Tag: inclusion bar

A Tale of Two Horchatas

Let me start off by saying that I love horchata! There is one that I still dream about from a Puerto Rican restaurant in North Hollywood that makes theirs with ground sesame seeds. But the one that is, for me, the paragon of all horchatas comes from a small mole restaurant in the Maravilla neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Their horchata is made Oaxacan-style, drizzled with fuscia-colored cactus-fruit syrup, rimmed with pink sugar and topped with roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds). <drool>

However, when I started looking for unusual inclusion ingredients to feature as part of the Eating the Chocolate Alphabet series, horchata never really crossed my mind. This non-alcoholic beverage is typical in Central and South American restaurants, but is also available in Spain. Each country has their own style and a plethora of different ingredients can be used for the flavoring. Some call for milk, others water. Until I started discovering that this drink could be made with ground nuts or seeds, my only experience had been with the ground rice and cinnamon variety.

Shortly after visiting the Mast Brothers factory in Downtown LA, I heard they were selling a Los Angeles collection that included an horchata bar! When one of my friends texted me that she was at the Artisanal LA holiday market in December, I sent her on a quest to find some bars for me. Please don’t write to me and ask if I’ve read the scathing 4-part DallasFood.org exposé articles about Mast Brothers’ chocolate…the answer is yes, and I refer you back to the beginning of this post: I LOVE HORCHATA (that and I’m a sucker for chocolate bars that are part of an “exclusive” collection…I blame my boyfriend for corrupting me in that regard)! 😉

As always, the Mast Brothers’ packaging could easily double as an abstract art print. The thick textured paper of this bar has bold swaths of neutral, earth-tone colors and is credited as “artwork by Block Shop Textiles.”

Like all the other bars that I’ve seen, the back of the package has a center justified, line-by-line list of ingredients.

The cacao is called out simply as 58%, without a country of origin; so if you’re inquisitive (like me), you search on their website to discover that Tanzanian beans were used for this bar. Peeling back the informational sticker to unfold the packaging, you’ll see a gold foil wrapped bar made from a standard 28-rectangle mold.

Not surprisingly, the primary aroma is that of cinnamon, though there is also a nutty scent as well. Segmenting some pieces, there was a soft and slightly brittle snap.

The mouthfeel is certainly not smooth, but not gritty like stone ground/minimally processed cacao either. Despite the addition of cocoa butter, the chocolate seems disappointingly dry instead of creamy. There is a muted tang from the buttermilk; but, overall, this bar falls short of the flavor I would expect to justifiably represent the diverse and vibrant Hispanic culinary tapestry within the city of Los Angeles.

As you might know, I’m also currently working on a “50 States” collaboration project with Time to Eat Chocolate. To save on shipping costs, I volunteered to cover Washington since it’s geographically closer to me. Also, lucky for me, I have a Washington expert in my arsenal…for who better knows about the “sweets scene” than a dessert blogger! Jess, aka the Seattle Dessert Geek, was instrumental in acquiring some chocolates for me since apparently there are some Theo Chocolate flavors that never make it out of the city. As a shameless plug for my other project, stay tuned when I cover two different bean-to-bar chocolate makers from Washington soon!

Sorry for veering off on a tangent there…now back to this post! During Jess’ day-after-Valentines’ shopping trip, we were both surprised to discover that one of Theo’s new flavors is Cinnamon Horchata! So instead of keeping that bar for the collaboration project, I decided to feature it with my other horchata bar; though, in retrospect, maybe it wasn’t a fair side-by-side comparison :0

As mentioned, this 45% milk chocolate bar is one of the newer additions to their “Fantasy Bar” line. The colorful illustration on the packaging (as well as the name) shows that cinnamon will be prominently featured; but what I didn’t realize until reading the ingredients is that it would also include crisped brown rice and crisped quinoa. One of my only complaints, aside from the fact that the first ingredient listed is sugar, is that the foil was wrapped with the external paper and the folds were sealed so tightly that I had to practically mutilate the outer band to get to the chocolate bar.

As you can see the bar is just bulging with crispy crunchy goodness and who doesn’t love a bar with crunch?!

Here are a couple of close ups of the inclusion ingredients: the first showing the crisped rice peeking out from a segmented piece & the second showing a small lump of un-dispersed ground cinnamon:

This is a relatively small bar, just 4 large horizontal rectangles. While cinnamon is the initial aroma, you also can’t miss a milky sweet, caramel scent to the chocolate. Breaking off one of the rectangles produced a brittle snap and tiny shards tended to fly everywhere! Don’t even try to melt this bar, chomp away blissfully, combining creamy with crunchy!

Of the two horchata bars that I tasted, Theo was the winner for me! Now if someone could figure out a way to combine chocolate with either of the two horchata drinks that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, THAT would be the BEST of times!

H is for Hemp Seeds

Are you trying to eat healthy and include “super foods” in your diet? Well, here is a chocolate bar that includes three different super foods: goji berries, cacao nibs and hemp seeds (since it’s “H” week on Eating the Chocolate Alphabet)!

Don’t worry, I won’t go into the health benefits or discuss super foods here since you can conduct your own research on the topic. I just want to introduce you to one of the most photogenic chocolate bars that I’ve seen in a while (and I’ve seen quite a few as part of this inclusion project)!

I don’t know about you, but my eye is immediately drawn to the lightly shriveled elongated reddish orange goji berries and the generous sprinkling of tiny white and greenish hemp seeds. The cracked cacao nibs almost blend into the 72% Dominican Republic dark chocolate base that you might forget they are there until you take that first crunchy bite!

But, let’s start from the beginning of the tasting process! If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that I like using an “EAT” approach: E for exterior (which refers to the packaging), A for aroma and appearance and T for taste 🙂

Chequessett Chocolate is the third bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Massachusetts (Taza was the first & Rogue was the second). Self-taught co-founders, Katherine Reed and Josiah Mayo, handcraft their minimally processed chocolate bars in small batches in a workshop on Cape Cod, at a shop location that once stood abandoned for two years, but now thrives as a café, production room and office. From what I’ve seen on their website, each of the small button and string tie dark blue envelopes sport a distinctive map motif with silver lines and numbers.

After reading that Josiah had 20+ years’ experience working in commercial fishing, I figured that these were topographical maps of some sort, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out the “proper” term to describe them. After several fruitless Google image searches, I finally broke down and called Chequessett to get the information “from the source.” Thanks for confirming my hunch that these were bathymetric maps that show the shape, size and distribution of underwater features as well as the terrain and contours of the ocean floor.

Removing the foil wrapped bar from the outer packaging & peeling back the folds, the inclusion side of the bar “greeted” me with a nutty, roasted aroma. I was almost afraid to turn the bar over for fear of dropping ingredients everywhere, but amazingly everything stayed pretty well-adhered to the 20-rectangle chocolate bar (I’d love to learn the technique that was used to achieve this)!

The “top” side of the bar was a reddish brown color and only had some slight scuffing from the transit to Southern California (I had purchased this bar after Thanksgiving last year to take advantage of their free shipping “Black Friday” deal & also indulged myself in an order of caramel cashew turtles with Wellfleet sea salt…which were DELICIOUS, by the way! Still kicking myself for not buying more than one container!)

When segmenting rectangles from the main bar, there was a soft snap since the chewy, lightly sweet goji berries would hang on to their spot tenaciously and then tear to reveal the tiny seeds hidden inside.

The shelled hemp seeds (sometimes called hemp “hearts”) are softer and nutty, though I’m not sure why some have a greenish tinge to them. With all this texture to the bar, it was pretty much impossible for me to “melt” a piece in my mouth…I made several valiant attempts to do so, but always succumbed to “chomping” after 15-20 seconds 😉 I wanted to isolate the chocolate by itself, so I tried slicing off the raised “hump” from the top side of several rectangles. Even though it was very messy to do so (wish I knew a better way of doing this), now I could taste the citrusy notes of the evaporated cane juice sweetened chocolate.

It will come as no surprise that this bar is almost gone now, so I’ll leave you with this one parting photo:

You can bet that the Blueberry Ginger or Cranberry bars will be next on my wish list!! Or maybe the Farrago confection, though the Mexican hot chocolate mix is calling to me too 🙂

To learn more about Chequessett Chocolate & their Cape Cod products, please visit: http://www.chequessettchocolate.com/

G is for Gold

Yes, I’m still eating Christmas chocolates at the end of February…don’t judge me 😉 What you may not realize is that this has been the most highly anticipated bar (so far) during “round 2” of Eating the Chocolate Alphabet! Also, based on the unique inclusion ingredients, I could have potentially used it for not one, but three different letters: F, G or M! The story about how I came to acquire this bar (spoiler alert: I actually had 4 bars in my possession at one time!) is long, convoluted and funny…but, I won’t bore you with the details here. However, if you find me in person + are curious, ask me about it! 🙂

As you may have guessed…this is a Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh bar by Rococo Chocolates. This holiday favorite was first created by founder Chantal Coady in 1996 & Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it!

While the “Three Wise Men” are not named in the New Testament, other traditions have given them names, different ages, countries of origin and attributed special significance to each of their gifts.

This particular package art depicts the “Three Kings” as being from the same age group, but below is a compilation of information I found:

  • Caspar (or sometimes listed as Gaspar) was said to be the king of modern-day Turkey. He represented an “older” man in his 60s and his gift was gold. Gold was (and still is) a valuable possession, but this item is also thought to embody kingship on earth and virtue.
  • Melchior represented a “middle aged” man (in his 40s) and gave frankincense from his native Arabia. This aromatic resin has been used in perfume and incense and is considered a symbol of deity & prayer.
  • Balthazar (a “young” man, aged 20) was said to come from modern-day South Yemen (though other traditions list his country of origin as Ethiopia or other parts of Africa). His gift was myrrh, which has often been used as an anointing or embalming oil and is a symbol of death or suffering.

Until this project, I never really thought about frankincense and myrrh, so I was surprised to learn that they are both obtained from the sap of trees and that Somalia is the biggest exporter of frankincense. While it might have been interesting for Rococo to have used these ingredients in their solid state, their chocolate was actually infused with trace amounts of oil that were obtained by steam distillation of the dry resins. Frankincense is said to be woody in flavor, while myrrh (a natural gum that is waxy and coagulates quickly) is considered bitter & spicy by Chinese medicine.

Upon opening the cardboard packaging, I noticed that the bar was wrapped in festive thick gold foil.

However, after unwrapping the bar from the foil, I noticed that the chocolate had sustained some damage in transit: it was broken in 2 pieces & some of the edible 22 carat gold leaf had become detached from one of the rectangles.

Since I had a bar in “reserve,” I decided to open that one as well…only to discover that the inner packaging was the same patterned white & blue one that I had seen on the Earl Grey Tea bar from a couple of weeks ago.

As I alluded to earlier, 3 bars were brought back directly from England after the Christmas holidays + I acquired another bar at Chocolate Covered in San Francisco on Christmas Eve day. Turns out that the UK version had the gold foil inner wrapper + more gold leaf decorations while the US version had the “standard” inner packaging, less gold leaf & more chocolate “dust” + scuffing marring the surface (as well as a minor crack along the entire length of the bar where the first “C” of Rococo was imprinted on each of the rectangles).

For tasting purposes, I chose to stick with the UK bar despite the less-than-pristine appearance of the cracked bar (in case you were curious, BOTH bars tasted the same!)

Gold is a malleable and pliable chemical element, so “gold leaf” is created by hammering pieces of gold into thin sheets. It is odorless and tasteless, but it adds a certain “bling” to the chocolate…don’t you agree?!

Here is a close up of the gold leaf:

Overall, the chocolate smells and tastes primarily of citrusy orange oil. There was a sharp snap to the bar, though I also noticed an air bubble along the breaking point.

Melting a piece, I noticed that the texture was not completely smooth, but the morsel melted evenly. During the melt, I experienced a prickly, tingling sensation on my tongue that was vaguely effervescent. This reminded me of prior experiences with tasting pine resin and it left some astringency behind.

This was definitely a fun and unique Christmas-inspired bar & I’d love to get the Chocolarder version next year for comparison purposes!!

To learn more about Rococo Chocolates and their range of artisan bars, check out: https://www.rococochocolates.com/

F is for Foie Gras

Last year, after trying a couple of David Briggs’ Xocolatl de David caramel bars, I really wanted to get my hands on his unconventional foie gras bar which had been seen on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern. Lucky for me, I was able to find one on a recent trip out of town.

Before you turn up your nose at the idea of combining fatty duck liver with chocolate, hear me out! It’s completely understandable that this bar isn’t for everyone; but if you give it a chance, the taste might very much surprise you (in a good way!)

Removing the bar from the cardboard outer packaging and the thin aluminum foil, I noticed some slight scuffing marring the overall near mirror shine of the bar. I had to handle the bar carefully since it was very easy to leave fingerprints everywhere on the room temperature chocolate.

The aroma of the bar is sweet and fruity, making me think of a dessert wine or even plum sauce. Honestly, I was a little surprised that there was a very dull, soft snap to the bar. The first couple of tasting morsels were fairly salty to me and there was even a slight crunch from the fleur de sel.

Letting a section of chocolate melt on my tongue, the mouthfeel was umami, creamy and velvety despite the slightly grainy look to the pieces.

There is an earthy, mushroom-like flavor to the bar, which I assume comes mostly from the unusual inclusion ingredient; though from my experience, Bolivian chocolate tends to inherently have buttery and earthy notes. When I’ve eaten pan seared foie gras in the past, the taste was bit oily to me, so this was a much more pleasant experience!

Based on the other Xocolatl de David bars that I tasted last year, I was expecting this bar to be filled with their “Foietella” spread rather than having the foie gras infused and tempered into the chocolate itself. Based on other online sources (since neither the packaging nor the company website really describes these products in great detail), the trademarked “Foietella” spread is made with cream, Hudson Valley foie gras, 68% cacao from Bolivia, Valhrona natural cocoa powder, fleur de sel, Sherry wine vinegar and local piment d’Espelette for a little heat. Researching things a little further, I learned that Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, New York in the Catskill Mountains is the premier producer of foie gras, Moulard duck and organic chicken in the United States. Their website has several short documentary videos about their production process and how they care for their animals.

On a whim this morning, I added a chunk of chocolate to a piece of freshly toasted Boudin Bakery San Francisco sourdough bread. It melted evenly, but unfortunately the tang of the bread overpowered the chocolate. It was an interesting experiment nonetheless, though I wonder if French bread would have been better.

I’ve also been wanting to try pairing this chocolate with a cheese, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

As a side note, I served a piece of this chocolate to my boyfriend without telling him about the unusual ingredient and he only thought this was a salty and nutty chocolate, so hopefully you will be daring enough to give this chocolate a chance for yourself!

To learn more about their other chocolates, confections and more, please visit: http://www.xocolatldedavid.com/#main

50 States Collaboration – South Carolina / Batch

When two life-long artists team up together and begin crafting small batch chocolates which reflect and highlight local flavors, ingredients and fellow artisans, you know the final result will be something special and unique! In December, fellow chocophiles were posting pictures on Instagram about their latest shipment of Batch trios (I’m still bummed that I missed out on “Batch 8”); to avoid future disappointments, I signed up for Tamara & Zan’s newsletter so that I would be among the first to hear about upcoming releases. As soon as I received notification about “Batch 9,” I immediately ordered and the shipment arrived just last week!

On the back label of the rustic packaging, the makers describe that their chocolates are “handcrafted with love & OCD in their Rock Hill, South Carolina kitchen,” so this is the perfect companion piece to Lori’s post from yesterday featuring two North Carolina makers.

Below I’ll be telling you about the two inclusion bars that I received in the trio that features Ecuador’s Camino Verde cacao bean which has naturally nutty and floral notes.

First up is the 70% Maple Pecan bar:

I love that Batch includes a double sided card with the chocolate bar to help you learn more about the origin of the beans and also guide you through the steps of exploring aroma, texture and taste.

Immediately you can see the generous inclusion of Carolina pecans that were toasted in pure vanilla maple syrup and sprinkled with a dash of cinnamon and ginger.

Unwrapping the bar from the plastic inner pouch, the aroma reminded me of coconut granola. There was a shiny, almost mirror-like shine to the top surface of the bar & I was sad to break off a piece since that meant leaving fingerprints everywhere 🙁 There was a sharp snap, though the bar didn’t segment exactly where I was applying pressure.

The morsel was smooth & creamy, but I didn’t really taste the subtle ginger or cinnamon until near the end of the even melt. Overall, the flavor was fudgy, nutty, earthy and reminded me of a streusel-topped muffin.

Next up is the 75% Cherry Rosé bar:

The plain brown craft paper envelope doesn’t prepare you for the “anything-but-ordinary” bar that awaits inside. While this probably won’t impress you, I was thrilled that this bar was number 2 out of the 240 bars that were made in this batch!

Upon opening the re-sealable plastic inner pouch, the aroma was quite unusual (some might say “funky”) and made me think of an aged balsamic vinegar. While the outer packaging only mentions the company names of the other makers, I decided to do a little more research on the ingredients since I’m a fan of “sour” beers and fruity wild ales. Batch’s website mentioned that the cherries were soaked in a reduction of Dover Vineyards Rosé wine and Free Range Brewing’s Hee-Haw House Got Musty wild ale. From a mobile app called Untappd, the beer is listed as a barrel aged muscadine wild ale with must and further described as being fermented on a house strain of brettanomyces with fresh muscadine grapes, aged for a year in wine barrels with a mixed culture of bacteria and yeast and then re-fermented on fresh must of Chambourcin and Villard Blanc grapes. In case you were curious, “must” is freshly pressed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit; this probably explains why the jewel-like, chewy cherries taste more like grapes to me.

Handcrafted items generally have a touch of character, some minor imperfection that proves that they were not mass-produced with exacting perfection. I noticed some “ghosting” on the front of the bar, which reminded me of a pebble dropped into water and the resulting concentric ripples that appear.

There was a sharp snap to the bar and a floral, earthy, grassy aroma. I enjoyed the smooth, creamy, even melt of the chocolate and noticed some citrusy notes when sampling pieces without the cherries. Overall, I preferred the chocolate without the cherries and might have preferred the cherries if they were more tart than sweet.

I’ll be saving the plain 80% bar for another opportunity and can’t wait to see the flavors for Batch 10!

As of right now, “Batch 9” is still available for order. To learn more about Batch and to ensure that you don’t miss out either, visit their website: https://www.batchcraft.com/

Remember to follow the Time to Eat Chocolate blog to hear about the next stop in the “50 States” project!

Other chocolate makers in South Carolina:

Night Owl Chocolate

NOTE: If you know of any other bean-to-bar makers in South Carolina that aren’t mentioned above, please leave a comment or send an email so that we can keep this list as up-to-date as possible!

E is for Earl Grey Tea

While in college and shortly after graduation, my ideal weekend would include a “high tea” outing with friends. For years, it was a hobby (and almost an obsession) of mine to visit every tea shop in Southern California…sadly, I didn’t succeed in my quest, but I had a delicious time trying! 😉 In the beginning, I wasn’t very familiar with different types of teas, so I relied on the recommendation of others. Not surprisingly, Earl Grey tea was generally what people would suggest to me (did you know it’s second only to English Breakfast as the world’s best-selling blend of tea?) While no one really knows why this flavor of tea was named after the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick) who was best known for abolishing slavery in the British Empire and was one of the leading British statesmen of the late 18th Century and 19th Century, there are several myths and legends surrounding the origin.

Sitting there chatting with friends and daintily nibbling on finger sandwiches, I always felt so “posh” drinking my Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that bergamot oil gives Earl Grey its distinctive flavor and aroma. The bergamot orange, grown primarily in the Calabrian region of Italy, is probably a hybrid of a sweet lime and a bitter orange. The fruit is the size of an orange, with the color of a lemon, is less sour than a lemon, but more bitter than a grapefruit. The rind from 100 bergamot oranges (both ripe and unripe) yields about 3 ounces of the fragrant essential oil.

But enough about that and on to the CHOCOLATE!

The graphics used on the box remind me of a Moorish palace floor. According to a Wall Street Journal article from 2011, planted behind the Belgravia Rococo shop, there is a Moroccan garden that has geometrical-design tiles which inspired the packaging.

Opening the box, I enjoyed reading about the history behind the company and the source of the cocoa that was used. One feature that I especially liked (and hope that other chocolate companies adopt) is that there are 4 small tabs at each corner that help keep the wrapped chocolate bar securely in place, preventing it from sliding around in the box.

Cutting open the top of the foil lined inner packaging, the citrus aroma immediately transported me back to my favorite afternoon tea outings. There is a rich dark color and matte finish to the bar which has seven narrow rectangles imprinted with the company name in block letters.

Segmenting one of the rectangles from the rest of the bar produced a dull snap, while breaking the rectangle in half produced a medium snap (possibly due to the air bubbles in the chocolate, see below for a photo). As I’m wont to do, I usually munch the first piece of any chocolate bar I try. This rewarded me with a satisfying crunch from the ground Earl Grey tea (3% of the ingredients) that was mixed into the chocolate itself – you can see black flecks of the tea throughout the chocolate.

There is a slow, even melt to the morsel and of course the mouthfeel is not smooth due to the tea. I was curious to see what a partially melted piece might look like…so here it is:

When a friend traveled to England to visit family for the holidays, I specifically requested that he bring back a different Rococo chocolate bar, which you will hear about in just a few weeks! Serendipity must have led him to also bring back this Earl Grey bar that I didn’t realize that I *needed* – such an unexpected pleasure to stroll down memory lane 🙂

It’s no wonder that founder Chantal Coady received the very first OBE (Order of the British Empire) for “services to chocolate making” as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2014.

To learn more about Rococo Chocolates and their range of artisan bars, check out: https://www.rococochocolates.com/

50 States Collaboration – Colorado / Cultura Craft Chocolate

My 5th grade choir learned the lyrics to the song “Fifty Nifty United States” and to this day I can still recite the states in alphabetical order…at least until where the soloists took over! Though, now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t decide if remembering 35 out of 50 states (70%) decades later is a point of pride or a quirk that I shouldn’t admit to?! Regardless, I’m thrilled to be asked to collaborate with Lori from Time to Eat Chocolate on this project to feature bean-to-bar makers from as many states as have them. We’ll be trading off sharing stories and featuring 1 to 2 makers per state, so be sure to also follow her blog so that you won’t miss a thing! 🙂

In fact, Lori started off the project yesterday by featuring a state near her: Maryland – here is a link to her post: https://timetoeatchocolate.com/2017/02/05/spagnvola/

The state I selected is close to me both geographically and alphabetically: Colorado

Cultura Craft Chocolate (established 2016) is the collaboration of two experienced chocolate makers: Damaris Ronkanen (formerly of Dead Dog Chocolate) and Matthew Armstrong (formerly of Mutari Chocolate). From their website: “Their shared values of always being curious, never compromising, pushing boundaries, and having fun are reflected in every aspect of Cultura – from the name, to the packaging and the origins they source their beans from, to how they make their chocolate and share their story.” This new brand is a tribute to the events that led them to chocolate.

Around Halloween last year, the colorful and decorative sugar skull designs featured prominently on the packaging caught my eye on Instagram; so when I discovered that they would be at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, I knew I had to visit their booth and try them for myself.

While Cultura also sells larger (1.75 oz.) single origin, two ingredient bars, I was drawn to their mini bars (0.8 oz.) that either highlight a single origin (with varying percentages of cacao) or are made with inclusion ingredients. A fellow blogger recently posted about the trend of mini bars, so check out this article for more details.

First up was the 70% Haiti (“PISA” 2015 harvest). By the way, “PISA” stands for Produits Des Iles SA, a new cacao processor and exporter in Northern Haiti.

After unwrapping this single origin, two ingredient mini chocolate from the black foil, I noticed some “ghosting” marring the top surface of the bar. I believe this type of “blemish” appears when there are problems removing the chocolate from the mold.

Segmenting a tasting morsel, there was a brittle snap and the chocolate appeared a little dry with some air bubbles along the edge of the break.

Since I had noticed a fruity, sweet, raisin-like aroma upon opening the foil, I was surprised by the initial bitter and roasted flavor that I encountered. The chocolate melted evenly on my tongue, but was not completely smooth in texture and left an astringent feel to my mouth. This cacao is said to taste like fig, tart cherry and lightly roasted nuts + the tasting notes on the box mentions biscuit, raisin and malt, unfortunately none of those came across strongly to me and instead I tasted red berry.

Next was the 70% Mexican Spice (made with Dominican Republic Oko Caribe 2015 beans)

Peeling back the black inner foil wrapping, I could immediately smell pepper, though I wouldn’t have known they were guajillo chiles, a staple in Mexican cuisine, that impart a pleasant back-of-the-throat heat (personally a “4” on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of heat intensity). What you see is a generous (though uneven) sprinkling of toasted almonds.

The almonds looked a little dry/powdery, so that when segmenting the bar, the almonds tended to fly everywhere and there was a woody/dull snap (possibly due to some air bubbles in the bar).

Overall, the slow and even melt of this Ceylon cinnamon and chile infused dark chocolate reminded me of a hearty, savory mole dish or a “warming from the inside out” Mexican hot chocolate beverage. The inherent sweetness of the chocolate itself helped to tone down the peppery heat.

Last, but not least, the 70% Peppermint-Nibs (also made with Dominican Republic Oko Caribe 2015)

There was a light (not overpowering) and refreshing aroma of peppermint oil upon opening the packaging and a generous sprinkling of cacao nibs. One of the things that surprised me was seeing bits of cacao husk near one corner of the bar.

While I had heard that tea could be made from the papery shells, I had usually avoided tasting them before. This errant piece of husk was pleasantly nutty and crunchy, so I’ll definitely have to investigate this chocolate making by-product more in the future!

Another thing that caught my eye was a slightly purple nib (see top left in the foreground of this photo), since the rest of the nibs were dark or light brown in color.

Overall, this bar had a sharper snap, a smoother melt and a creamier mouthfeel than the other two bars. Also, it seemed easier for me to appreciate the chocolate itself aside from the inclusion ingredients than the previous bar, as I was able to get hints of citrus that is inherent in beans from the Dominican Republic. While peppermint makes me think of winter and Christmas, this bar is sure to be a perennial favorite.

To learn more about Cultura and their different bars, check out their website: http://www.culturachocolate.com/

Also, remember to follow Lori’s “Time to Eat Chocolate” blog to read about future installments of our joint 50 States project!

Other chocolate makers in Colorado:

Beehive Chocolates

Dar Chocolate

Fortuna Chocolate

Nuance Chocolate

WKND Chocolate

While not bean-to-bar, Nova Chocolate is a craft chocolate company.

NOTE: If you know of any other bean-to-bar makers in Colorado that aren’t mentioned above, please leave a comment or send an email so that we can keep this list as up-to-date as possible!

D is for Donkey Milk

After tasting camel milk chocolate last week, I was expecting this week’s bar to be funky and gamey. I was in for a surprise!

Honestly, I have never really thought about donkey’s milk before aside from hearing that that Cleopatra used to bathe in it daily as part of her beauty regimen and that Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister also used the milk for skincare (as it was thought to remove wrinkles and make the skin whiter). However, did you know that donkey’s milk is the closest to human milk in nutritional value and is often used as a substitute around the world for infants to build their immune systems? Hippocrates, the “father” of medicine, was the first to write about the benefits in ancient Greece and would prescribe it to cure various ailments. According to the packaging, donkey’s milk is rich in lactose, but poor in whey protein.

Speaking of the packaging for this bar, it is nearly identical to last week’s bar, aside from the name of the product: Cioccolato al latte d’asina.

The classic Domori white, maroon and gold are used on the exterior with the interior foil repeating the color scheme and company logo design.

This particular bar wasn’t available locally, so I had to order it from Tony Caputo’s Market & Deli in Utah. Somewhere along the way, the thin bar became segmented in half and this might have caused some of the chocolate “dust” that slightly marred the overall surface of the square bar.

My initial sniffs of the chocolate resulted in an aroma I couldn’t really articulate. My scribbled notes say: salty? / smells like a grain or leaves or an herb. Later in the day, I read a review describing the scent as chamomile flowers and that sounds about right.

Perhaps due to the width of the bar, breaking one of the two mini squares in half resulted in a brittle snap. The flavor reminded me of hazelnuts and was sweet with notes of honey, caramel or butter. I found that the morsel melted evenly, though not too quickly, on the tongue. Overall, the mouthfeel wasn’t entirely smooth and felt a little abrasive after a couple of tastings. I noticed a lightly grassy, but not unpleasant, aftertaste that lingered briefly. For 22.5% donkey milk, this was a very mild and palatable chocolate, but perhaps that was also due to the intrinsic characteristics of the criollo cacao that was used.

Sources say that a lactating donkey typically produces less than 2 liters of milk per day (whereas a cow can produce 30-40 liters per day), so you can imagine that the market for this type of milk is small. I’m not sure where Domori sources their milk, but I’ve read that there is a donkey farm in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and that country was the first to put this milk on the market.

So, if you are ready for a taste adventure, but a little apprehensive about eating a non-cow’s milk chocolate, this might be the way to go!

To find out more about Domori, please check out: http://www.domori.com/en/

Bonus B – Black Sesame

Thanks to fellow blogger “Time to Eat Chocolate” for making me aware of this bar. When I attended the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle a week after her blog post was published, I knew I had to pick up one of these bars for myself. Little did I know then that this bar was a “limited edition,” otherwise I would have picked up more of them!

Upon opening the silver foil inner packaging, I was immediately mesmerized by the plump jewel-like dried cherries, the sprinkling of white and black sesame seeds, the glinting crystals of French sea salt and oh my…the COLOR of the bar itself!!

 

I cannot get over the unique charcoal grey color that is achieved by combining ground black sesame seeds and non-dairy white chocolate (cocoa butter). Based on my experience with Charm School Chocolate as part of last year’s Eating the Chocolate Alphabet project, I knew that they produced exclusively vegan chocolate bars using coconut milk. What I didn’t realize is that this particular bar isn’t “traditional” in the sense that there aren’t any cocoa solids; black sesame seeds were truly the “star” providing both the flavor and the color for this bar!

Here is a photo of the bar against a black background so you can see the unique shade of grey, as well as the generous sprinkling of inclusions!

After several minutes of trying to capture the perfect angle (the bar is so photogenic, it was hard to decide on what to concentrate while taking pictures), it was finally time to taste the bar!

Surprisingly, there was a sharp snap to the bar; with only 40% cacao, I was expecting a softer snap and, to me, the primary aroma was coconut. The chocolate morsel melted slowly on my tongue, allowing me to enjoy the buttery, lightly salty, nutty and not-too-sweet flavor. Depending on the piece, I either experienced crunchy toasted (or maybe they were air puffed?) sesame seeds or tart, sour Michigan-grown Montmorency cherries or both! My personal preference is to “chomp” (rather than melt), so I enjoyed the juicy bursts of mouth-puckering cherries that counterbalanced the nutty sweetness of the sesame white chocolate.

I’ve heard of Montmorency cherries before, but didn’t know much about them. They take their name from a valley in France and are currently grown in Canada, France and the U.S. (particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin). According to Wikipedia, these cherries are said to date back to Ancient Rome. The trees were planted along the roads and soldiers would use the fruit for food and the wood to build weapons or repair equipment.

Also, did you know that black sesame seeds and white sesame seeds are basically the same? Black sesame seeds still have their hull (shell), while white sesame seeds have the hull removed. Some people say that black seeds are nuttier and smokier, while the white seeds are sweeter. I’m not sure that I could identify one over the other in a blind taste test and the flavors are so similar to me that I certainly can’t pick a favorite.

Long after I finished tasting this bar, a pleasant nutty aftertaste lingered in my mouth, making me want yet another piece. For someone who is not a fan of white chocolate, this bar just might have won me over! 🙂

To learn more about Charm School Chocolate, check out: https://www.charmschoolchocolate.com/

B is for Bay Nut

Setting yourself a goal within specific parameters may seem limiting, but I’ve found it to be an eye-opening and fun challenge! Last year I wanted to alphabetically feature new-to-me chocolate brands & I succeeded even though “Q” and “Y” were the most difficult to obtain. This year, I’m featuring unusual and/or unique inclusion ingredients in alphabetical order. If it wasn’t for this project, I don’t think I would have ever known about the existence of bay nuts and that they were edible!

When I visited the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle last November, I wasn’t really on the lookout for unusual inclusion ingredients quite yet (I was just toying with the idea of that theme at that point; but by the time I left the festival, I knew that I had stumbled upon a great idea…still need to find “U” or “X” – so let me know if there are any makers I should try!)

If you’re like me, you like to chat with other festival attendees to compare notes on interesting finds and “not-to-miss” goodies! My ears perked up when I heard someone mention a bay nut bar from Firefly Chocolate. My next stop was to their booth to taste this for myself. I remember it being creamy and unusual; but after eating chocolate for a couple of days, I had a bit of “palate fatigue” (yeah, it’s a thing), so “B” week on Eating the Chocolate Alphabet was the ideal way to savor and fully appreciate it!

One of the first things that you notice about the packaging is the precise percentages and origins of the three (and only) ingredients used in this bar: 40% cacao beans from Belize / 30% bay nuts from Mendocino (California) / 30% coconut sugar from Indonesia.

From their website: Firefly Chocolate buys cacao primarily from Maya Mountain Cacao (MMC) in Southern Belize. MMC works directly with 309 indigenous Maya farming families in 31 communities located in the foothills of the Mayan Mountain Range. Firefly roasts and conches the beans at the lowest temperatures possible, inspired by the raw foods movement. While California Bay Laurel trees are plentiful, they are not cultivated, so all the nuts used in this bar were wild harvested. Traditionally the nuts are roasted in ashes which produces an aroma like popcorn. To learn more, check out this link: https://fireflychocolate.com/product/wild-harvested-bay-nut-chocolate-bar/

After reading that bay nuts are related to avocados, I did some research & found this photo. It wasn’t until recently that I learned you can roast and eat avocado seeds (pits) – maybe other chocolate makers will be inspired?

Upon opening the tri-fold cardboard packaging, the copper embossed sticker on the narrow rectangular glassine pouch caught my eye. Initially I thought it was a bee, but I’m now pretty sure that it’s a firefly (though I’ve never seen one in person, during daylight with their wings outstretched). 😉

Removing the 12-rectangle bar from the inner packaging, I noticed that my fingerprints were easily transferrable to the surface, so I had to be careful not to mar the otherwise pristine finish. I wonder if the low percentage of cacao caused the bar to melt easily in my hands.

The aroma reminds me of roasted coffee, but the taste is reminiscent of slightly burnt popcorn kernels. One thing that really surprised me was the instant refreshing/cooling sensation I get when I put a piece in my mouth. It’s like menthol without the menthol flavor. There is a nice sharp snap to the bar and the mouthfeel is creamy, though a little grainy probably due to the beans being stone ground and the use of coconut sugar. Coconut blossom sugar is a natural sweetener with a low glycemic index that is gaining popularity for those trying to avoid refined sugars.

For years, I’ve been seasoning soups and stews with California bay leaves (though I like Turkish bay leaves too), but I never realized that this tree also produced nuts. I knew about acorns, but bay nuts was something completely new to me. So, as I was taking photos of this bar, I decided to “stage” the chocolate amongst some dried leaves waiting to fulfill their destiny in some culinary creation.

Just this morning, I posted a “teaser” photo to Instagram letting people guess today’s unique ingredient. One person immediately guessed bay leaves, but I don’t think anyone has guessed the bay nut yet!

To learn more about Jonas Ketterle’s mission of “inspiring awe and wonder,” as well as the vision and values for this first bean-to-bar chocolate company in Sonoma County (California), I encourage you to visit: https://fireflychocolate.com/ I certainly like learning something new & hope you do too!