Endorfin Chocolate - Ecuador Single Origin Dark 80 percent bar - Sept. 8, 2016

Chocolate of the Day:

Endorfin Chocolate
Ecuador Single Origin Dark Chocolate 80 percent cacao bar
Good ++
Weight: 1.4 oz. (40 g.) in total bar
Calories: 210 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 for 1 bar (part of a 9-bar box for $45)
Purchased from: Endorfin Foods

Welcome to Day #4 of Ecuador Chocolate Theme Week. The countdown continues, as we approach (Sept. 11), the 10-year anniversary of Chocolate Banquet.

I'm happy to get "back to the essence of the bean" this week, with a series of dark chocolate bars crafted from Ecuadorian cacao.

Today's Ecuador Single Origin Dark Chocolate 80% cacao bar was from Endorfin Foods (Oakland, CA).

Made with "unroasted and ethically traded" cacao—without dairy, soy, gluten, GMO ingredients or refined sugar—this two ingredient bar was made with cacao and coconut sugar.

The Endorfin bar had an intriguing rich cocoa + fermented cacao + raisin fruit aroma and an even, dark flavor. This 80 percent cacao Ecuador bar was made from unroasted cacao. It had a pleasing, mild sweetness, and a lack of bitterness that some will find surprising for high percentage chocolate.
The bar also had a clean finish.

Spencer Chocolate - 70% Dark Chocolate Ecuador bar - Sept. 7, 2016

Chocolate of the Day:

Spencer Chocolate
Annie's Goodies...Naturally LLC
70% Dark Chocolate Bean Origin Ecuador bar
Good +
Weight: .7 oz. (19.7 g.)/2.1 oz. (5.9 g.) in total bar
Calories: 105 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $ missing information
Purchased from: Cacao at the Heathman, Portland, OR

Welcome to Day #3 of Ecuador Chocolate Theme Week, and the countdown to Chocolate Banquet's 10-year anniversary (Sept. 11).

Spencer Chocolate is a brand that belongs to Annie's Goodies...Naturally LLC (Portland, OR). Spencer is the name of the chocolate maker/owners' rescue dog, a black and white border collie.

Today's Spencer Chocolate 70% Dark Chocolate Ecuador bar had just three ingredients: cacao, sugar and cocoa butter. This is what I've come to expect from high-quality craft or bean-to-bar chocolate.

Just the basics, and nothing else to hide behind. A gutsy thing to do, really, since so many things can go wrong when making chocolate from scratch.  On the other hand, when it works, it's a matter of well-deserved pride.

This well-tempered bar had a chocolatey aroma with very subtle hints of green*. The texture and melt was uniform, as was the fairly sweet, dark chocolate flavor.
The bar had a clean finish.

*Green is a difficult flavor to describe with chocolate. It's not unpleasant. And, it's not unusual to see this in tasting notes for Ecuadorian cacao. It's not green wood, grass, forest or botanical, but somehow evokes some blend of these at times.

Creo Chocolate - 73% Ecuador Cacao bar - Sept. 6, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Creo Chocolate
Purely Dark 73% Ecuador Cacao
Good +
Weight: 1.75 oz. (50 g.) in 1 bar
Calories: 263 calories (estimate) in 1 bar
Cost: $8.00 (estimate) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Creo Chocolate, Portland, OR

Welcome to Day #2 of Ecuadorian Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's Purely Dark 73% Ecuador Cacao bar from Creo Chocolate (Portland, OR) was a Good Food Awards Finalist for 2016.

As I approach my 10-year Chocolate Banquet anniversary (Sept. 11), it was wonderful to return to bean-to-bar chocolate this week.

This Ecuador craft chocolate bar had a dark ebony hue and subtle, chocolate brownie aroma. The bar had a predominantly smooth melt, with the exception of one very small area with slight granularity.

At first, it tasted like a conventional, relatively sweet, uniform dark chocolate bar. But then other flavors unfolded. Very slight nuttiness, and fleeting floral and tropical fruit notes. There was a very slight ammonia funkiness in a small part of one bite. (This was the the area of very slight granularity mentioned above.) But other than that it was a wonderfully complex and interesting ride, that ended with a clean chocolatey finish.

The bar was made with Heirloom Arriba Nacional Cacao beans. Inside the packaging were some photos of Ecuador farmers (and beans drying), and a bit more of the bar's origin story.

Creo Chocolate is a family business. I had the pleasure of meeting the Straub family when I was in Portland earlier this year. They really do love being able to make a difference in people's lives and to share the resulting chocolate with others. (They also had some very nice filled chocolates/truffles in their Portland shop.)

Cocanu - Holy Wood and Gardel bars - Sept. 5, 2016

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

Cocanu Chocolate

Holy Wood
Dark chocolate and palo santo 70% bar
Good - Good +
Weight: .8 oz. (25 g.) in 1 bar
Calories: 132 calories (estimate) in 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Cacao at The Heathman, Portland, OR

Gardel
Dark chocolate, hazelnuts, fernet 72% bar
Good +
Weight: .8 oz. (25 g.) in 1 bar
Calories: 132 calories (estimate) in 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: The Meadow (original Mississippi location), Portland, OR

Welcome to the last day of Chocolate, Fruit and Botanicals Month, and the first day of Ecuadorian Cacao Theme Week.

Today's two relatively sweet dark bars hailed from Cocanu Chocolate (Portland, OR). I bought them at two different specialty retail shops in Portland (Cacao and The Meadow—both great sources for interesting, high-quality chocolates).

Cocanu's 70% cacao Holy Wood bar was made with Nacional cacao from Ecuador and infused with aromatic Palo Santo wood, also from Ecuador. The wood's flavor was so subtle, I failed to detect it. Could it be that this flavor is part of the terroir that I already associate with Ecuador? Another possibility: I dulled my palette with something I ate or drank earlier.

The company's 72% Gardel bar did have a subtle, pleasing overall hazelnut taste, with a few tiny crunchy nut bits embedded in it. The "fernet"—Fernet Branca (a botanical liqueur popular in Europe— was so subtle that, like the bar above, I missed it.

Both square bars (sealed with a fleur de lis wax stamp) were thick enough to provide a substantial bite, and thin enough to make flavors accessible, in other words just the right thickness for tasting in my opinion.

Endorfin - Dark Mylk Chocolate with Anise and Wormwood - Sept. 4, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Endorfin Foods
Dark Mylk Chocolate with Anise and Wormwood bar
Good +++
Weight: 1.4 oz. (40 g.) in total bar
Calories: 210 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 for 1 bar (9 bar box for $45.00)
Purchased from: Endorfin Foods, Oakland, CA

Welcome to Day #28 of Chocolate, Fruits and Botanicals Month.

Today's organic dark chocolate Absinthe bar from Endorfin Foods (Oakland, CA) was inspired by the botanical liqueur of the same name. Absinthe, also known as the green fairy (or La Fee Verte), was banned for a time due to concerns over its intoxicating, and possible toxic, properties.

Most of the concern was over a chemical called thujone* found in wormwood (a primary ingredient in absinthe).

The Endorfin team crafted their absinthe flavor blend from recipes found in historical European literature.

The chocolate was made from unroasted cacao, coconut sugar and coconut. And botanical essential oils used to flavor this dark "mylk" bar included Grand Wormwood, Anise, Sweet Fennel, Melissa (Lemon Balm), and Mugwort. (The wormwood and mugwort were wild-harvested.)

"We have labored extensively to find the purest, unadulterated essential oils of these incredible plants to give you the fullest bouquet of flavor and aroma."
-- Endorfin Foods

I also want to thank Endorfin for their packaging. Not only is the design attractive. The sealed wrapper is functional as well.

*Thujone levels in absinthe liqueur (beverages using Artemisia/wormwood) are now much lower, or, in the case of U.S. restrictions, absent altogether. St. George Spirits (Alameda, CA) was the first to release a legal Absinthe, with their own take on the historic blend of botanicals, after restrictions were lifted in 2007.

Macro Greens - Chocolate Cinnamon bar - Sept. 3, 2016

Chocolate of the Day:

MacroLife Naturals, Inc.
Macro Greens
Chocolate Cinnamon bar
Good
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42 g.) in 1 bar
Calories: 190 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $1.49 for 1 bar
Purchased from:  Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #27 of Chocolate, Fruit and Botanicals Month.

Today's organic, Macro Greens Chocolate Cinnamon "superfoods" bar from MacroLife Naturals, Inc., (Culver City, CA) had a slightly chewy compressed texture.

The flavor was nutty (Brazil nuts were the first ingredient listed), with gentle hints of cacao and cinnamon. Both cacao powder and cocoa butter were incorporated into this bar. The bar was lightly sweetened with dates and agave.

If you failed to look carefully at the wrapper, you might miss seeing that you're also receiving some nutritional benefits from a Macro Greens Blend of vegetables/greens from spinach, spirulina, carrots, barley grass powder, beetroot...and parsley. Some added protein came from rice protein and flax seed powder.

This bar was gluten free and vegan, and contained raw ingredients and probiotics.

Spokandy - Milk Chocolate Vanilla Sea Salt bar - Sept. 2, 2016

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

Spokandy
Milk Chocolate Madagascar Vanilla Sea Salt bar
Good - Good +
Weight: .5 oz. (13.8) / 1.5 oz. (41.53 g.) in total bar
Calories: 77 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $3.99 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Vista House Crown Point, OR

Welcome to Day #26 of Chocolate, Fruit and Botanicals Month. And today is Vanilla Day.

Chocolate and vanilla have a long history together. Vanilla orchids originated in what is now Mexico and Guatemala, an area where the Mayan people flavored their drinking cacao with vanilla hundreds of years ago.

Now vanilla is grown around the world, including Madagascar.

I've always considered vanilla an upbeat, happy spice that has a special affinity with milk and cream. Today I'm celebrating the magic of chocolate and vanilla with a series of treats.

The first item was a Milk Chocolate Madagascar Vanilla Sea Salt bar from Spokandy (Spokane, WA), a company that has been producing chocolates/confections since 1913.


This rich chocolate milk bar with ground vanilla bits and sparkles of sea salt was good by itself and melted over Madagascar Vanilla ice cream.

And speaking of vanilla ice cream, I enjoyed a mini breakfast banana and ice cream sundae, topped with a Planters Turtle Sundae Mix, with nuts and chocolate caramel and vanilla yogurt covered pieces.

I also made my favorite vanilla ice cream by mixing in more happy spices: freshly ground nutmeg and cardamom. (If I'd added saffron, I might have become terminally blissful.)

Last, but not least, the previous vanilla treats were joined by two, indvidually-wrapped, silky cubes of chocolate with a truly creamy and indulgent melt. The Vanilla Sea Salt and Lemon Vanilla  Olive Oil Meltaway chocolates from Ethereal Confections were made with a buttery Manzanillo olive oil.