5 million cocoa farmers are certified as fair trade growers. Fair trade products usually cost more, but consumers who want it know that, and are willing to pay for sweets without sorrow.

The supply of cacao, fair trade or otherwise, now knocked down by 40%, means that prices will rise, but it means that candy manufacturers will be fighting over the remaining supplies of sustainable chocolate, and as these fights usually go, those companies with the deepest pockets are most likely to win. Other cacao-producing countries, including Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Cameroon and Ecuador can pick up some of the loss, but their combined output just about equals that of the Ivory Coast, according to the most recent production statistics available from the International Cocoa Organization, for the production year 2010-2011.

Is it time to make room in the pantry, or empty a shelf in the fridge, so you can stock up on chocolate? It might be, but then again, I always have 20 or so bars of the good stuff on hand. So I am a little biased. If you’re going to make a dash for it, here’s a few for your consideration that I’ve tested in the past:

Michel Cluizel 60% with Nibs: A crunch bar for grown-ups! Dark and slightly sweet with coffee nibs throughout. Good shine, nice snap and the balance between chocolate and coffee is perfect.

Lindt Ecuador 75%: Brittle and on the bitter side of sweet, with an aftertaste of liquorice, leather and wood. But all in a good way. Another grown-up bar.

Lindt Madagascar 65%: Closer to a milk chocolate taste, but smoother and with a lot of raspberry flavor. Midway between sweet and bitter, with a buttery texture.