FunFresh Foods - World Berries Cacao Nibs - Nov. 1, 2015

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

FunFresh Foods
Organic World Berries Cacao Nibs
Good
Weight: .25 oz. (7 g.) / 6 oz. (168 g.) in total package
Calories: 32.5 calories for 1/4 oz. (7 g.) serving
Cost: $8.59 for 1 package
Purchased from: Five Seasons Whole Foods Market, Ocean Springs, MS

Today was Day #6 of Cocoa Nibs Theme Week.

I picked up these organic, raw World Berries cacao nibs from FunFresh Foods (Park City, UT) at a small health foods market a few years back in Mississippi.

Raw "vs." Roasted Nibs
How are raw nibs different than roasted cacao nibs? As you might expect, certain nutrients might be preserved by less processing. (However, some believe roasting helps kill any pathogens that might be present.) And raw nibs have a slightly different flavor profile than roasted ribs.

For example, today's World Berries nibs had a nice chocolatey flavor, and more floral and "green" notes These, and other more "volatile" or subtle flavor notes, can be lost in the roasting process. I would be happy eating these plain, or adding them to other dishes and desserts.

The Worldwide Reach of Nibs
What struck me today was the word "World" in World Berries. Our food supply chains today are complex and offer us many options. Cacao (aka Cocoa) Nibs from South America (Peru in this case), might be used to make truffles in Canada, or chocolate bars in London. Or I, as an individual consumer, might buy just the raw nibs in a store in Mississippi. Our distribution food webs still amaze me.

Great Nibs = Great Chocolate
I felt obliged to enjoy a few finished chocolates from two chocolate makers (who make chocolate from scratch) across the globe. Bean-to-bar makers start with beans (or in some cases unroasted nibs). Each batch of beans yields important information for a maker that helps determine roasting and/or conching times for the ideal or desired end product.

Today I previewed a small chocolate bar from House of Dorchester (a bean-to-bar maker in London) with packaging that referenced a May 13, 1956 Grand Prix race. (Hats off to my friends who enjoy Formula One racing, and who are watching a race this weekend.)

I also sampled two very fine single origin truffles from Madagascar and Papua New Guinea from SOMA Chocolatemaker, which I'll feature at some point in the future. Both truffles were full of balanced fruit flavors (berries, citrus and raisin toast notes in the former, and smokey cherry in the latter.) All these flavors were developed or coaxed from the beans.

You can't make fine chocolate without great beans/nibs and skilled chocolate makers.

Amano - Barlovento Roasted Cocoa Nibs - Oct. 31, 2015

Chocolate of the Day: 

Amano Artisan Chocolate
Barlovento Roasted Cocoa Nibs
Good - Good +
Weight: .636 oz. (18 g.)/ 6 oz. (170 g.) total package
Calories: 120 calories (estimate) in 1/8 cup (2 Tb.)
Cost: $lost information
Purchased from: Amano Artisan Chocolate (at a show)

Happy Halloween to all who celebrate this sweet, autumn holiday. And, welcome to Day #5 of Cocoa Nibs Theme Week.

I celebrate Halloween week by baking a gluten-free chocolate cake inside a carved pumpkin each year. (Other squashes work too.)

I re-heated a piece of this year's* pumpkin spice cake for breakfast, and sprinkled it with Barlovento Cocoa Nibs from Amano Artisan Chocolate (Orem, UT).

Seasonal side dishes for the pumpkin cake included: chopped walnuts, toasted pumpkin seeds with sea salt, and berries from the lavender star flower bush in my yard. Both flowers and berries are edible. These tiny, caramel colored berries with the pit in the middle tasted like fruity, miniature dates.

A freshly opened bag of cocoa nibs has so much potential. I'll use these nibs for many other things. E.g., this morning I also made myself a small, but flavorful cup of hot buttered chocolate to go with the cake, by soaking some nibs in some steamed milk ahead of time.

A small serving of cacao nibs can be very satisfying over cake, ice cream, or baked into brownies. Use them in a "rub" for roasts. Or, grind them up and make your own mole or drinking chocolate. Nibs are chocolate building blocks, without the sugar.

*I don't follow recipes; but every year the cake contains different ingredients. This year it included blackstrap molasses, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, chopped walnuts, and cocoa powder. This type of moist cake works best with a small pumpkin. Go too large, and the cake will be soggy or uncooked in the middle.

Seattle Chocolates - Hot Buttered Rum Truffles - Oct. 30, 2015

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Seattle Chocolate Company
Hot Buttered Rum Truffles
Good - Good +
Weight: .88 oz. (24.9 g.) / 5 oz. (141 g.) in total package of 17 pieces
Calories: 132 calories (estimate) in 3 pieces
Cost: $7.95 for 1 package
Purchased from: Seattle Chocolate Company, Seattle, WA (online order)

Today was Day #8 of Halloween Cocktails Theme Week, and Day #4 of Cocoa Nibs Theme Week.

Are you ready for Halloween? I am planning on doing some reverse trick-or-treating this year. What does that mean? It means I may hand out individually wrapped truffles and filled chocolates to a few adult friends in the neighborhood. (Sorry kids.)

Today's Seattle Chocolates Hot Buttered Rum Truffles, will be included in my bag-o-treats. These two-bite sized, smooth, rectangular milk chocolates contained embedded micro-bits of crunchy toffee, and were wrapped festively in shiny gold wrappers with a neat twist at each end. (They were also gluten-free and made with non-GMO ingredients.)

Halloween Dessert "Cocktail" with Nibs

Today's dessert in a cocktail glass consisted of several ingredients:
tiny scoops of Small Batch Bourbon Vanilla ice cream (flavored with pieces of Kentucky Bourbon barrels and Madagascar vanilla beans no less) from Steve's Ice Cream; homemade coconut palm sugar and maple caramel syrup; and a topping of chopped pecans and walnuts and a small avalanche of cacao nibs.

Cheers and Happy Halloween Eve to you all.

NibMor - 80% Sea Salt and cacao nibs bar - Oct. 29, 2015

Chocolate of the Day:

NibMor
80% Cacao Sea Salt and cacao nibs bar
Good +
Weight: 2.2 oz. (62 g.) in total bar
Calories: 320 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $2.59 for 1 bar
Purchased from: "Loop" store* at Shell gas station on Pocket Rd., Sacramento, CA

Happy Day #7 of Chocolate and Halloween Cocktails Theme Week, and Day #3 of Cocoa Nibs Theme Week.

Today's NibMor 80% Cacao Sea Salt and cacao nibs bar was full of layered flavors: chocolatey dark chocolate, slightly earthy cocoa nibs, and salty bursts of flavor from tiny sea salt crystals.

Big chocolate holidays like Halloween inspire me with all kinds of chocolate mad scientist ideas.

Today I created a Halloween "mocktail" with blood orange soda and fresh lemon juice. Shake with ice cubes and pour in a martini glass and garnish with lemon peel/slices. (Gin is optional for an adult cocktail.) I suppose you could add cocoa nibs in this drink too, but I just enjoyed the refreshing citrus flavor.

*This "Loop" (Shell) gas station store, was a riverside snack oasis, kind of in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Sacramento, that carried the most impressive variety of sweet and salty snacks I've seen at a gas station. Single origin chocolate bars, dill pickle flavored potato chips, maple bacon chips, and lots more interesting items.

Nana Joes Coconut Almond Nib bar - Oct. 28, 2015

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Nana Joes
Coconut, Almond, Cocoa Nib Swell Bar
Good - Good +
Weight: 2 oz. (57 g.) in total bar
Calories: 360 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $5.00 (guesstimate)
Purchased from: de Young Museum, de Young Cafe, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Halloween Cocktail Theme Week, and Day #3 of Cocoa Nibs Theme Week.

I was surprised and delighted to find this vegan, oat-free and gluten-free bar to be lighter and crunchier than I thought. I associated the flavor and texture with fresh, homemade granola—the good kind. This makes perfect sense; granola is a Nana Joes (San Francisco) specialty.

Embedded almonds, pistachios, pecans and cocoa nibs gave the bar additional sparkles of crunchy, nutty taste.

Halloween Cocktail 
Now for a switch to an adult holiday beverage in the same flavor range caramel, coconut, nibs and nuttiness range...

Did you wonder what happened to the cocoa nibs that were used to flavor the dark rum yesterday? Well, a few tablespoons of these rum-soaked nibs made their way into a salted caramel milkshake today. The nibs added just enough robust, unsweetened cocoa flavor to balance nicely with the buttery sweet, creamy sea salt caramel ice cream.

I attempted to make some caramel sauce from scratch to float on this shake. (See photo at right for a view of the bubbling cauldron.)

The caramel sauce "failed" but morphed into delightful light and crunchy caramel flavored pieces when cooled, that will garnish other sweet items in the future.

Hope you all are enjoying a fun, creative Halloween and/or Day of the Dead week.

The content and images on this post belong to ChocolateBanquet.com.

jcoco - dark bar with nibs; Cocoa Rumpkin - Oct. 27, 2015

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Seattle Chocolate Company
jcoco
Noble Dark - 72% Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs bar
Good +
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) in 1 bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1 bar
Cost: N/A - gift; thank you Toni!
Purchased from: N/A - gift; thank you Toni!

Cocoa Rumpkin
(various ingredients)
Good +
Weight: 1 small glass
Calories: disregarded
Cost: N/A - used existing ingredients
Purchased from: N/A - used existing ingredients

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Halloween Cocktail Theme Week.

Cocoa nibs are concentrated bits of chocolate flavor. Their essence can be contained in a dark chocolate bar, or infused into spirits. (Not Halloween ghosts, but distilled spirits.) Being that Halloween—one of the great chocolate holidays—is upon us, I'm going with both a dark chocolate bar with cocoa nibs and a Halloween cocktail called a Cocoa Rumpkin (see below).

First up...the jcoco Noble Dark bar (72% dark chocolate with cocoa nibs). This bar was one of a set of small bars I received as a gift.

The jcoco brand is part of Seattle Chocolate Company (Seattle, WA). The design and packaging for the jcoco line is high fashion fun, and the chocolate isn't bad either*. The company has pledged to give one serving of food to a person in need for each chocolate purchased.

The bar had a chocolate fudge brownie aroma and taste and the nibs added some texture. The "non-gmo, vegan, gluten-free" Noble Dark bar was also kosher.

Cocoa Rumpkin
A Cocoa Rumpkin is a three-layer cocktail that I made up.

The bottom layer was Aperol (an orange-flavored apertif) and honey. The middle layer was a pumpkin-infused cream with spices (cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, cloves, allspice, ginger).

And, saving the best for last, the top layer was cocoa nib infused dark rum**. The cocoa nibs imparted an extra dark chocolate, almost coffee-like flavor to the dark rum.

Carefully "float" one layer atop another and there you have it: a Cocoa Rumpkin, today's chocolate rum and spicy orange Halloween cocktail. Or, you can stir all these layers together, and freeze, to enjoy as an adult milkshake.

*The jcoco Cayenne Veracruz Orange white chocolate bar is an example of how tasty white chocolate can be.
**First, I infused cocoa nibs into Myers's dark rum for a week. Then I drained off the rum to use as a top layer for this cocktail. Leftover cocoa nibs, can be used for cookies, brownies or with ice cream in adult milkshakes.

The content and images on this post belong to ChocolateBanquet.com.

Hotel Chocolat - Black Cat Martini - Oct. 26, 2015

Chocolate of the Day: 

Hotel Chocolat
"Black Cat Martini"
Good+ - Good++
Weight: 1.015 oz. (28.7 g.) / 4.06 oz. (115 g.) in total box of 16 pieces
Calories: 152 calories (estimate) in 4 pieces
Cost: 10 British Pounds (approx. $15 U.S.)
Purchased from: Hotel Chocolat, UK, online order

Today was Day #4 of Chocolate and Halloween Cocktails Theme Week.

The "Black Cat Martini" chocolate from Hotel Chocolat (UK) was infused with blackcurrant and "liquorice" and had a fairly strong vodka kick. The flavors were authentic and layered, revealing themselves one at a time, which made this filled Halloween cocktail chocolate more intriguing and fun.

Today's Black Cat Martini was the last (of four) different seasonal cocktail chocolates from a Hotel Chocolat "Choose Your Poison" 16-piece assortment box.