This past weekend, Dan, Eric, Angie and I trekked (in the car, that is) two and a half hours to the Berkshires of Massachusetts to make a day out of two stops (three if you count McDonalds on the way - which is a road trip staple, in my opinion): The first was the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. The second was Chocolate Springs in Lenox.

Chocolate Springs is an artisan chocolatier that I discovered a few years ago (in Boston you can get their chocolates at Formaggio Kitchen). This past Saturday was the first time I visited their chocolate cafe. The beautiful cafe (which is also where they make their chocolate confections) offers countless varieties of handmade truffles that range from classic to quite curious, pure chocolate bars and chocolate dipped goodies , lovely cakes and confections, truffle and nougat bars, mini chocolate sculptures, the ideal hot chocolate, and other chocolate treats too numerous to name. And it's a cafe, so that means that there are tables where you can sit with your friends. And we did, for around 2 hours.


Chocolate tasting with good people is, without a doubt, the very delicious reason that I got so into chocolate in the first place. Here's a great idea for a fun afternoon for four friends:

• Go to the nearest chocolate boutique that offers table seating
  
• Select 10 chocolates (to start) and grab a bottle of water for each of you
  
• Cut each truffle or chocolate into 4 pieces
  
• Taste each chocolate as a group and have a fabulous, magical afternoon
  
• And then get a light dinner somewhere after (Optional, but highly recommended)
  

With the guidance of Chocolate Springs' passionate chocolatier, Joshua Needleman and a few tips from his staff, we picked out around 12 different chocolates to taste. What is truly remarkable about Chocolate Springs is the utter purity of flavor in each one. I haven't had their truffles in a little while, but I do remember the pure, crisp flavors, and I'm thrilled that the quality of their flavors is still just as distinct. There were a couple items we tried that, quite literally, blew us all away. Here's an abbreviated list of our favorites:

Creme Brulee: A white chocolate ganache sprinkled with flakes of burnt sugar and dipped in dark chocolate. Wonderful texture, at once smooth and creamy and a tiny bit crunchy sweet.

Rose Tea: A black tea truffle. The tannins from the tea leaves come through in a very interesting way in this tea truffle (as well as other tea truffles that we tried), leaving that sensation on your palette that you have when you've just had a cup of tea.

Venus: This milk chocolate ganache with a touch of rum was an all around favorite. On a side note, we all noticed that this truffle looks somewhat... female. And then Joshua told me that truffle is, indeed, a nipple-inspired design, hence the name Venus (originally "Venus' Nipple").

Mint: Oh fresh mint leaves. Why are you not utilized in more desserts? (Garnish doesn't count.) This truffle was so fresh and delicious. Another instant favorite.

Jas-tea-sia: This was the one that blew us all away. They didn't have any Jas-tea-sia truffles left, so we would not have had the chance to experience this chocolate miracle if Joshua had not popped by our table offering a tiny vessel of freshly made Jasmine tea ganache and 4 spoons. Utterly fascinating. The tannins came through alongside all of the subtleties of gentle, complex Jasmine green tea.

A few more pics from our daytrip on are on flickr.

So I realize that I'm falling a little behind on my posts for Hot Chocolate Fortnight at The Tasty Show. That said, I've decided to extend my deadline. This 'fortnight' will now last through the end of the month and is thus renamed Hot Chocolate Month at The Tasty Show.

Hot Cocoa at Athan's
Moving right along, my friend Jon and I went to Athan's European Bakery in Brookline to check out their hot chocolate. First let me say that Athan's is hands down one of my favorite pastry shops in the city. Their goods are European-style and the owners are Greek, so we've got fruit tarts, classic orange pound cakes, French-style mousse tortes, individual tiramisus, napoleons, and panna cottas alongside a wide array of baklavas, shortbread biscuits, and chocolates.

That said, I had high expectations for the hot chocolate. Probably too high. Athan's offers a hot cocoa (rather than hot chocolate) that is quite sweet, with more of an overall sugary sensation that real cocoa flavor. Jon said that it reminded him of Swiss Miss, and I have to agree that it was kind of instant-y. The hot cocoa at Athan's is made of dutch processed cocoa, dried skim milk, cornstarch, confectioners sugar, and Callebaut milk chocolate. I'm surprised by the use of milk chocolate - I wonder if it would be more up my alley if it was dark? Either way, I'm probably going to stick with the solid sweets at Athans, rather than the liquid ones.

We did, however, ask a lovely Athan's barista for suggestions on what treats to enjoy alongside our cuppa cocoa. She directed us to a bunch of little cubbies that held all different kinds of shortbread-type cookies, which she called biscuits. We tried all sorts of delicious ones and they do, indeed, pair extremely well. Similarly to the brioche that we had with the hot chocolate at Flour, these biscuits were simple and not extremely sweet. And they are dry and crumbly and a little crunchy in a really awesome, satisfying way, particularly when enjoyed with hot chocolate. We tried an almond flavor, a coconut cherry pistachio, and a mustokouloura, which is made with grape molasses and sesame.

Conclusion [regarding hot chocolate + dessert pairing]
Shortbread! Rich, buttery, but not overly sweet shortbread. Delicious with hot chocolate! Not everyone can pop over and pick up some of Athan's delicious shortbread-like biscuits, but shortbread is available everywhere in one form or another and pairs beautifully.

I just added a new category to my blog. It's called "Best Day Ever." I added it in honor of this past Sunday, which was the best day ever. It was such a great day because I spent most of it either (a) in a car with seat warmers (b) eating chocolate (c) drinking beer or (d) eating ice cream - all things that I greatly enjoy.

First Stop: The Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory in Burlington Vermont.

So here's the thing, The Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory isn't really open on Sundays. But the Factory store is, so that's where we went. Lake Champlain is a fabulous company. While I was there, I sampled truffles (both their classic truffles and a newer, smaller line that uses more exotic flavors called Small World truffles that I haven't had before) and stocked up on 5 Star Bars, which are some of the most amazing candy bars I've ever had. Though I couldn't take a tour of the factory like I hoped, I did get to peek through the window and see where all the action happens (that's me peeking in the pic at left).

Second Stop: Magic Hat Brewery in South Burlington, Vermont

I got so drunk at the Magic Hat brewery that I forgot to take pictures. Just kidding. I only got a little bit drunk. But still, I forgot to take pictures so I'm including a nice picture of a Vermont tree instead. While I was at the brewery, I got to taste a bunch of beers that they only have in-house, and that you can't actually buy anywhere except for at the brewery itself. I'm feeling a little ambivalent about posting about them... because, as I said, it's really just a tease since you can't even get them anywhere. Here's my favorite of what I tried:

Magic Hat Thumbsucker: An incredible Imperial Stout that pours almost black with notes of dark chocolate and black cherry. This would make an awesome pairing with a classic dark chocolate truffle flavored with cognac - but is a little heavy for purposes other than tasting or pairing.

Third Stop: Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, Vermont

Our stop at Ben & Jerry's was short and sweet. First we walked up some stairs to watch a mooo-vie (some people chose to use the Vanillalator instead of the stairs...) where we learned that Ben & Jerry met in gym class in 7th grade and then took an ice cream making class that cost $5. Then we looked into a big room where they make ice cream and then we went to another room where we had a delicious sample of Ben & Jerry's most popular ice cream flavor, which is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. (Note that Cherry Garcia is a close second.)

A quick sidenote: While we were in the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory store, I made friends with the lovely girls who worked there, who made us a Vanilla Latte with real whole vanilla beans. We were such good friends that they clued me in on to how they make it. They use vanilla milk as their base - here's how to make vanilla milk at home:

Vanilla Milk
2 pints of whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean

Pour the milk into a heavy bottom saucepan. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the saucepan, then put in the vanilla bean's outer skin as well. Add the sugar, stir around a bit, and then scald to 150 degrees over med-low heat stirring constantly. (See note on scalding from this previous post.) Once that's all done, either use it right away or allow the milk to cool slightly, pour into a separate container, and keep in fridge until you want to use it. Remove the pieces of vanilla bean pod before using.

Vanilla milk doesn't have any specific uses - but it's quite delicious. I might use it for as a base for a particularly aromatic hot chocolate, froth it to top a cappuccino, add it to coffee or tea instead of regular milk, or just drink it, hot or cold.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Larry, co-founder of Taza Chocolate last week. Taza Chocolate is a pure chocolate-maker based in Somerville, MA (which is the very same town I live in). They released their very first bar, a 70%, this past winter, and then followed shortly after with an 80%. So last week I was excited to learn that they are rounding out their line with a third bar, this one a 60%, which will be coming out within a couple weeks. Taza's chocolate bars are stone-ground using antique Mexican molinos (stone grinders). When I was at their chocolate studio a few months ago, the Taza guys explained that using a stone grinder (rather than a steel grinder, which is what most other chocolate-makers use) to process their cacao preserves more of the natural flavor of the bean. They have an online chocolate journal that has some pictures of the molino and explanations of exactly how their chocolate is made.

Taza 60% Stone Ground Organic Dark Chocolate: I have to admit that I shared this bar with all sorts of people and did not end up being able to taste a whole lot of it. But what I did manage to note was its earthiness and bold notes of raisin and spice. The Taza bars most certainly do not fall in the smooth and velvety category. The bars are minimally refined in order to keep the chocolate flavor as close to the natural form and flavor of raw cacao as possible. That said, the mouthfeel is quite textured and a little gritty; overall, a wholly different experience than other pure chocolates. I'll have more indepth tasting notes once the bar comes out.

So once the 60% bar is out, I'll post an update! In the meantime, you can get Taza Chocolate's other bars online or at one of these places.

Early this past August, Godiva Chocolatier's parent company Campbell Soup Co. announced that Godiva is kind of the odd one out in light of the rest of Campbell Soup's products, and they are therefore looking into parting ways with the brand, possibly by selling it. Too sweet and glitzy to fit in with V8 and SpaghettiOs, apparently. The Campbell Soup Company has owned Godiva for around 40 years. The original company was a wholesale chocolate outfit that started up in Belgium in the 1920s and then morphed into a retail shop around 1940, and was at that point named after the legendary Lady Godiva, who rode around naked on a horse to help out some peasants sometime during the 11th century. In the mid 1960s, the company was partially acquired by Pepperidge Farms, and was owned wholly by Campbell shortly thereafter.

So who's going to be the big buyer? Hersheys? Mars? As much as another lux brand seems right up Hershey's alley, yesterday I heard that Switzerland's Lindt & Spruengli wants first dibs.

And here's one more 'fact' about Godiva that I just can't resist:

"When pronounced "G'dai, Va!" the name may be mistaken for an Australian greeting to a person named Va." (Courtesy of Wikipedia.)

I went over to the South End for brunch this past Sunday and happed to stop by two boutiques that have been on my places-I-need-to-stop-by list for a while now:

Olde Dutch Cottage Candy: A fascinatingly eclectic space full of antique wares and old school candy. It's all about the classics here - candy lipsticks, rock candy, every kind of gumdrop and taffy among glass jars of Mary Jane candies and Squirrel Nut Zippers (it was a caramel candy made in Massachusetts before it was a band from North Carolina...), and multi-colored candy corn line the crowded counters. Candy necklaces and stuffed animals hang from the ceiling, and the cramped floorspace is stocked with antique tea sets, layers upon layers of crystal dishes, stacks of silver trays, old books, posters, and framed mirrors, various chests and antique wooden furniture pieces. I found all the penny candies that I remember from when I was little - except for flying saucers... but there was so much to look at I might have just missed them. Next time I go in there, I'll have to ask.

Choco Choco House: I've always liked Choco Choco House ever since I discovered chocolatier/founder Aliya Wali's couture chocolate purses a few years ago. Late in Fall 2006, they opened a retail boutique in the South End where they've got chocolate handbags, chocolate shoes, truffles (pictured above), and other chocolate confections. Choco Choco House has always been into using really unique flavors - rose petals, curry powder, chili pepper, lavender, and champagne (no, not all in the same recipe), among classics like cognac and hazelnut. We tried two truffles:

Goat Cheese Truffle: Chocolate and goat cheese is a combination that I have done a lot of experimentation with. As unlikely as it sounds, the tanginess of fresh goat cheese can be a heady, rich complement to chocolate. Sometime I'll have to post my recipe for fig and goat cheese appetizers with chocolate balsamic vinaigrette. Anyway, the Choco Choco House goat cheese truffle sports just a bit of tang - nothing too overpowering. It flirts with your palette, giving you a subtle introduction to a potentially explosive flavor combination. The ganache is coated with dark chocolate and cocoa powder.

Fresh Mint Truffle: This truffle was extremely herbal. It takes a step beyond plain ol' minty freshness and made its way into the grassy, earthier origins of fresh mint leaves. The texture of the ganache is quite firm and dense, similar in style to that of the goat cheese truffle.

In case anyone who watched last week's episode of Entourage was wondering which Teuscher chocolate is Lloyd's "favorite"... well, he doesn't say it straight out, but when Lloyd walks into Ari's office with a box of assorted Teuscher truffles, the light-colored (powdered sugar-dusted) ones in the center of the box are Teuscher's signature Champagne truffles. The camera then cuts to Ari, then back to Lloyd and half of the Champagne truffles are gone... so, as for his favorite, Teuscher's Champagne truffle (also my favorite) would be my guess.

In addition to the truffles, the other items we picked up at Chocolate Bar in New York over the weekend were 6 of the Chocolate Bar's Retro Bars. The Retro Bars are solid chocolate bars with really fun, retro-classic fillings like key lime pie and raspberry jam. We broke them out after we got back from a really rockin' soccer game on Saturday night. We were starving.

Key Lime Pie: Key lime cream wrapped in dark chocolate. You couldn't mistake the key lime in this one, that's for sure, though I was hoping for more actual filling. The chocolate itself was pretty thick and over powered the filling a bit.

Coconut Cream Pie: Coconut cream wrapped in dark chocolate. Pretty nice. Just coconut-y enough - though it wasn't all that creamy. Kind of the same thing as with the Key Lime Pie; I wanted more coconut creaminess but it was overpowered by the chocolate.

Raspberry Jam: Raspberry jam wrapped in dark chocolate. This one was my favorite. Bill's too. Lots of raspberry, fun contrast in textures.

Salty Pretzel Milk: Milk chocolate with salty pretzel pieces. This one's a classic - sweet, crunchy, salty delicious... Dan voted this bar his number 1.

Salty Pretzel Dark: An interesting contrast to the milk... this one was Kristi's favorite. She really liked the dark chocolate salt combination.

Caramel Apple: Apple-infused caramel wrapped in milk chocolate. This was my second favorite. Very apple-y - more so than I expected - with a nice filling-to-chocolate ratio.

Before we left New York earlier today, I stopped by Kee's Chocolate in SoHo for the first time. I had heard a lot about Kee's over the past couple years, then a couple friends urged me to check it out earlier in the weekend, so I made sure to swing in before our little NYC excursion was out. The shop was totally empty when we arrived with nothing to look at except the display case holding the truffles. Totally bare walls, nothing on the shelves... Maybe they are in the midst of renovating or something. I wanted to ask, but we had a plane to catch. (We made it, but only just.)

Kee's makes the kind of truffles I love more than any other - the kind that taste the way truffles do when a skilled chocolatier is making truffles at home in preparation for a dinner party for her close friends. Fresh, delicious, and full of love. There is one other chocolatier I've posted about recently that I placed in that category, and that's XOX in San Francisco. Kee's truffles are incredibly soft, so soft that they barely hold their shape and need to be kept cool so they don't get all melty and flatten in the summer air. The taste is big and explosive, deep, rich, and extremely memorable. The ones we tried were hand-rolled with a classic ganache center and a rough coating, one rolled in black and white sesame and the other in chopped, toasted pine nuts. (Note that Kee also does molded and dipped chocolates that sport a smooth tempered chocolate coating, but we didn't try any of those today.) I'm really into the rough coating - on one hand, it's a way to get out of tempering a melted chocolate coating if you don't feel like it, and on the other hand and more importantly, it adds awesome texture and can make the overall experience of the truffle really exciting.

I'm in love with Kee now. Really.

This weekend Dan and I are in NYC visiting close friends. In between a hectic schedule of eating, drinking, and hanging out, I managed to stop by the Chocolate Bar to pick up dessert for dinner last night. After a delicious meal of aged balsamic-drizzled steak frites (featuring no less than three varieties of 'frites' - classic pommes frites, crinkle fries, and tater tots), garlic spinach with butter-caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, the 6 of us tasted 8 varieties of truffles and bon bons. The Chocolate Bar stocks a few lines of chocolate confections, one of which is made by Andrew Schotts of Garrison Confections. Those are the ones we tried. Garrison's confections feature a square-cut soft ganache, sometimes layered with pate de fruit or infused cream, enrobed in a thin layer of chocolate. Their line is all about creative harmonies of classic flavors, spice, and several exotic fruits (pomegranate, mango, guava, etc.). This line would be a good fit for a chocolate lover craving a subtle twist on the classics. Here are a few highlights of what we tried:

Blood Orange: This was an all-around favorite of the set. Two layers - blood orange pate de fruit over a milk chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate.

Salted Caramel: Salt and chocolate is an incredible combination, and this is one of of Garrison Confections' best sellers. This confection featured a mildly salty, soft caramel center enrobed in dark chocolate. (It also had a thicker chocolate coating than the rest of the chocolates we tried, which intensified the blend of sweet and salty, and made sure that the chocolate wasn't overpowered by the sweetness of the caramel.)

Pomegranate: This one was Bill's favorite. A layer of pomegranate pate de fruit made a lovely match with a dark chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate. The pate de fruit layer in this chocolate was thinner (1 part pate, 2 parts ganache) than that of the blood orange. The pom flavor was somewhat difficult for us to distinguish - I got a cherry-ish flavor, Kristi got more of a raspberry.

Spicy Mango: Our friend Karl picked this one out as an 'appetizer' to eat in the car on the way back from the boutique. It started off with the mango flavor and ended with a spicy kick that lasted well beyond the point that the chocolate was gone. In spicy chocolates, I often find that the spice comes in later on in the game, kicking things up a bit in the last few moments and lingering on into the aftertaste.

The other flavors we tried were:
PB Sizzle: Peanut butter + a bit of cayenne pepper
Caipirinha: Fresh lime juice + casacha infused in a milk chocolate ganache, enrobed in milk chocolate.
Single Origin: Classic truffle made with single origin chocolate, though oddly, no one at the boutique knew what origin the chocolate was actually from, we just knew that it all comes from one place...
Cafe Cubano: Coffee infused milk chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate.

And as a last aside, somewhere in the middle of our chocolate tasting, we took a little break for some gelato from Il Laboratorio Del Gelato . Two flavors - peanut butter and mint chip. Pretty sweet. When we were picking up a few pints at Il Laboratario's gelato boutique earlier in the day, I also tried their honey lavender flavor, which was fascinating. Our friend Bill took us there. Il Laboratorio Del Gelato is Bill's favorite gelateria in New York City.