This is an intellectually welcome and culinarily exciting addition to the small but fundamentally key (a gourmand of no less magnitude than Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin  repeatedly refers to the unsurpassed drinking chocolates originating in the “sokonusco” region of Mexico.  Askinosie Chocolate not long ago introduced its own Soconusco chocolate bar from a small band of growers in Mexico. 

According to Larry Slotnick, co-founder of Taza with Alex Whitmore, the beans in the Chiapas bar are from the farm community of San Felipe in Southern Chiapas. Only 1,392 bars were made, and each is hand numbered. Larry and Alex don’t give cellaring recommendations, but I think the bar is eating pretty nicely right now. (I’m kidding around…)

The Taza guys say this about the bar: “We carefully blended the chocolate as a 75% dark that is a perfect balance of sweetness allowing the very unique flavor characteristics of this bean to shine. The beans exhibit a very nutty flavor profile and a dry, tannic finish not found in most chocolate bars.”

Some background on Taza: Pulling some very old technology from the shadowy recesses of history, they have resurrected ye olde grinding stone (molino) to create a more rustic, less processed chocolate.

Taza’s mission is stated: “Taza is a true bean-to-bar chocolate maker located in Somerville, Massachusetts, and is the only maker of 100% stone ground chocolate in the United States. Taza sources organically grown cacao beans directly from small farmer cooperatives ensuring those farmers receive more than fair trade prices for their high quality cacao. Taza is uniquely positioned as one of the only independently owned, socially and environmentally responsible chocolate makers in the country.”

In addition to the rougher grind and lack of conching of the chocolate, Taza roasts their cacao beans lighter than many, leaving more intense fruity acidity.

Below is the Ultimate Salted Caramel Recipe as perfected by David Briggs of Xocolatl de David.

The format of the salted caramel class was the usual: Attendees (we had over 32 last night!) were given a glass of wine to help keep their palates lively as we moved through a somewhat rigorous tasting format.

• Mark Bitterman gave the selmelier’s mini-lecture on the four types of sea salt currently used in the assorted salted caramels offered in the shop.
• Halen Mon Gold oak smoked sea salt from Wales - oaky and warm and mellow with hefty filo dough like flakes
• Iburi Jio Cherry cherrywood smoked deep sea salt form Japan – heady and bacony and silky at the same time
• Amabito no Moshio seaweed salt from Japan – a round and mild mineral-rich salt with lots of savory brothy (umami) flavors.
• Pangasinan Star fleur de sel from the Philippines – brambly and warm and delicately sweet with outsized yet delicate white crystals.
• The David Briggs talked about how he formulates the salt-levels of his caramels as people tasted:
• Unsalted burnt caramel cubes
• Lightly salted caramel cubes (the light is Briggs’s term, as the man loves salt)
• Fully salted caramel cubes (whoa Bessy!)
• Then Dave demonstrated how to make a salted caramel sauce (note: Dave declines to go by the title of caramelier either because he thinks a caramelier fellow in France will be offended or because he worries it might constrain future projects involving bacon or ice cream—or maybe both).
• We took a vote and let the guests choose which salts to put in the caramels based on their tasting.  Every class has been different.  This time the choices were Halen Mon Gold and Pangasinan Star.
• Last, Dave served up home-made chocolate ice cream and guests were allowed to ladle out the salted caramel sauce (or sauces) of choice onto the ice cream.

Jittery, maybe a little buzzed, the crowd at the end of the evening was slow to drift off, doubtless uncertain as to whether dinner, bed, sea kayaking, or something else would be the best outlet for their energy.

Recipe for the Best Salted Caramel Sauce
The first step is to make invert sugar to prevent the sugar in the caramel from spontaneously crystallizing.

Salted Caramel Invert Sugar
3 C          Sugar
1.5 C       Water
1/4 t        Citic acid OR juice of 1/2 lemon
Put ingredients in a non reactive pot and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Caramel Sauce
2 C  Sugar
1 oz  Invert Sugar
1.25 C   Cream, warm
1 oz   Butter
Fleur de sel

Put invert sugar and sugar in a wide high sided non reactive pot on high heat.  Every minute or so slowly mix in granulated sugar with some that is liquefied.  Eventually you will have a paste.  Warm Cream separately.
Continue to cook sugar until it begins to caramelize.  Using a candy thermometer monitor the temperature of the cooking sugar.  The classic caramel stage is around 330-350 degrees F.  You can cook it longer for a less sweet more bitter sauce.  Do not go above 390 F.

When your desired temperature is reached turn off the heat and slowly and very carefully add the warmed cream in small increments.  When the cream is fully incorporated, turn the heat on high and heat the caramel to 230 F.  This will go quite quickly.  Turn off heat and add the butter.  Stir until the butter has completely melted.  Add your desired amount of Fleur de sel or other sea salt.  Let cool.

It will store in the refrigerator for up to 4 months.

Fondue recipes proliferate. Many are unduly fancy. Some are simply mired in preconceived notions about food inherited from the roly-poly days when butter and flavorings were the esteemed foundations upon which we constructed our culinary fantasies. Sometimes it’s nice to dispense with the curlycues, or more savagely, just take those crusty habits out to pasture and put them out of their misery.

The other day at our Himalayan Salt Block Cooking Class we made an original sort of chocolate fondue. More viscous, richer, more complex, and, (of all things) crunchier than your typical fondue, we ate fondue was at once more sophisticated and yummier. The only ingredient in the fondue is chocolate.

No good pictures of our Himalayan Salt Block Very Dark & Nibby Chocolate Fondue have survived for posterity, but a shot taken that evening (right) gives an idea of the basic setup. The Himalayan salt block works like a double boiler, protecting the chocolate from excessive heat while contributing the temperature stability necessary to work the melting chocolate without allowing it to separate into oil and solids. The salt block also makes a beautiful serving platter. Because there is virtually no moisture in chocolate, the Himalayan salt block does not add any perceptible amount of saltiness to the chocolate.  To prepare this dish, you will need the following:

(more…)

Striving for the World’s Best Chocolate

In a remote corner of the global village, an Italian believes he’s developed the best of all chocolate recipes. Claudio Corallo lives on an island off Nigeria and ships his small-batch chocolate around the world.

Most people, says Claudio Corallo, don’t have the slightest idea what chocolate is — or what it can be. The article continues>>

I imagine Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri, the brother and sister founders of Amedei, were drowning in Champagne on the night of the announcement. Nonetheless, they managed to comment: “We are very proud of this award. Our objective shall always remain that of producing the best chocolate in the world, dedicating it to all our supporters. We thank the Academy of Chocolate for this award, and for the seriousness and passion it puts in its worldwide work in search of good quality chocolate.”

Here is their announcement, edited slightly, because while I respect their palates, “harbouring” all those “colourful” extra ‘u’s hogs up RAM on my “computour.”

(more…)

With these words ripe on the tongue, bite into the Vosges Bacon Chocolate Bar, officially known as Mo’s Bacon Bar. The bacon bar is a dark milk chocolate, combined with applewood smoked bacon, alder smoked salt, and 41% deep milk chocolate.

Vosges Haut-Chocolat is rightly famed for the witty and trendy blends concocted by Vosges founder Katrina Markoff, who possesses that rare blend of skills that ranges from concocting to packaging to marketing chocolate. As the list of chocolate candy bars grows (and I will always take off my hat to Katrina for making flavored chocolate bars and calling them “candy bars.” Humility? Playfulness?), the genesis and of ever-more daring and bold entries seems inevitable. My personal feelings toward the incessant perfection of the Vosges candy bar has gone from weariness to resignation to acceptance to embrace to enthusiasm. Vosges candy bars exhibit the clarity of purpose and democratic elegance of a backyard chicken coop.

So what does it taste like?

(more…)

What diabolical corporate machinations could be responsible for such a tragedy?After much digging, I found the answer: managerial comparison engines.Yes indeed, managerial comparison engines are to blame.If you are not familiar with this form of apparatus, I should clarify that these engines of the are the intellectual sort: there are no now managerial comparison engine powered electric toothbrushes or managerial comparison mid-engine powered Maserati MC12s.

So, to find the explanation for the mysteriously disappearing Domori Blacksal, we go to last years news that Domori was acquired by GRUPPO ILLY SPA, the monster espresso company.Illy took 80% of Domori’s shares for an undisclosed amount, with Domori retaining 20% ownership. Presumeably Domori retained substantial control over the direction and quality of its chocolate production.So why kill something so poetic as Ecuador cacao spangled with Andean salt?

(more…)

But as with everything in life, the devil is in the detail. Salted 80% dark Italian blended chocolate (Salinae bar by Antica Dolceria Bonajuto) has nothing to do with 80% dark Italian Ecuadorian chocolate a chocolate (Blacksal by Domori), which in turn has virtually nothing in common with a 74% dark Italian blended chocolate served up side by side with Trapani and Cervia sea salts (Cioccolato Fondente al Sale di Cervia by Cioccolato di BruCo).

The power of salt to coax out, elucidate, and expand on the flavor of food does not stop with the savory. Actually, the idea that sweet and savory are somehow opposite is strange, and actually at odds with our natural affinity for diversity and complexity in food. Eat Ethiopian and you will find your fingers plunged in sugar on lamb with tamarind; eat dim sum and half the time you are eating donuts and pork. My grandpa was in love with apple pie with cheddar cheese. At any rate, chocolate is not even a sweet until after it is sweetened, and that can be done with much more deftness than is common.

(more…)

Looking for something delicate? Try Valrhona’s Chuao Bar from 2002. Looking for something with perfect, silky body? Try Valrhona’s 2002 cru bar from the Chuao valley in Venezuela. In the mood for understated yet superb balance of flavors? Why not the I suggest the 2002 Chuao Chocolate Bar by Valrhona? Looking for the perfect, brilliant mirror, crisp snap, lovely fragrance? Try Valrhona 2002 Chuao Chocolate Bar. Does eating one of the best freaking chocolate bars on the face of the earth strike your fancy? Valrhona 2002 Chuao cru chocolate bar.

Just want a dark chocolate bar that is super freaking yummy? Valrhona 2002 Chuao chocolate bar.

So, imagine my reaction to reading Bill Buford’s encomium to Frederick Schilling, founder of Dagoba Organic Chocolate, printed in this week’s New Yorker.

Buford writes: “Some bars have a harvest year. I got one from an Internet supplier, a 2002, made from ChuaoValley beans in Venezuela, three years past its sell-by date. Suspecting a gimmick, I ate it to confirm its staleness. I was surprised. It seemed fresher than the other bars I’d bought.”

“Seemed fresher?” That’s it? Buford bites into a piece of chocolate making history, and his comment is, “seemed fresher?” What the hell…

I love Buford as much as the next guy, but his economy of words here comes at the expense of his readers. One wonders if Buford, eating a seven course meal at Le Bernardin, summarizes the experience with, “Seemed Eric Ripert used fish.”

(more…)

Answer: A coffee bar.

Caffe Acapella has created a bar replacing chocolate solids with coffee solids. Or to be precise, they blend cocoa butter coffee mass to create a chocolate/coffee bar. Caffe Acapella makes a Caffe Acapella espresso bar called the Espresso Serenade (just plain espresso blend (of three arabica beans) and a Caffe Acapella cappuccino bar called the Cappuccino Connoisseur. I met the folks at Caffe Acapella in New York a few months ago. They had the zealous rabid glow of belief in what they were doing that is agreeable in anyone working in food.

(more…)