ChocolateBet: August 4, 2011

Chocolate of the Day:

2 pieces
Recchiuti Confections
Fleur de Sel
Very Good
Weight: .4 oz. (11.32 g.) for 2 pcs (estim - per info at store)
Calories: 60 calories
Cost: $2.40 for 2 pieces
Purchased from: Recchiuti Confections, Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA

Recchiuti (based in San Francisco, CA) has a nice little shop in the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Market Street dead-ends in front of this building on the West side, and the San Francisco Bay lies to the East. The Ferry Building is lined with shops and is a foodie paradise of sorts. Good place to shop for chocolates.

This smooth, two-bite, Fleur de Sel from Recchiuti was filled with flavorful burnt caramel with just the right amount of soft stretch-and-chew to it, and flecked with tiny pieces of French sea salt.

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Sea Salt Theme Week, and Day #1 of Chocolate and Salt Caramel Theme Week. There may be a fair amount of overlap between these two theme weeks. In any case, adding caramel was a good excuse to prolong the experimentations with chocolate, salt and sugar.

ChocolateBet: August 3, 2011

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

1/4 bar
Rococo Chocolates Ltd.
Sea Salt (bar)
Very Good
Weight: .62 oz. (17.5 g.)/2.47 oz. (70 g.) ttl bar
Calories: 93 calories (estimate)
Cost: $12.00 total bar
Purchased from: Miette Bakery, Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA

High-quality deep milk chocolate plus just the right amount of sea salt equals a match made in heaven.

A piece of today's Sea Salt bar made from Organic Milk Chocolate, by Rococo Chocolates Ltd., also served as an excellent salted pat-of-butter substitute on today's second chocolate of the day: a gluten free, dairy free, and nut free pumpkin muffin packed with pumpkin pie spices and small chocolate chips. If you can't eat wheat, and have been dreaming of gluten-free breads and sweet baked goods that could pass for the real thing, Mariposa may be a good choice for you.


1 muffin
Mariposa Baking Company
Pumpkin Muffin with mini chocolate chips
Very Good
Weight: 3 oz. (85 grams) (estimate)
Calories: 260 calories (estimate)
Cost: $not available
Purchased from: Mariposa stand at the Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA

Today was Day #4 of Chocolate and Sea Salt Theme Week. 

ChocolateBet: August 2, 2011

 Chocolate of the Day:

.3 oz. piece
Olive and Sinclair Chocolate Co.
Sea Salt (bar)
Good +
Weight: .3 oz. (9.3 g.) / 2.75 oz. (78 g.) total bar
Calories: 43 calories (estimate)
Cost: $8.00
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #8 of Chocolate and Tout Sweetener Theme Week, and Day #3 of Chocolate and Sea Salt Theme Week. I've overlapped the former theme week one more day, so that I could include this Olive and Sinclair (Nashville, TN) bar that uses brown sugar in addition to Sea Salt.

Olive and Sinclair makes a variety of "Southern Artisan Chocolate," stone ground bars in small batches; in fact my bar (label) was hand-stamped: "Batch #102810." This dark chocolate, Sea Salt bar was created from cacao beans from the Dominican Republic, and the texture was very smooth and pleasing for stone ground.

The chocolate itself was very rich, and relatively acidic. The salt may have contributed to, or sharpened this tart flavor. I like salt with chocolate, but there was a tiny bit too much in the small piece I sampled. To be fair, I also could have just bitten into a piece that was more heavily sea salted than the rest of the bar. I had this bar very early in the morning, and it may be that this rich bar is more of an evening bar, or better when accompanied with food. It might be an interesting bar to pair with whiskey; a grilled sandwich; jambalaya or a rich stew; or lemon. I find a lemon peel sometimes helps (surprisingly) neutralize the acidity in espresso, so I'll have to experiment with this later, to see if the same thing holds true here.

ChocolateBet: August 1, 2011

Chocolate of the Day:

3 cookies
Raw Decadence
Piccolinos! Cranberry and Cacao Nibs
Good +
Weight: 2 oz. (56.6 g.) in package of 3 cookies
Calories: 234 calories for 3 cookies
Cost: $1.99
Purchased from: Sigonas, Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #7 of Chocolate and Tout Sweetener Theme Week, and Day #2 of Chocolate and Sea Salt Theme Week. "Tout Sweetener" is a term I invented to describe chocolates that incorporate sweeteners other than white cane sugar -- including honey, maple sugar/syrup, artificial sweeteners, brown sugar, and many others.

Today's artisan made raw cookies from Raw Decadence (Redwood City, CA) were made from Organic almonds and unsweetened coconut, cranberries and raw cacao nibs. In addition to the cranberry and the coconut, these small, dense, biscotti-shaped raw cookies were also sweetened with Organic blue agave and stevia (from the sweet leaves of a small green plant/herb originally from Paraguay). In addition, they were seasoned with a barely detectable hint of sea salt.

ChocolateBet: July 31, 2011

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

3 pieces
Maui Specialty Chocolates
100% Pure Kona Coffee Flavored Milk Chocolate(s)
Very Good - Very Good +
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) (estimate)
Calories: 150 calories (estimate)
Cost: $ info lost
Purchased from: Maui Specialty Chocolates, in Kahului (Maui), Hawaii

Life is all about managing expectations. And, to be honest, I'm often times not expecting as much when I bite into most milk chocolates. But, today, I transported myself back to Hawaii. And, in my book, today's coffee-flavored chocolates from Maui Specialty Chocolates (Kahului, Hawaii) were toward the top of the milk chocolate scale.

I bought this small 4-pack of chocolates while on a recent trip to Maui. I carefully slit open the plastic pouch, and a delicious Kona Coffee smell wafted up to my nose. I enjoyed the first piece (of three that I ate today), all by itself.

And then, because this was Day #6 of Tout Sweetener Theme Week, and Day #1 of Chocolate and Sea Salt Theme Week, I experimented with some "dry" sugar and salt dunks. I dipped the second chocolate into some raw Hawaiian sugar (obtained during a tour of the Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Museum in Kahului (Maui), HI). The grains of this less refined, golden sugar, added a little bit of a crunchy, rich sweet texture to the already rich, smooth coffee and milk chocolate.

Last, but not least, I dipped the third Kona Coffee chocolate first into the raw sugar (and took a bite), and then dipped it into a few grains of Hawaiian Traditional Red Alaea (Molokai Seas) Sea Salt. My first bite with the salt (shown) contained way too much salt; but after adjusting, and backing off to just a few grains, it was perfect.

ChocolateBet: July 30, 2011

Chocolate of the Day: 

.5 oz. piece
Chuao Chocolatier
Honeycomb - Dark Chocolate Bar with Caramelized Honey
Good +
Weight: .5 oz. (14.1 g.) / 2.8 oz. (80 g.) total bar
Calories: 75 calories
Cost: $5.99 total bar
Purchased from: Sigonas, Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Tout Sweetener Theme Week.

My favorite entries in this week's group of bars, truffles, and other chocolate creations? The ones that capture and elevate the unique flavors of natural sweeteners -- so they rise slightly above the chocolate --, without boosting the overall level of sweetness so much that it ruins everything. This is very difficult to achieve. Though this Honeycomb bar from Chuao Chocolatier was very sweet for a dark (60% cacao) bar, a small burst of real honey flavor arrived at the very end of the flavor curve. Like other Chuao bars I've tried, rather than being scored into squares or rectangles, it was artfully embossed with the Chuao name and a cocoa pod design.

Galerie Au Chocolat - Milk Chocolate Maple bar - July 29, 2011

Chocolate of the Day:

1/15 bar
Galerie Au Chocolat
Milk Chocolate with Crunchy Bits of Pure Maple Syrup
Good + - Very Good
Weight: .226 oz. (6.33 g.) / 3.4 oz. (95 g.) total bar
Calories: 34 calories (estimate)
Cost: $4.50 (Canadian)
Purchased from: Montreal airport (YUL) shop; Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Today was Day #4 of Chocolate and Tout Sweetener Theme Week, and, like yesterday, I'm delving into the world of maple sugar/syrup mixed with milk chocolate. More specifically, this Chocolat au Lait Avec Croquant de Sucre D'erable Pur bar from Montreal-based Galerie au Chocolate was studded with tiny, crunchy bits of maple syrup.

While I enjoyed the real maple flavor of this bar, for the past few days, I've been reminded why I generally prefer less sweetener rather then more. It's all about the chocolate, and the play of subtle flavor combinations with chocolate; and it's less about the sugar for me, even when the sugar contributes its own unique wonderful flavor.