ChocolateBet: June 24, 2011

Chocolate of the Day: 

1/2 bar
Cachet - Made by Kim's Chocolates N.V.
Almonds & Honey Milk Chocolate bar
Good + - Very Good
Weight: 1.75 oz. (50 g.) / 3.5 oz. (100 g.) total bar
Calories: 289 calories (estim.)
Cost: $2.99
Purchased from: Crossroads Market, in Palo Alto, CA

Today I was hoping to find additional Mediterranean flavors for Day #3 of Chocolate and Gluten Free Cookie Theme Week. Almonds, milk and honey have been enjoyed together in different combinations for many centuries. More recently, say in the last 150 - 200 years, chocolate has been thrown into the mix. Sadly, honey has been less available, and has been replaced by sugar or corn syrup in many cases, but I set about finding a bar with these flavors.


The Cachet Almonds and Honey Milk Chocolate bar fit the bill, and was just the right thickness -- thick enough to accommodate crunchy almonds bits and "honey pieces" and thin enough to quickly access milk chocolate and flavors in the mouth as the bar warmed up and was being eaten.

The Cachet bar is perfectly fine for eating by itself, but I also used part of this bar to make an easy chocolate-dipped, gluten free amaretti. (For a more elaborate ganache-filled version from La Biscotteria, see yesterday's post - dated June 23, 2011.)  So, I melted two squares of this bar in a small ceramic dish, and voila - a tiny dish of instant fondue -- into which I dipped Musso's gluten free Italian Crunchy Almond Cookies. Moments later, almonds drizzled with some Seggiano raw sunflower honey got the Cachet chocolate fondue treatment as well.

This bar made for a nice, smooth fondue; but, you may lose some of the crunchiness in the small honey bits when this chocolate bar is broken up and melted into a sweet dipping sauce.

ChocolateBet: June 23, 2011

Chocolate(s) of the Day:


La Biscotteria
Amaretti Chocolate Ganache Cookie
Very Good
Weight: 3.5 oz. (100 g.) (estimate)
Calories: unknown
Cost: $3.95 per (large) cookie
Purchased from: La Biscotteria, Redwood City, CA

Today was Day #7 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week,
and Day #2 of Chocolate and Gluten Free Cookie Theme Week.

Almond paste, amaretti and amarena cherries from Italy were today's chief inspirations.

Today's large, gluten free, chocolate almond amaretti cookie from local Italian bakery La Biscotteria (Redwood City) was more like a chocolate pie with a rich, sweet almond crust base, topped with a generous layer of smooth, chocolate ganache, and finished off with a thin chocolate top coat.

I also bought an Almond Torte (which is good plain or with a very light dusting of unsweetened cocoa powder). My advice: split these almond sweets with a few other people for dessert and enjoy the cookie slices/torte wedges with a small glass of port or sherry.


Note: La Biscotteria also makes smaller, 1/2 dipped, and also non-chocolate gluten free almond cookies -- which I've featured previously.

I was also inspired to make some Italian amarena cherry and chocolate yogurt -- by mixing in Amarena wild cherries and syrup into plain greek style yogurt and adding some pieces of chocolate almond cookie described above. A dark chocolate maple leaf from The Oakland Chocolate Co. made a nice garnish. Amarena cherries are an interesting alternative to the neon red marascino cherries we have here in the U.S., for inclusion in fruit cakes, breads, almond tortes or cookies. They are, perhaps, just as sweet, but slightly richer in taste, and more natural in color.

ChocolateBet: June 22, 2011

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

1.) Safeway Select
French Salted Caramel (Fleur de Sel) Ice Cream
Very Good
Weight: 1/2 cup (66 g.) / 1.5 quarts (1.42 L) total container
Calories: 230 calories
Cost: $ not available
Purchased from: Safeway, in Palo Alto, CA

2.) Fabrique Delices
Salted Caramel Macaron & Chocolate Macaron
Good + - Very Good
Weight: 1.48 oz. (42 g.) / 9.25 oz. (262 g.) total package
Calories:
Cost: $11.99 total package
Purchased from: Whole Foods, in Los Altos, CA

Today was Day #6 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week, and the first in a series of Chocolate and Gluten-Free Cookies this week. There's nothing like a petit bit of sea salt (from the Mediterranean or another sea) to liven up caramel and chocolate. In keeping with this theme, Safeway's French Fleur de Sel ice cream contained tiny chocolate covered sea salt caramels. And the Fabrique Delices (Hayward, CA) Macarons came in a (frozen) mixed pack of two flavors: Salted Caramel and Chocolate. Mais oui, these were good. Sweet, but good.

ChocolateBet: June 21, 2011

Chocolates of the Day:

The Oakland Chocolate Co.
1.) Lavender Truffle - Very Good
2.) Spearmint Truffle - Very Good
3.) Pistachio Rolled Truffle - Good + - Very Good
4.) Filled Oval Leaf (lime pepper jelly) - Very Good
5.) Filled Scallop Leaf (lemon curd) - Very Good +
6.) Filled Small Log (hazelnut butter) - Very Good - Very Good +

People ask me if I ever have trouble finding new chocolates. No, not yet. But, if I have too many oversampling days like today, I just might. I selected six possible Mediterranean flavors that came in a box of chocolates from The Oakland Chocolate Company (a bean-to-bar-to-bonbon operation). All these individual chocolates were made from Jamaican dark chocolate.

The Lavender Truffle was filled with a white ganache and topped with delicious candied lavender buds. The Spearmint Truffle with a chocolate ganache also was blessed with a tiny piece of what I believe was candied spearmint leaf. My two favorites were: the dark chocolate leaf filled with lemon curd -- a combination that is hard to beat in my opinion; and the small chocolate log filled with hazelnut butter. The hazelnut butter sparkled with bright bits of flavor, sweetness and texture. I much preferred this to overly homogenized hazelnut fillings present in some commercial chocolates.

In the same vein as the leaf with lemon curd, the oval chocolate leaf that was filled with lime pepper jelly was also good -- tart and pleasing, but not overly spicy.

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week.

ChocolateBet: June 20, 2011

Chocolate of the Day: 

1 serving
Villa Dolce Gelato
Italian Kiss - Chocolate Hazelnut
Good + - Very Good
Weight: 1/2 cup (100 g.)/ 1 Quart total container
Calories: 200 calories
Cost: $ unavailable
Purchased from: Whole Foods, in Los Altos, CA

Today was Day #4 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week; and it was also very hot outside. Something cold was in order. Villa Dolce Gelato's (gluten free) Italian Kiss Chocolate Hazelnut gelato was a good choice.

The packaging for this plastic tub of gelato -- decorated on top with bits of hazelnut and a light drizzling of chocolate syrup -- was reminiscent of displays you'd see in a gelato shop (with side-by-side stainless steel rectangular pans filled with your favorite flavors of this frozen dessert). It was no surprise then to see that Villa Dolce, based in Van Nuys, CA, also sells gelato pans and other supplies.

ChocolateBet: June 19, 2011

Chocolate of the Day:

1 piece
Nosh This
Meyer Lemon Salted Caramel
Very Good
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) (estimate)
Calories: 150 calories (estimate)
Cost: 2 for $4; or box of 8 for $14
Purchased from: Nosh This, in San Francisco, CA

Today was Day #3 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week.

Citrus fruits are part of Mediterranean cuisine. And Meyer lemons are available in many parts of California, the state where I live. Nosh This (San Francisco) offers a Meyer Lemon Salted Caramel with tiny bits of what I'm fairly sure are lemon rind. These bits of rind provided wonderful lemon taste and texture to these salt caramels enveloped in chocolate.

I'm very grateful to live in an area with a Mediterranean-like climate; I have rosemary, lavender, citrus and other edible wonders in my small yard. Thank you also to neighbors who have generously offered to share some of their Meyer lemons over the years. 

ChocolateBet: June 18, 2011

Chocolate of the Day:

1/4 bar
Michael Mischer Chocolates
Pistachios (bar)
Very Good - Very Good +
Weight: .75 oz. (21.25 g.) / 3 oz. (85 g.) total bar
Calories:
Cost: $10.95 total bar
Purchased from: Michael Mischer Chocolates, Oakland, CA

Today was Day #2 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week, part 2.  (This past week there was a brief intermission between Mediterranean Week part 1 and part 2 -- in order to have a Chocolate and Bacon Theme Week.)

And, now we return to lovely items such as green pistachio nuts, that pair well with deep milk and darker chocolates in bar or bark form. The pistachios in this Michael Mischer bar are set into a smooth base of single origin Criollo 65% dark chocolate.

Several of Michael Mischer's line of designer bars are studded with nuts -- others contain salt, toffee or nibs and other flavors. If you visit Mischer's Oakland store, you can browse a long line of these bars (see photo above).