For Love of Chocolate Pie!

My dad was one of the original “Mad Men” who changed the world of advertising and marketing beginning in the late 1940s.  As a result, my parents  entertained in our home frequently, whether Sunday brunch for the neighbors or elaborate sit-down dinners for business clients.  I have lots of colorful stories from my childhood about the characters who dined at our home and the antics my father created to promote products.  However, today I’m sticking to chocolate pie.

My mother’s career was primarily to turn my brother and me into charming, clever and cultured young adults.  She was successful at this until the youth revolution of the mid-1960s, which came as a crushing blow for the parents of many in my generation.  But that also is another story. (We’re moving closer to the chocolate pie.)

Along with all the requisite work mothers did in the 1950s to create and maintain reasonably functional homes, the second part of her career was hostess to the luminaries my father entertained.    At this she excelled.

As dinners were often quite detailed, she stuck with a few tried-and-true desserts. We preferred pie over cake so her standard company dessert, except for birthdays and holidays was Marvel Chocolate Pie.

I still like this pie.  It’s easy and it’s delicious.  You can add more eggs and fold in some whipped cream to turn it into a chocolate mousse pie.  You can also upgrade the chocolate from chips to 65 percent single-origin chocolate.  But it has one flaw: the eggs aren’t cooked.

No one worried about eggs when I was growing up.  Enough small farms existed close-by and eggs were probably both fresh and local.  Now, with so many factory-farms, eggs are a much higher-risk food.  Frankly, I still make this chocolate pie, but I always use local organic eggs.

There are other options available, however, and it’s probably smarter to use cooked eggs, especially if the entire pie isn’t downed in one sitting.

My daughter made a killer chocolate pie for my birthday this year using Flo Braker’s Caramel Chocolate Cream Pie recipe from Baking for All Occasions.  Given that the topping has crunchy English toffee pieces on it, she decided that the caramel was unnecessary.  It was really good and has become one of our family favorites, especially with her boys.

Given that I’m an addict and refuse to seek treatment, I’ve been craving another chocolate pie ever since and scoured my cookbooks for recipes.  I’ve finally settled on Carolyn Weil’s recipe from The Baker’s Dozen Cookbook as it has a little more chocolate in it and I think a slightly larger filling.  Otherwise the two recipes are very similar.  And I’m adding the English toffee to the topping a la Flo as the crunch and sweetness are a great addition.  So, here is my adapted version of both recipes: Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding Pie

While the cold winter storms continue to travel down from Alaska, chocolate pie  will be high on my list of favorites to bake, but I did have some almost good strawberries recently, reminding me that it won’t be long before it’s once again time for fruit desserts.

What are your favorite late winter cozy desserts?

Passover Treats

For anyone who is allergic to wheat, most Passover desserts are a great find. Almonds, potato or tapioca starch and eggs are the “glue” that hold the tortes, cakes and cookies together.

Although I’ve been allergic to wheat my entire life, my symptoms are not dramatic unless I binge.  Easy to do when it’s dessert.  However, both of my grandsons have a gluten sensitivity as does my son-in-law, so our desserts are made with non-gluten flours or ground nuts and eggs and starch.

Yesterday I wrote a blog for New Leaf Market and included a lovely Passover recipe by Alice Medrich for a Carrot Almond Torte that sounds so good that I’m considering it for our Easter celebration.  I also felt that I should share it with my readers as it’s a real shift from the standard carrot cake (with the fabulous frosting) that we usually encounter.

This, of course, led me to thinking about what other good Passover recipes I have stashed in my files.  As I’m so fond of flourless cakes and tortes I was sure I had a few around…and I do.

Beth Hensperger is a baker and food writer with a remarkable number of books with recipes for just about any bread or dessert you might think of making.  I first connected with Beth in the 1980s after I had written the Artichoke Cookbook (Celestial Arts, 1985).  Since then, she has been one of my favorite go-to women when I need something good.  I remembered requesting a light sponge cake recipe without wheat several years ago.  I had forgotten that she also included several other recipes, focused on Passover but delicious anytime.

The first is almond macaroons.  If all you know are the canned macaroons available at Passover, do yourself a big favor and make these.  They are light years better!  I’m still attempting to recreate the coconut-almond macaroons sold at Draeger’s Market years ago.  I adore both almonds and coconut and their macaroons were amazing.  But I digress.

The other recipe that I really like that Beth sent is for a Chocolate Pecan Torte with a Chocolate-Coffee frosting. This brings up a point that is worth mentioning.  Almonds are the most common nut used in Passover desserts.  But you can substitute pecans, walnuts, filberts or hazelnuts and even macadamia nuts as they all work well.

I wish that time allowed for me to whip up one of these desserts to have a photo as a lead to this blog.  Working seven days a week doesn’t cut me much slack for baking.  However, I do plan to try a recipe from Scandinavian Classic Baking  that I just reviewed on my site.  ToscaKake has been calling to me ever since I read the recipe a few weeks ago and gazed longingly at the photo.  If I bake it, I’ll post a photo.  Otherwise, you should read the review and buy the book because the photos in the book have haunted me with sweet dreams.  Alas, it is very Northern European and made with flour, so not useful for Passover.

In the meantime, I’m wishing those of you who are Jewish a lovely seder, and hopefully one of these recipes will work perfectly for you.

Pop Up Cookie Bar in NYC

This morning I wanted to write about something fun for a change, but I wasn’t coming up with anything that spoke to me.   Then I opened today’s e-mail and stumbled upon something that has my head spinning.

Dorie Greenspan and her son Joshua are doing a five-day pop-up cookie bar in New York City, from February 7th through the 11th!  If you are fortunate enough to live  in (or are visiting) Manhattan, go to Mizu Salon at 505 5th Avenue between 58th and 59th from 10:00 a.m until only cookie crumbs remain.  The cookie choices sound spectacular!

For those of you unfamiliar with Dorie, she divides her life between France, New York and Connecticut and has written some great cookbooks, including her latest book, Around My French Table.

I learned about the excitement via the San Francisco Baker’s Dozen Yahoo group this morning — this after they had a dessert orgy yesterday where everyone brought something that they either didn’t have time to make over the holidays or that they made and adored.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend — better for my waistline I suppose though I hated missing out on a bakery’s worth of  samples of cookies, cakes and pies.

I absolutely love the idea of pop-up cookie bars, food trucks like Chunk ‘n Chip Cookies that announce destination sites and times via social media, and clandestine one-night restaurants in the homes of chefs and amateur cooks.   Like a great joke, where the unexpected punchline catches you by surprise, the idea of a brief window of opportunity to enjoy something delicious  knocks my socks off.

The truth is I fantasize about doing something like a pop-up cookie bar or  having a roaming dessert truck.  Years ago I had a cookie business when I lived in the countryside.  I named my business Cat’s Print Cookies after one of my cats leaped from the rafters onto a couch and landed in a box of individually wrapped cookies. Amazingly, none broke!

My daughter and I would hit the summer music festivals in our area and hawk cookies.  Even then I dreamed of a mobile truck where I could have cookies and pies coming out of the oven and serve coffee, tea, milk and hot chocolate.  As the California Coastal fog comes in around 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening, we would have made a killing if we’d had a truck parked at the festivals !

Obviously I can’t live out my fantasy right away, so instead,  I will share a couple of recipes with you.  The first is an adaptation Dorie’s Master Sable recipe, a buttery French cookie that she uses as the base for her newest creation,  Jammers, a sable base topped with nut-filled streusel and a layer of artisanal jam.  Click here for Sables.

A second e-mail came in to the Yahoo group with a listing of the cookies.  They include two kinds of  Jammers:  Raspberry-Strawberry and Lemon Pear Pineapple, traditional sables, Coconut Lime Sables, and Espresso Bittersweet Chocolate Sables.  And she will have her popular Peace Cookies as well as Browndies!  Say what?  Dorrie explains Browndies:

“This is the first time I’m doing this: Chewy chunky blondies in the rounds. When you bake them in rings everything changes. The texture around the edge gets firmer. It’s like a cookie, but with that cake-like texture.”

While I would love to take the time right this minute to make a version of Jammers, I’m going to have to wait until a day when I have more time.  However, I couldn’t wait to try using my favorite Blondie recipe in a round.

Unfortunately, the results weren’t stellar.  I used a 9-inch cake pan when I should have used a 10-inch springform pan as the recipe was too big to work well in the smaller pan.  The blondie recipe I use, which I have to say is spectacular, creates a meringue-like surface, which cracks easily, so this added to the problem.  My suggestion is to bake it in a regular baking pan — 10″ x 10″ x 1″ if you have a pan that size, or go with an 8″ x 13″ x 2″ which will be fine.  Here’s the World’s Best Blondies. If you’re located in the Midwest or East Coast areas, this will definitely lift your spirits as you slog through this year’s winter storms!

Global Climate Change Affects Tropical Crops We Love

Although much has been written about the devastating effects of global climate change on the North and South poles, the tropical band that runs around the center of the Earth is also experiencing significant changes that are negatively affecting the tropical foods and flavors we use daily and love so much.

NASA reported in December of 2010 that the January – November 2010 period was the warmest globally in the 131-year record.  The U.N. science network foresees  temperatures rising up to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.  A rise that great could spell the end of some of the world’s most important crops. So what is happening currently?

Tea
Growers in Assam state, India’s main tea-growing region, have announced that the rising temperatures in their region have not only brought a drop in tea production, but also subtle, unwelcome changes in the flavor of their teas.

Assam state, in Northeastern India, produces some of the finest black and British-style teas in the world. The teas are known for their heartiness, strength and body, and are frequently promoted as “breakfast” teas.

Rajib Barooah, a tea planter in Jorhat, Assam’s main tea growing region has said that the potent taste of Assam tea has weakened.  “We are indeed concerned,” he said.  “Assam teas’s strong flavor is its hallmark.”

The growers have reason for concern.  Assam produces 55 percent of the tea crop in India, a nation that accounts for 31 percent of the global tea production. However, not only quality and flavor have been affected; so has the production.  Tea growers hope that the government will fund studies to examine the flavor fallout from climate change, especially as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change.

In the last eight decades temperatures have risen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Additionally, there have been more gray days during the monsoon seasons, creating damp conditions that can aggravate attacks on the tea crops by the tea mosquito.  Restrictions on pesticide use because of environmental concerns make it difficult to control pests.

The Indian tea industry employs about 3 million people. The majority of these people live at, or only slightly above, the poverty line.  If tea production drops significantly, these people will be unemployed.

Arabica Coffee
Central American coffee growers have struggled mightily in the last 15 years. Regions in Southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and parts of Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua have grown beautiful Arabica coffee, considered by coffee aficionados as far finer than the less expensive and more common Robusta coffee.  Competition from an over-supply of robusta coffee on the market undercut thousands of small growers of Arabica coffee in Central America, leading to a mass migration to cities or the United States to find work to support their families. However, in order to keep coffee trees
viable, the cherries must be picked whether or not they are sold, so most of the wives
stayed behind to care for the coffee bushes while their husbands worked in the well-tended gardens of suburban Americans or as day laborers.

Recently this has changed some as poor crops due to rain in Brazil has pushed up the price for coffee and created greater demand for Arabica coffee.  At the end of 2010, the market price on the New York Exchange for Arabica was $1.55 a pound.  Unfortunately, the good news will only offset the bad for a while.  The culprit?  Climate change.

Arabica coffee grows best at tropical altitudes of 1800 – 3600 feet and thrives in the nutrient-rich volcanic soils on the sides of mountains and volcanoes.  However, as the temperatures increase, it will be necessary to grow the coffee at increasingly high altitudes.  Given the shape of mountains, the higher the altitude, the smaller the available growing area.

Loss of growing area isn’t the only problem .  Pest control is an issue as the weather warms.  Additionally, as our world fertility rate drops and the population ages, fewer people will be available to harvest and process the coffee cherries.  Coffee is labor-intensive.  Most farmers grow coffee on a few acres of land that typically is on mountainsides with uneven terrain.  Compost and fertilizers must be carried in on the backs of mules or the farmers.  Central American farmers usually don’t use chemicals as
they are too costly but they also can’t afford to get organic and fair trade certification for their coffee.

At this point, the majority of Arabica coffee growers would prefer to grow other crops, ones that aren’t as heavily impacted by climate shift nor as labor-intensive.  While the shift away from coffee and the embracing of other cash crops will probably be slow, unless things change significantly, it will most likely be inevitable.  In the meantime, current prices will help make their daily lives a bit easier.

Vanilla
Vanilla farmers are impacted by several major difficulties not faced by the growers of coffee and cacao (chocolate). The most challenging is the availability of cheap imitation vanilla.  There is no viable synthetic option for either coffee or cacao.  Very few people will substitute chicory or carob for the real deal if they can get it!

At one time vanilla was traded on the international commodity market and the price for pure vanilla was enough to make it a valuable crop for the processors, and a less valuable but nevertheless profitable crop for the growers, but after imitation vanillin became readily available in the 1930s, pure vanilla lost both market value and status.

Although Mexico is where vanilla originated and was domesticated, the loss of the rain forest in the last 100 years has made it extremely difficult to grow.  In 1900 95 percent of the rain forest was still intact.  By the 1960s only five percent remained.  The balance was cleared by the petroleum industry in order to lay pipelines from the oil rich coast to Mexico City and other regions.

The loss of rain forest has meant greater heat and less humidity. Vanilla must grow in a protected environment; rain forest is ideal.  Many farmers now use shade cloth growing but this is expensive and heavy storms or hurricanes ruin both the protection and the crops.  Mexico is now seeing greater extremes in the climate – more cold, heat, rainfall and drought.  Their 2010/2011 crop is minimal.  And Mexico is not the only vanilla-growing region struggling with climate change; the weather has become more capricious in all the vanilla growing regions.

Cacao
Like our beloved coffee and vanilla, chocolate also faced an uncertain future.  Just like vanilla and Arabica coffee, cacao does not grow well on large plantations.  The majority of the world’s cacao is grown on small farms in West Africa, which is facing a rise in temperature and greater fluctuations in rainfall.  Political unrest also plagues most of Africa; as I write this, the Ivory Coast is embroiled in a presidential deadlock; the
president voted out refuses to leave and had the winner under arrest in a hotel.  Not a good business climate, indeed.  In Brazil, much of the cacao crop was attacked by a fungus called Witches Broom a few years ago.  They are also facing diminishing rain forest in which to grow cacao.

But with cacao there is hope as it is too beloved and has too many business implications as well.  Mars, a family-owned business, identified the genome responsible for growing cacao and is working diligently to create a cacao hybrid that will be able to withstand the changing climate.  Not to be undone, Hershey’s is also hard at work and claims also to have identified the genome for cacao.  These two companies are extremely competitive, and for good reason; they are giants in the chocolate bar industry and they use the same sources for their cacao.  One interesting difference exists; Mars has chosen not to patent their discovery.  Rather, they wish for it to remain in the public domain as a nod to the support of the small farmers who grow the crop that has made them so wealthy.

There is additional reason for companies to work so hard to keep cacao alive and well. While cacao is too labor-intensive, and land too valuable, to grow substantial amounts in Hawaii or South Florida, the US produces milk, peanuts and almonds, which are used in volume in chocolate bars.

Finally, Brazil is encouraging greater use of the rainforest in their Northeast for growing cacao. This could make a significant difference in protecting the 15% of rainforest still left.  Like vanilla, cacao is a sustainable crop that depends on the protection of a forest canopy to produce quality crops. Indeed, in a sweet show of symbiosis, some growers use their cacao trees as a tutor for their vanilla vines.

These are just a few of the tropical crops that matter, not only to the growers but to us all, just one more example of how we are so intertwined with the entire planet and are truly a global community.  The sooner we can collectively acknowledge this truth, the more likely we can diminish the effects of what has not only been proven scientifically, but what farmers anywhere in the world will tell you is their reality.  You can be part of the solution by purchasing and supporting sustainably grown and ethically traded tropical foods and flavors whenever possible.

It’s The Holidays — Time for More Chocolate!

My last three blogs addressed some of the current concerns and dangers in our food supply as well as about a woman doing something about it in India.  Important information, but on the last day of November I think it’s time now to celebrate the upcoming holiday season, so let’s talk once more about chocolate.

There are a few additional Guittard Single Origin and Maker’s Reserve chocolate varieties  that I think you will find interesting.  This first is the Madagascar Criollo 65% Cacao bittersweet Chocolate.  Madagascar cacao is grown in the fertile Sambirano Valley and has a distinctive tart, almost citrus-like undertone to it that is very appealing.  Obviously, it balances well with desserts flavored with citrus, especially tangerine or orange.

Today, however, I am suggesting a very elegant dessert created by Melissa Smith, who is a chef, author and wine specialist.  She has created a triple layer panna cotta that includes a chocolate layer, coconut layer and pandan layer, an exotic leaf from Asia.  In my mind, at least, I think the deep, rich chocolate flavor of Madagascar chocolate with the citrus notes would blend well with the sweetness of the coconut and exotic pandan flavor.  While this recipe is not difficult, it does take some planning.  That said, it definitely is high in the “Wow” factor.  Click right here for the recipe.

My friend Carole Bloom recently sent me a recipe  for Luscious Gianduia Squares from her latest book, Intensely Chocolate.  This recipe calls for both bittersweet and milk chocolate.  For the bittersweet, I would recommend Guittard’s Machu Picchu Peruvian 65% Cacao chocolate.  Last winter I enjoyed this exceptional chocolate as a dessert on its own served with an apple ice wine I got a few years earlier in the Southwest Provinces in Quebec.

The Machu Picchu is described by Guittard as, “exotic and sacred as the valley of the Urubamba River leading to Machu Picchu, an inspirational combination of buttery, floral and banana notes with a grapefruit zest background to stand alone as a ganache center or to enhance desserts.”

I’ll say right now that I will most likely save this chocolate for after dinner eating just as it is, it’s that good.  However, as soon as I have the time, I intend to make Carole’s gianduia squares and I would use this chocolate or the Ocumare Venezuela 65% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate that I believe I described in my last chocolate blog.  It has a lovely, full, traditional chocolate flavor that is delicately spiced.  For the milk chocolate I would use  the Kokoleka Hawaiian 38% Cacao Milk Chocolate, which is amazingly creamy and smooth.

Susie Norris sent her Gift of the Gods Cake from her book, Chocolate Bliss when I asked her to contribute a recipe to this blog.  This is a fabulously deep fudge cake.  It might be very interesting with the Complexite 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate, which is a nine bean blend of Criollo, Trinitario and Forestero beans from around the world.  I haven’t tried this chocolate yet, but Guittard describes it as, “Delicate and smooth, underlying base chocolate accented with tart plums, green tea, lavender and earthy spicy notes of toasted anise.”  Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?  If you decide to use a 65 – 70% cacao chocolate with this cake, you will want to add a little more sugar to the recipe as it was created with semisweet chocolate.

Susie’s cake calls for cocoa powder; I suggest Cocoa Rouge by Guittard, described below.  And as the cake also calls for milk chocolate, I would go with the Kokoleka Hawaiian 38% Cacao Milk Chocolate as the 55% Kokoleka would be a little over-the-top.

To frost the cake, Susie sent her special Chocolate Ganache recipe.  Heavenly!

A twist on the rich, butter and egg filled chocolate desserts is a vegan, gluten-free recipe which is remarkably rich and flavorful — Double Chocolate Raspberry Tofu Torte.  Before any of you anti-tofu snobs turn up your noses, let me say that I didn’t have high expectations when I first began playing with this recipe.  However, the reality is that it is rich, very chocolaty and a great way to have a guilt-free dessert after a rich holiday meal. As I also have family members who have gluten and dairy restrictions, it is a gift for them to have a really tasty dessert.  Best of all, it’s not difficult to make.

I used Guittard’s Cocoa Rouge in this baked torte, which has a robust, rich chocolate flavor and is lightly Dutched (alkalinized).  I also used Guittard’s Ecuador Nacional 65% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate. This single-origin chocolate has a flowery chocolate finish with earthy, nutlike flavors.  As this torte depends on a rich flavor, I found the Ecuador Nacional was ideal.

I couldn’t do this blog on chocolate without a recipe from my friend David Lebovitz.  His new book, Ready for Dessert is a compilation of recipes from his career as a pastry chef and author as well as his life in Paris as an ex-pat.  I thought it would be fun to feature his Rich Dark Chocolate Sauce and White Chocolate Sauce, which he sometimes serves together with wedges of chocolate cake, but which could also be used on ice cream or even fruit.  I suggest Guittard’s Madagascar or Ocumare Venezuela 65% cacao chocolate for the dark chocolate and Guittard’s 31% cacao White Chocolate for the white chocolate sauces.  It is crucial that you use white chocolate that has cacao mass in it as the cheap varieties will seize and be a disaster.  They also taste cheap whereas Guittard’s white chocolate has a very creamy flavor with hints of citrus and vanilla.

The finale is actually a recipe I featured a while ago but it truly is fabulous,  is easy to make, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like warm, gooey chocolate? (Okay, I’m sure there are some fools who don’t, but that means more for us!) It’s my recipe for Molten Chocolate cakes.

Molten Chocolate Cake

 

 

Now that you’re set up with a new set of recipes for the holidays, I invite you to visit Guittard’s website. And I really want to thank my friend Gary Williams from Guittard (who also, incidentally, was in my high school class in Belmont, California, and has worked for Guittard since he was 17), for his making my three blogs on Guittard’s single origin and special maker’s reserve chocolates possible.  I’ve learned a lot working with these delicious chocolates and hope that you will experiment with them too.  Please let me hear from you with your favorite recipes as well as the chocolate you most love.  You can leave a comment here or write to me at rain@vanilla.com.

While you can purchase cocoa, chocolate wafers (to use instead of chips) and small boxes of single origin chocolates at the Guittard site, you can also get some of the Guittard products at Chocosphere, or call Williams Sonoma at 877.812.6235 to inquire if they have any of Guittard’s products at a store near you.  If you want to order in larger volume (you can probably get a few friends to go in with you to purchase and use quality chocolate), call 800-HOT-CHOC 468-2462 and ask for the nearest distributor in your area.

Dreaming of the Time to Write About Chocolate

Anyone know where I can buy or barter extra hours?  Working at both New Leaf and The Vanilla.COMpany has left me short on time. For the past three weeks I’ve been dreaming about writing about chocolate but actually doing it has been a challenge.

Despite the time shortage, the chocolate muse has not gone away.  Neither has my “habit.”  I’m always thinking about it.  Eating it.   Even cooking with it.   I write a food blog — not yet up — for a client and have just completed a series on creating the best chocolate chip cookies.  I’ll share a little of what I’ve discovered with you in a moment.  First, let’s talk chocolate.

Before  jumping back into my series on Guittard’s single-origin and grower’s reserve chocolate,  here’s a brief explanation of chocolate percentages.  Twelve to fifteen years ago  there was milk, semi-sweet, dark  and bittersweet chocolate.  With increased interest in terroir, varietals and more, haute chocolate linked with cool science, and now has its own lexicon.

Sometimes written percentage of cacao, it means the percentage of cocoa mass, or chocolate liquor, plus added cocoa butter.  Cocoa mass is comprised of about 50% cocoa butter, the natural fat of the cocoa bean, and 50% cocoa solids, the natural dry solids of the cocoa bean.

Naturally, it’s not quite that simple as the ratio varies from manufacturer to manufacturer even while the percentage of cocoa remains the same.  In other words, not all 65% cacao chocolates have equal percentages of cocoa mass and cocoa butter. Each manufacturer has a secret formula that makes their product unique.

65% cacao dark chocolate generally has roughly 35% sugar.  The percentage of cacao plus sugar and maybe another 1% for vanilla and lecithin equals 100%.   The higher the percentage numbers, the lower the amount of sugar in the product.  So, 85% cacao dark chocolate has about 15% sugar.

By the way, if you’ve never eaten 85% cacao dark chocolate, it is intense!!  I’ve conditioned myself to enjoy up to 73%; 85% is too much for my tastebuds.  But if you’re into the deep, bitter flavor of chocolate, 85% is beckoning you.

The chocolate I’ve been playing with recently includes Guittard’s Kokoleka Hawaiian 55% semi-sweet chocolate from the Dole Waialua Estate on the North Shore of Oahu.  It has a bouquet of tropical scents like flowers and tropical fruit, hints of banana and pineapple with a rich passion fruit peak. Very slight underlying tannic base with a gentle tang. Just enough sweetness to be deserving of the name “semisweet.”

I would like to say that I wrote that description.  Sadly, neither my nose nor my taste buds are that fine-tuned.  My nose says that it does have a fruity, floral bouquet.  It’s smooth, buttery and the tannins and tang are almost imperceptible.  It does not taste like Nestle’s semisweet chocolate chips.  It’s really, really good and deserves to be showcased in desserts.

The second chocolate is a 65% Colombian chocolate.  It’s described as having long, deep, slow chocolate flavors,  accented by pleasant hints of spice. The Trinitario cacao beans used to make this chocolate were grown in the San Vicente de Chucuri Valley of the Santander in Columbia.

As I’m writing these descriptions,  I’m tasting each chocolate several times.   The Colombian smells more spicy than it tastes.   “Slow chocolate flavors” is accurate; it takes time for the flavor to fully envelop the mouth.  It’s a pleasant chocolate with more acidity and tannin than the Kokoleka.

The third chocolate, Ocumare, is from Venezuela.  A rare variety of beans from the coastal valley leading to Ocumare. Traditional and complex, bright and flavorful. Mild chocolate to start expanding in fullness to a traditional chocolate flavor with high impact, hints of melon and honey, delicately spiced.

Makes me want to jump on a plane and visit these exotic locations!  Some really good chocolate comes out of Venezuela, and this is one of them.  This is a mild tasting chocolate, that absolutely must be served at room temperature or a little warmer to get the full flavor impact.  I can’t taste the melon but it definitely has a spiciness and honey undertones.  It’s a good eating chocolate.

How to use them? I used chunks of the Hawaiian and Colombian chocolate in one of the chocolate chip cookie recipes I used in the aforementioned blog.  I would definitely use the Colombian again.  As for the Hawaiian chocolate,  its flavor stood out in the cookies, but I don’t think that the cookies did it justice.  I’d rather see it as the main ingredient such as  a light chocolate sauce or a buttery chocolate cookie or even a truffle.  It would also hold its own served as dessert with a fruity, slightly sweet wine that would accentuate its buttery qualities.

The Colombian definitely belongs in chocolate chip cookies,  rich, chewy brownies or your favorite chocolate cake.  It has a good workhorse quality to it that does well in chocolate desserts but I probably wouldn’t choose it for a sensational chocolate ganache or candy where it would carry the day.

I would, however, use the Ocumare Venezuela chocolate for a dark chocolate specialty, because of its complexity.  It could stand up to a liqueur and not be overwhelmed or be the fudge sauce that brightens a bread pudding or enhance the nuts in a chocolate pecan pie.

The biggest tricks I learned when I researched chocolate chip cookies, besides using the best possible ingredients, of course, is to allow the dough to rest for 36 hours before baking them off. This allows the dry ingredients to be absorbed into the wet ingredients (mainly eggs, in this case), which gives the cookies a better crumb and also creates cookies with a crisp outer ring that becomes chewy, the closer you get to the center.  While the other component of this is to make cookies that are about 5 inches in diameter so that you make the most of this technique, I don’t think that it’s necessary unless you want very big cookies.  If you have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, give these techniques a try.

There’s more to share about Guittard’s chocolate and a great Gift of the Gods Chocolate Cake from Chocolate Bliss, written by Susie Norris, along with more recipes, which I will happily share with you as soon as I have time to write another blog.  In the meantime, please help me find some extra hours and keep enjoying the fabulous flavors and foods from the tropics!

Dreaming of Chocolate

Guittard Single Bean Varietals

I may be the  Queen of vanilla, but chocolate rules my life.  Whether dreaming of it, cooking with it, or allowing it to slowly melt on my tongue, savoring the sensations as it moves dreamily from one set of taste buds to the next, I’m surprised when a day passes and I haven’t eaten or drunk something chocolate.  (Okay, I only use chocolate with real vanilla in it.  Better?)

As a child we didn’t have easy access to chocolate, so when a guest brought a box of See’s chocolates during the holidays, we were ecstatic.  My mother made chocolate pies occasionally — woo-hoo –  and of course we made lots of chocolate chip cookies.  In the 1950s everyone did.

But Mom wasn’t big on sweets,  and we lived miles from the grocery store, so we settled mostly for packaged oatmeal cookies  and fig Newtons and the chocolate chip cookies I begged to make.  Except for the time my brother showed me  an unexplained stash of chocolate bars on the top shelf of a cupboard, far too high for us to reach without using the drawers as steps, then  standing on the counter on our toes.  He was quietly siphoning them off, one bite at a time.

The freedom of adulthood and a car changed everything, albeit slowly.   Shameful as it is to admit, I was hooked on milk chocolate and chocolate chips  for decades.  It wasn’t until the truth came out that dark chocolate is good for us, that I slowly worked my way from Heath bars and Snickers to Callebaut, Valhrona and Guittard.  The more I learned, the more I adapted, so that now I’m up to eating chocolate with over 70 percent cocoa mass.  I think when I was younger I was into milk chocolate for the sugar rush; now I like the feel-good high of theobromine.

Which leads to me to my next few blogs.  Down and dirty into fabulous dark chocolate and some extreme milk chocolate too.

When I was at the San Francisco Fancy Food Show in January, my high school friend, Gary Williams, who has worked at Guittard since the summer we were graduated, gifted me with a lot of Guittard’s Single Bean Varietals and Maker’s Reserve chocolate, 65%.  Hot Damn!!

Before you throw a hissy-fit, understand that I’m not exactly hoarding.  I’ve been playing with the stash in order to present you with worthwhile recipes so that you too can play. Let’s face it: chances are, you haven’t yet really explored all the recipes on my site to see what treasures are hidden between the cheesecakes and bread pudding.   So all you’ll have to do now is read my blogs, order some Guittard chocolate and start having fun with the recipes.

First, if you don’t know much about chocolate, I recommend you visit the section on chocolate on my site to learn a bit about Theobroma.  This will set the stage and make the exploration of chocolate more interesting.

To start, let’s talk about tasting chocolate. To really understand the chocolate you’re using, whether for baking or eating, it’s nice to take a piece, put it in your mouth, and let it slowly dissolve.

Check out the aroma, the texture/mouthfeel, the chocolate flavor, the other flavors or overall flavor and the aftertaste.

If you’ve never done this before, you will probably find that taking the time to analyze the chocolate and its primary and sub-flavors  quite interesting.  It also helps to decide just which chocolate you’ll want to use in a recipe.

In this blog I’m going to introduce you to two Guittard reserve varietals that did not come in my package. They’re perfect for the recipe I’m going to share.

4380 Kokoleka Hawaiian 38% Cacao Milk Chocolate. Refreshing and smooth like a fruit smoothie.  Its wild fruitiness is tamed by the intense creaminess of the milk.  Rich and exciting but focused on wonderful chocolate taste.

This is what is known as an extreme milk chocolate.  Much of the so-called milk chocolate on bulk candies is just a confectioner’s chocolate and contains little-to-no cocoa mass.  Commercial milk chocolate bars may have as little as 11% cocoa mass and a lot of sugar.

In the world of artisanal chocolate, it’s quite different.  Milk chocolate can have as much as 44% cocoa mass (or more) and it has much better aroma, flavor and texture.

4550 Kokoleka Hawaiian 55% Cacao Semisweet Chocolate. A bouquet of tropical scents like flowers and tropical fruit, hints of banana and pineapple with a rich passion fruit peak.  Very slight underlying tannic base with a gentle tang.  Just enough sweetness to be deserving of the name “semisweet.”

I admit I didn’t make these descriptions up — they came from Guittard.  But they’re helpful because they give you a sense of the complexity of the flavors of chocolate.  And both of these chocolates would be ideal for a rich, creamy chocolate mousse.   And if you aren’t in the mood for mousse, then either of the Kokoleka chocolates would shine in Dede Wilson’s Extreme Milk Chocolate Brownies .

In my next blog we’ll explore some of the dark chocolates and match them with recipes that help them stand out.  In the meantime, if you have wonderful chocolate recipes and are up for sharing them, please send them along.  You’ll get credit and a link to your site as well.