Chocolate Report

The third week of March is American Chocolate Week, yet another excuse (as if we need any) to indulge in milk chocolatey goodness (or whatever your favorite kind of chocolate might be). If you do plan on indulging a bit this month, you might want to look for free samples and offers from your favorite chocolate companies, as many will be distributing them during American Chocolate Week.

Here are some other ways you might want to celebrate…

Try chocolate flavors wherever you go. Go for the chocolate pancakes, ice cream, desserts, whatever.

Try chocolate-covered foods, such as raisins and pretzels. Dip whatever fruits or snack foods you already have in chocolate, from graham crackers to banana chunks, and see what creative concoctions you can come up with.

Bake a chocolate pie, brownies, or something else that will scrumptiously fill your home with the aroma of chocolate. Read more

Turin, who seems to have a Spanish site but not an English one, makes a wide variety of liquor filled chocolates. They produce chocolates filled with Grand Marnier, Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo Especial, Kahlúa, and Bailey's Irish Cream. On a whim, I decided to try the Bailey's Irish Cream filled chocolates. These are milk chocolate filled with a ganache made with Bailey's. Now, I like Bailey's but I'm not a huge fan; mostly I've used it for cooking (note: Irish coffee is not made with Bailey's) or served it over ice. Read more

Dagoba is a maker of fine organic chocolates. It's an interesting company, though it's now a wholly owned subsidiary of Hershey. Even now, though, Dagoba adheres to the original principles of the founder, Frederick Schilling. Schilling was interested in chocolate production based on sustainability and quality ingredients. Read more

If you and your beloved like Washington wine and chocolate, I suggest you go right now and check out the amazing Yakima Valley events for Valentine's, featuring wine and chocolate. Seriously, it's a fabulous list. You can "Celebrate Valentine's Day at Chandler Reach Winery" on Friday the twelfth. It's an incredible menu paired with wines. You need to make reservations, but I'm told there are still some openings. There are some nifty "Red Wine & Chocolate Hotel Packages," running right through the 15th, and an entire "Red Wine & Chocolate" celebration centered in Yakima Valley. For a lot of people Monday is a holiday, so the celebration extends over the three-day weekend. Read more

A friend who knows I love chocolate sent this bar as a gift. I was intrigued by the notion of tea-infused chocolate. While I love both red wine and coffee with good dark chocolate, I had not given any thought to tea as flavor, even though I'm a tea drinker. As it happens, I'm quite fond of both green tea and Earl Grey. This Tea Room Green Tea Earl Grey Dark Chocolate bar is 1.8 of 58% cacao dark chocolate. It's organic, all the way, made with unsweetened organic chocolate from Belgium and France, organic cane sugar, organic cacao fat, organic green tea, organic bergamot oil. It does contain soy Lecithin as an emulsifier, and it has the usual warning that it may have been contaminated by peanuts or nut products in production. The chocolate is made in small batches in Napa, California. Read more

Chocolate Covered CherriesAh, Valentine's Day!  A lame holiday, but an excellent opportunity to get yummy candy at half off on February 15th.  Traditionally this is the time of year when I start stalking stores for chocolate covered cherries, even though I think technically they are a year-round candy.

This is another "fringe candy" that I associate with drug stores like Walgreen's.  They always have an entire aisle devoted to candy, and you have to stock it with something, you know?  Why drug stores have entire candy aisles, when grocery stores devote only about 1/8th of an aisle to candy, is just another mystery.  
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Mmm… chocolate. While some say it’s an aphrodisiac, there’s no dispute that chocolate makes most people feel good. With its antioxidants and serotonin-boosting effects, it might even make you feel a little bit… in love. Whether you’re trying to get your lover in the mood or simply put a smile on his or her face, here are ten ways to do it with chocolate.

10. Give chocolate-covered cherries or strawberries, a box of chocolates, or another traditional chocolate gift. My husband knows I love chocolate with gooey caramel, while I know his favorite is white chocolate; find out what kind of chocolates your lover likes best and go with those for a gift he or she will surely love. Read more

The Lindt Excellence range of chocolate bars is divided into to broad divisions; those bars with specific percentages of Cacao, ranging from 50% to 99%, and then a wide variety of chocolate with flavorings. In terms of the flavored chocolate offerings, there's a series of Lindt Excellence Intense bars, in orange, pear and mint. Read more

I've written about Lindt Excellence before—specifically, the Lindt Excellence Intense Orange—but this particular bar, while not actually new, was one I've not seen before. Lindt's Excellence A Touch of Sea-Salt is part of the Lindt Excellence range of dark chocolates with various ingredients added for flavor. It's one of their standard 3.5 ounce, 100 grams bars of dark chocolate, with French Fleur de Sel crystals of sea-salt. It caught my eye in part because it immediately made me think of dark chocolate sea-salt caramels, which are a fabulous combination of flavors. It's almost February, and so the local chain stores are all stocking up on chocolates at sale prices; this bar was part of a range of Lindt bars at 2 for $3.00. Read more

If you love hot cocoa but you’d really like to try some hot chocolate this season, it’s the perfect time to make some! It’s surprisingly easy to make if you want to make it at home; of course, you can order it at your favorite restaurant if they serve it as well.

To make a big pot of hot chocolate to share with your friends and family (feel free to adjust if it’s just for the two of you), gather together a cup of sugar, 8 cups of milk, 6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Using a good knife, place the chocolate (squares or a bar form work well) on a cutting board or other safe surface and chop it up into fine pieces. The finer the better—it will melt faster that way—but don’t stress over getting the tiniest pieces possible. Scrape them up and put them into a mixing bowl. Read more