You may have come across novelty chocolate “LPs” at some point in your “chocolating” explorations. Yet have you ever heard about an edible and playable single? That is what one pastry chef in Fife, Scotland has done to help promote a local band. Watch this VIDEO on how he accomplished this feat. So, I guess you can now have your music and eat it, too!

Over two years ago I had the privilege of meeting Roger Anunsen from mindRAMP & Associates. Roger is doing amazing work educating people, particularly seniors, about maintaining and improving brain health.

Since our meeting in Lake Oswego, Roger has invited me to participate in a number of his seminars in Clackamas and Yamhill Counties. Most recently this past winter, I found myself at Capital Community TV in Salem, Oregon, filming a segment for a brain health series in front of a live studio audience. Why the connection? The current research on the relationship between chocolate and brain activity is extremely fascinating!

I encourage you to view this VIDEO (Please note that there are actually three parts in this series- all are definitely worth viewing).  Also visit mindRAMP’s website and their impressive list of classes and workshops Roger and his business partner, Michael C. Patterson, are giving primarily in the greater Portland Metro, Idaho and Maryland.

Please spread the word about mindRAMP’s‘s important mission. It will be interesting to see where all this research leads to- hopefully to more chocolate and healthier minds! I hope to have the opportunity to work with Roger again soon.

What I love almost more than chocolate, are the stories of the people behind the chocolate companies and their creations.  Case in point: Seattle’s Dilettante Chocolates which was founded in 1976. However, when you experience their chocolates, you embrace a culinary heritage and tradition that began over 120 years ago.

My relationship with Dilettante started in the early ‘80s when I began offering chocolate tastings in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have always been special to me because Dilettante was the first company outside of Northern California to send me samples.  I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with the company founder, Dana Taylor Davenport, at the Seattle Chocolate Salon in 2008. So several months ago when I was asked by Chocolate.com, a great one-stop chocolate website, to sample and review some products from Dilettante, needless to say, I was thrilled.

I was sent two packages of their Truffle Cremes:  Emphemere and Coffee Trio.  Each 10 ounce gift box houses about 28 individually foil-wrapped confections.   Truffle Crèmes, created by Dana, are rectangular pieces of ganache enveloped in special blends of cacao.  All the cacao used in  these products are sourced from the Ivory Coast and Ecuador.

Ephemere Double Dark Chocolate

Ephemere No. 52 is named after the French word for ephemeral, which means short lasting. As Dilettante explains on it’s packaging, ephemere (eff*e*meer) describes a brief, ethereal experience of intense pleasure. What gives Ephemere its special flavor notes are lightly browned butter, caramelized cream, with a hint of vanilla.

When you unwrap the elegant black and silver foil of this truffle creme, the intense chocolate aroma is evident. When you bite into it, you discover a very dense, smooth and creamy interior. The flavor is rich and chocolatey with caramel tones. It is covered with dark chocolate couverture (53% cacao) from the Ivory Coast and Ecuador and the entire piece contains 55% cacao mass. These cremes would satisfy the cravings of anyone who loves chocolate- on the darker side.

One friend felt there was a disagreeable aftertaste. That wasn’t the case for my husband or myself, however, I did detect a slight astringency afterward. This reminds me that everyone’s collection of taste buds is so unique. For more information on the art of chocolate tasting, please go here.

Espresso No. 51: Nice coffee aroma and flavor. I was surprised to find a grainy, almost gritty mouth feel. As I discovered from the package description, this is the result of coffee being blended into the dark chocolate ganache. I loved the contrast in texture. There is double dark chocolate goodness here: in and out.

Mocha No. 38:  This one also had a slightly grainy mouth feel due to the bits of coffee inside, but not so much as the Espresso. Much more sweeter since it is entirely made with milk chocolate. Very rich, smooth and creamy. It was also softer in consistency.

Creamy Latte No. 03: This double milk confection had a more subtle coffee flavor, as you would expect from its name.  It was amazingly creamy and rather sweet.

Loved the look of the cream, copper and dark brown foil wrapping in the Trio box and having all three color-coded varieties in one box. I’m not the biggest coffee drinker in the world, however, these morsels made me want to grab a cappuccino which would compliment them beautifully. This assortment is definitely the choice for the coffee lovers in your life.

Overall, I liked the smoothness and thin chocolate coating over the pieces of  delicious ganache in these Truffle Cremes – it is apparent how they got their name. The rectangular shape of these rich morsels was just the right size.  Being individually wrapped, they are easy to transport. In fact, I brought some with me on a recent plane trip and even though these pieces became slightly bloomed, this didn’t affect the taste or distract from the overall tasting experience. (So be sure to store your chocolate properly- this topic will have to wait for another post!). Would also love to see more Truffle Creme variety packs since it was nice to have an assortment to choose from in the Coffee Trio and this might encourage one to try more of their different flavors.

Dilettante is an important part of the Seattle chocolate scene. If you are at the Seattle Chocolate Salon in May, make a point to visit one of the 5 Dilettante’s Mocha Cafes or their Mocha Martini Bar in the area. You can get more information on their cafes and the fascinating history of this company here. Each piece of their chocolate, manufactured in Kent, Washington, is a delicious morsel of fine confection and history rolled into one.

I’m grateful to Chocolate.com for the opportunity to review these products and for the fact that, after three generations, the dominant gene for the “chocolate obsession trait” is fully expressed in Dana! I hope you, too, will enjoy these delectable cremes from the Emerald City!

Ever hear “you can’t have too much of a good thing?” Have a hard time deciding which dessert to eat or bake? If so, you’ll agree that the following recipes take this old saying, eating AND baking to a whole new level.

The first one is for Chocolate Choreos: Two Cookies in One. Here you take an Oreo cookie, the 1912 Nabisco sensation, and envelope it in a warm and wonderful chocolate chip cookie, the craze Ruth Wakefield accidentally invented back in 1930.

Chocolate Choreos

The second is for Triple Chocolate Stuffed Cookies. Think of a rich, chip embedded brownie surrounding yet another Toll House-inspired double chocolate chip cookie.

Triple Chocolate Stuffed Cookies

Seems as if the inspiration for these two creations was  Charles Phoenix’s 2009 creation:  The Cherumple Cake- a cherry pie, pumpkin pie and apple pie all baked into one amazing cake. If you haven’t seen this video, might want to check it out before making your next dessert.

You can take these recipes even further. As someone suggested, dip the Oreos in chocolate before baking, thus adding layer upon layer of delight. You get the idea! It would be fun to hear what other modifications you develop.

Go ahead, and have it all. I think Ruth Wakefield of  Toll House cookie fame, would be quite impressed.  We’ve sure come a long way, baby!

Never thought a hot beverage would ever rival my love of hot chocolate. Then along came masala chai, or chai tea. Think of chai as the beverage counterpart to curry: Both originated in India and both are a mixture of spices.

Chai is primarily a blend of aromatic spices such as ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom seeped in black tea. The variations are endless, depending on the geographic region and family recipes being passed down from generation to generation.

Oregon Chai helped bring chai to the masses in the early ‘90’s. Luckily many companies are now offering products with various degrees of sweetness and spice intensity. Of the store bought brands, I prefer DragonFly Chai which is also produced in Oregon. (What is this with the Beaver State and chai?!) However one day, after receiving a recipe from a coworker, I started experimenting with different combination and proportion of ingredients.

Now add chocolate to the mix and you have an incredible win-win combination! You’ll never have to choose between them again. Below is a recipe shared by Byrn Kirk, co-founder of Chocolate University Online:

CHOCOLATE CHAI

• 4 cardamom pods, cracked
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 whole cloves
• 1/4 tsp. anise seed
• 2 slices fresh ginger, peeled
• 2 cups water
• 2 black tea bags
• 2 Tbsp. unsweetened natural cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups unsweetened soymilk
• 3 Tbsp. honey

Place the spices in a medium sized saucepan, add the 2 cups of water and heat on medium-high. When water reaches a simmering boil, cover and heat for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add tea bags and steep for 4 to 5 minutes. Remove tea bags and add spices.  Cover, and steep with spices for 20 minutes. Strain tea to remove spices, and return spiced tea to the saucepan. In a separate small bowl, whisk cocoa with 1/2 cup of the hot spiced tea until dissolved.  Add this to the larger body of tea. Mix in vanilla, and soy milk. Heat until steaming, stirring often. Sweeten with honey and serve hot.

I invite you to give this version a try. Have fun tweaking the ingredients, along with your favorite natural or dutched cocoa powder and steamed/frothed milk or milk alternative (I tend to prefer almond milk).  With time and patience,  you will produce a comforting, creamy treat that will make your senses sing. It would be fun to see what you come up with. Just remember, like all matters of tasting, it’s very personal. Enjoy!

Here are two desserts for you to experience this winter. The first, from Chow and The New Spanish Table by Anya von Bremzen, is called Chocolate Mousse with Olive Oil and Flaky Salt.

Mousse, from a French word that means “to lather or foam,” is whipped to incorporate air to give it generally a light and fluffy texture. However, depending on how it is prepared it can range from airy to creamy even thick in consistency.

As you can tell by the title, it uses olive oil, giving it a distinctively delicious taste.  Stop by The Oilerie in Lake Oswego so Blake and Marta can suggest specific olive oils to use for this recipe.

What is flaky sea salt you may ask? Flakey salt is irregular in shape, not like uniform table salt crystals, so it melts differently on your tongue, creating a more intense flavor experience. If you have a few minutes, you might want to watch Alton Brown’s Salt 101 site to find out more- very informative and amusing.

The second recipe is for a Northwest tradition of “Moose Munch” made popular by Harry & David of Medford, Oregon. This homemade blend of popcorn, caramel, salted nuts and chocolate is heavenly.

Experiment with your favorite eating chocolate bars for drizzling and mixed nut combination. A mixture of milk and dark chocolate drizzles creates a nice visual effect. Also try kettle corn, popcorn that has a light coating of sugar and salt, if you want your munch to be lower on the sweetness scale.

Enjoy and have a great start to the New Year!

There is a special romance about Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula…fingers of land covered with evergreen and deciduous trees surrounded by the fjord-like waters of Puget Sound, a section of the regional Salish Sea. In late September autumn colors are just emerging and the ever changing patterns of fog against this backdrop with misty skies melting into warm  afternoons is especially picturesque.

Since I can remember, I’ve had the NW pulling at my heart strings. My first trip from California was in 1971 with  family and friends. This was followed by a series of trips as an adult beginning in the mid-80′s. Hwy 101 was a familiar route through the coast redwoods, with me usually turning west at the top of the peninsula to Port Angeles to catch a ferry to Victoria, BC or to go to the inspiring Olympic National Park. Years later I would hear about a coastal town to the east of the fork, on Hwy 20, that was rich in culture and maritime history.

Sometimes called the Sausalito of Washington, Port Townsend is  located approximately 40 miles northeast from Seattle. It is a beautiful Victorian seaport that had high hopes in the late 1800′s. Confident to become the major sea port in Puget Sound, Port Townsend residents’ bubble burst when the railroad decided to go to Tacoma instead. It is now famous for its beautifully restored grand residential, civic and commercial buildings, fit for a would-be major port, and its annual Wooden Boat Festival which will be celebrating its 35th year the second weekend of 2011. Today the town is one of only three National Historic Landmark Victorian seaports in the US. The other two being Cape May in New Jersey and Galveston, Texas.

For those with a sweet tooth (or teeth), no visit to Port Townsend is complete without a stop at Elevated Ice Cream Company & Candy Shop, located on Water Street, just a few blocks down from the Maritime History Center. This spacious business takes up two two adjoining buildings; one houses its ice cream parlor and the other their candy shop.

As I was looking around the shop and taking a few photos, I met the owners Julie & David McCulloch.  I first heard of this sweet confectionery while surfing the internet a number of years ago so it was wonderful to meet the people behind this successful local company. They began their sweet venture as a street vendor just across the street. What made them stand out, starting in 1977, is that they served ice cream from an old Victorian elevator cage, thus their name. They have been at their current location since 1978. In the summer of 2001 they had the distinction of being chosen by The Travel Channel (think Samantha Brown) identified Elevated Ice Cream Company. as one of the seven best ice cream parlors in the country.

During our visit, my husband Tom had a single cone of their Blind Love ice cream:  an extra- chocolatey  flavor made with Guittard Jersey cocoa and bittersweet flakes. They generally have 18 flavors of ice cream available, along with a few sherberts and about 8 flavors of Italian ice, a dairy-free dessert made with fruit. I had a cup of their chocolate and raspberry ices; both were surprising creamy and packed full of flavor.

The McCulloughs are big fans of the family owned chocolate manufacturer, Guittard, and they’ve been using their products for 33 years. They make batches of  their ice cream several times a week to insure freshness. They also price their offerings by the ounce which I had personally never seen before. Their candy shop features some wonderful confections , fudge, as well as a wall of carefully selected artisan chocolate bars from around the world.

In life, it is always important to remember your roots. Sticking true to their roots, their motto is “Lift Your Spirits.”  In the case of Elevated Ice Cream & Candy Company, there is also a metal reminder located diagonally across the street. The plants around the old elevator cage continues to grow with time, just like the number of fans of this 33 year old Pt. Townsend tradition. Why not make a trip to this eclectic seaside town or at at least visit them on the web here. Some chocolate sweetness and a new turn in the road of life can be just what your spirit needs.

There are many factors that affect the world’s supply of cacao beans: weather patterns, fungal infections, demand, cocoa prices, and production. Last month, another one was added to the mix for this important commodity: hedge funds. These are an investment partnership where the manager, typically the person who created it, gets paid a percentage of the profits. Armajaro, a progressive  London-based commodities and financial services company created a hedge fund and took physical control of 7% of the world’s annual cacao production. They paid a little over $1 billion for 240,100 metric tonnes (529,420,500 pounds), which comes out to about $2 per pound.  All these beans are now stored in undisclosed refrigerated locations across Europe and can stay there for up to 20 years. It’ll be interesting to see how this recent event will play out in the world of chocolate economics.

You know, all this talk about hedge funds got me thinking about chocolate hedge hogs- so I digress! Jaciva’s Chocolates in SE Portland is produces some of these sweet confections. So while the world’s commodity markets are keeping tabs on Armajaro, you can invest your time by taking a nibble at these delicious creations!

When we visited Portland in the late 1990’s, my husband and I have fond memories of going to The American Advertising Museum that was located in Old Town. Don’t know if it was because I thought Darren’s job as an ad designer on the television show Bewitched was fascinating (LOL), but I’ve always loved good advertising.

Opened in 1986, this museum was the brain child of Mick Scott and Leonard W. Lanfranco.  We had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Lanfranco because of his terrific daughter and family lived across the street from us. For 14 years the AAM was the only one of its kind in the world. It was even featured in a 1999 episode of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. It is also interesting to note that Homer P. Groening, Matt Groening’s father, was one of the founding directors of the museum. Unfortunately this unique local resource closed its doors in 2004. However, their impressive collection of advertising exhibits from the 18^th century to the present was acquired by the Eisner Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On the international advertising scene, some creative minds have in recent years given birth to some outlandish chocolate ads in the forms of bulletin boards and videos.

Several years ago brought what appears to be the first edible chocolate billboard. It was unveiled in London and created for Britain’s Thornton’s Chocolates.  It took 3 months to plan and 300 hours for a team of 10 to build. 860 pounds of chocolate was used and the sign measured 14/5 x 9.5 feet in size.  They thought it would last a week. Apparently all of the edible portions were gobbled up by the public in only 3 hours!  What the gamble- luckily it wasn’t presented during a warm spell.

Across the pond in Toronto, there was a huge Cadbury Milk bar complete with human figures ripping the wrapper off. Although not edible, you have to admit this bulletin board had more staying power!

A video released just last month, featuring Cadbury’s Flake chocolate bar, is a bit more dramatic. Before you view this video, it may helpful to know that the manufacturing technique to create its folds of delicately, texture is secretly guarded. The ad took three weeks to create and used 600 yards of fabric to mimic the folds of the chocolate bar.

In February of 2009, Cadbury also designed an interactive billboard built to respond to the Toronto’s local weather conditions. Called Release the Goo, it included a long teeter-tooter that had a giant (almost 5 foot tall) Cadbry Crème Egg on one end with a container on the other to collect Toronto’s rain, snow and hail. As this catch basin was lowered the egg went up and with a plan of encountering a fan that would break the egg open and de-goo it, so to speak. Not sure if the egg was ever actually de-gooed before the Easter deadline. They had a live webcam available so the Canadians could keep tabs on the progress.

This last ad campaign got me thinking. Toronto gets about 31 inches of precipitation a year and we here in the Portland, Oregon area gets over 37 inches. Maybe our famous, yet ill-fated Weather Machine (it was rammed by a city garbage truck a few years ago)  in Pioneer Courthouse Square just needs a touch of… chocolate pr  : )

It will be fun to see what the advertising minds of the world come up with in the years ahead! Happy Chocolating!

Chocolate festivals are very popular and there seems to be one in every community.  Luckily for us here in Portland, we have several to look forward to each year:

The Portland Chocolate Festival, held at the World Forestry Center in  January, grows by leaps and bounds each year. Ashland’s Oregon Chocolate Festival, held each March,  is in it’s 7th year.  Then the 3rd annual Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon is coming up on Sunday, July 11th.

Traditionally held on Bastille Day weekend, this event is hosted by Taste TV, the same organization that puts on similar events in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. The venue is the Bell Harbor Conference Center, beautifully located on Pier 66 along the waterfront.

Tickets are $20 with advanced purchase (until July 9th), and $25 at the door. This fee includes all chocolate & confection tastings, classes, and demonstrations.  There will be samples to savor from over 24 chocolatiers, confectioners, wineries, and other culinary artisans.  You can get more information and see footage from the 2009 salon here.

I attended the first annual back in 2008 and felt it was worth the trip. However, at an event like this here are a few suggestions to help insure a delicious and memorable experience:

*  It can get very crowded, so it is a good idea to get their early.
*  Pace yourself-there is no way a person can eat a sample from each of the vendors and not go into glycemic over-load. Bring a bottle of water, some crackers and a protein source like almonds to eat between treats.
*  Some folks, unfortunately, attend with the goal of getting their admission fee worth of chocolate. (It is the one feature of an event like this that can leave, well, a bad taste in your mouth). As a result, containers are not allowed in fear of this potential hording behavior. So I’d recommend bringing a discreet and sturdy baggie. That way you can nibble on a sample and save the remainder for later and to compare notes.
*  Since we’re ‘on the topic of containers, it is also good to have something to put any accumulated  literature or items you purchase.
*  Take breaks- especially if it is a nice day out. Just outside are amazing views of the Olympic Peninsula.
*  If you rather spend all your money on chocolate, you might consider bringing a lunch to enjoy either on the premises or outside along the waterfront.
*  Above all, I’d also encourage participants to ask the vendors questions. It will make your visit and their time more enjoyable.

There will be chocolate companies from the Puget Sound area, and some Portland companies have been represented in the past such as Alma Chocolates and Missionary Chocolates. Others may be from quite a distance away, such as Amano from Orem, Utah. Another chocolatier to keep your eye out for is William Dean Chocolates from Largo, Florida,  who has won awards at previous salons.

If you decide to make a day or weekend out of it, check out this blog post with other “chocolating” ideas in the Emerald City.

Please let us know your impressions if you do head up for this or any other chocolate event.