Enric Rovira Bombolas de limon efervescente

Enric Rovira is one of the most creative chocolatiers in the world. His chocolates are not only beautiful, but creative and fun as well. Situated in Barcelona, he takes inspiration not only from that city, but also the creativity of fellow Spaniards like Gaudi.

His Bombolas are tiny foaming pellets of chocolate covered lemon candy. The chocolate is rich and not sweet, hiding the teensy explosions inside.

Browse his website. You'll be amazed at his creativity, even if you don't read Spanish.

Reviewed: Enric Rovira Bombolas de limon efervescente con chocolate negro

Personality: This is avant-garde chocolate with a lemony kick

How to enjoy: Share them, gulp them, laugh with every bite. This is a grownup's version of PopRocks. Or nibble them delicately while appearing too cool to show that you're so avant-garde.

Rating:

1: Better than sex.

2: Little bites of heaven

3: Share with your best friends, and feel like a kid again

4: Will do in a pinch

5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:

Germany: Salon du Cacao

USA: Dean and Deluca in NY http://www.urbanfare.com

UK: Harvey Nichols

Amedei Toscano Red

Amedei is a dream which takes the shape of chocolate

So true.





Amedei's current slogan demonstrates how well they know their products, their customers, and how to meet the customers' needs.

Amedei Red is a treasure of a bar. Sliding the gold-wrapped bar out of its chic black box, you can feel the luxury. Hand-wrapped in heavy gold paper, you know it's going to be special. The aroma rises immediately, and suddenly you know how "dark" smells. It smells like Amedei Red.

The first bite. What is Red? Bursts of strawberries, cherries and raspberries, which complement one of the finest chocolates I've ever eaten.

Reviewed: Amedei Red
Personality: Sexy as all get out

How to enjoy: To be enjoyed while viewing great art from Tuscany. If you can't get to Tuscany the next time you want a bite of chocolate, I recommend browsing either The Art Book, a compact book of famous paintings, or Sister Wendy's Story of Painting. Famous Tuscan artists include Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Artemisia Gentileschi.

Rating:

1: Better than sex. It's art, and art surpasses all
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy


Where to buy:
Germany: Salon du Cacao
USA: Amazon.com
UK: Chocolate Trading Co.

Nestle' Chococino

The best hot chocolate I ever had was in Tübingen, Germany last Christmas. The best mocha (coffee and chocolate combined) was at De Bijenkorf, a department store in Eindhoven, The Netherlands over 20 years ago.
At De Bijenkorf (translated loosely as "The Beehive"), they had a tiny coffee shop that was packed full on any remotely sunny day. But they knew, as do most Dutch people, how to make a good cup of coffee. Unsuspectingly, I ordered a coffee that had chocolate at the bottom. And it was gooooood.
The store's still there, but I don't know if the coffee is. If anyone goes by and checks, please let me know.
ANYway, I didn't have one of those coffees today. Only a couple of hours into my workday, the stress kicked up a notch. I really needed an emotional pick-me-up, so I decided to make a "poor engineer's" mocha. Free coffee from the coffee station, a touch of vanilla sugar, and a packet of Nestle' Chococino hot chocolate. While not a perfect mocha, it still gave me a little boost, and I got back to work quickly.
Chococino is a respectable drinking chocolate. Its strengths are the single-portion packaging and its 48% chocolate powder. Not as sweet as American hot chocolates, this is a good thing, because the chocolate flavor isn't hidden behind too much sugar.
At 98 calories per portion, it's much more energy-efficient than a candy bar. I really like the note they add to the nutrition information:

One cup of Chococino delivers as much energy as you would use on a 20-30 minute walk.

That's really neat, because it's not a punitive statement like: You'll have to walk half an hour to burn this off. Instead, they say that this tasty beverage provides you with the energy to take a nice stroll.

One additional pleasure: they've managed to create a little foam on top, and if you use coffee instead of hot water, you can almost pretend it's a cappucino.

Reviewed: Nestle' Chococino
Personality: Convenient way to put chocolate in your coffee
How to enjoy: Put a little or a lot into your coffee. Add a bit of vanilla sugar or maybe an amaretto sugar to make it more special.

Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Germany: Buy them locally at many grocery stores. I don't know about anywhere else. Let me know if you can find it where you are.

Leonidas open stock redux

... continued from previous post:
The first testing out of the Leonidas package was wonderful, and now it's time to find out about the rest of the chocolates.
I'll add now that a lovely rainy afternoon, a little Jane Eyre, and a nice cup of coffee is another great way to enjoy these jewels.

• Dark chocolate ganache: rich deep chocolate, smooth ganache, wonderful orange flavor
• Europe: tasty rum filling, not too heavy on the rum
• Carre´ croquant: needed a bit more croquant, but what was there tasted fine. Good in both dark and milk, with the dark tasting a bit better
• Princess Enrobee´: wonderful combination of hazelnut nougat and dark chocolate!
• Moka Dark: probably the best mocha ganache I've ever tasted

There you have it, dear readers. The entire selection. When you want to impress someone, this is definitely a brand to consider.

Reviewed: Leonidas selection
Personality: Sophisticated, deserving their excellent reputation
How to enjoy: Drink a nice glass of wine, some soft music, and give these wonderful chocolates a little quality time.

Rating:
1: Better than sex, but have it packed in a nice gift box before traveling
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy
Where to buy:
Germany, US, UK: Buy them locally at one of the 1400 or so stores worldwide. Use the Storefinder to find a store within a few hundred miles.
Online: go to their online store

Leonidas open stock

On a recent trip to Strasbourg, France, we visited the cathedral. Right across from the cathedral is the Maison Kammerzell, a house from 1427. This picture from a hundred years ago shows the beauty of this amazing building. The house itself contains a hotel and a very expensive, very touristy restaurant.
Just across the street from Maison Kammerzell is a Leonidas store. Their chocolates are world famous. We stopped in just long enough to buy a selection of pralines and jellies, then we put them in the car and enjoyed the rest of the day with friends. The chocolates seem a bit worse for the wear, but the jellies made the 2 hour drive just fine. These fruit juice flavored jellies were yummy, but not the focus of this blog, so all you get here is one pretty picture of these fruit-shaped jewels.
The shopkeeper created a nice selection for us, with the following classics in the bag (compare the pics on http://www.myleonidas.com/leonidas_guide.html):

• Palette d'Or, with gold stripes
• Buche Pastische, a pistachio marzipan
• Princess Enrobee'
• Europe, the light brown round one
• Ganache, orange ganache
• Merveilleux, the oval one
• Olympe, the white one
• Carre' croquant, the square ones

For me, the signature piece of chocolate for comparison is the Palet d'Or. A great Palet should have a crisp snap when you bite into it, and a good rich chocolate flavor.

Let's start with the Palet. Yes, the perfect snap! as you bite into it, and a good bitter chocolate flavor. This particular one is less sweet than normal, although you should never expect a sticky sweet Palet.

The white one intrigues me. What's in there? Hmmm?

Oh. My. Goodness.

That is a better than sex taste. Perfectly creamy, perfectly smooth. White chocolate with orange buttercream. DH says that it's only "better than bad sex."

The Buche Pastiche (one pistachio, one pink) is just ok. Quite dry. I let it get a little old, so I take the blame for that one. I wonder what flavor the pink one is? We couldn't figure it out.

One last one for today. Merveilleux. Coffee ganache covered in dark chocolate. Better than the Olympe.

Well, in spite of my best, though unintentional, effort to destroy this package of chocolates and bring the ranking down a notch, these Leonidas pralines still get and deserve the Better Than Sex rating.

Reviewed: Leonidas selection
Personality: Sophisticated, deserving their excellent reputation
How to enjoy: Drink a nice glass of wine, some soft music, and give these wonderful chocolates a little quality time.

Rating:
1: Better than sex, but have it packed in a nice gift box before traveling
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:

Germany, US, UK: Buy them locally at one of the 1400 or so stores worldwide. Use the Storefinder to find a store within a few hundred miles.

Online: go to their online store

Wild Strawberries and Lindt Mini Pralines

It's been a perfect sunny evening, and DH, my wild and macho hunter-gatherer, stalks and kills the first wild strawberries from our back yard.

These little treasures are one of the best things about early summer. We have lovely plants scattered along a rock border on the edge of our property, and these fruits pop up at a convenient height for picking. Smaller than the tip of your little finger, each fruit still carries the flavor power of their larger commercial cousins.

What pairs well with these? Lindt Mini Pralines, of course!

Looking inside this box, which has been bounced around quite a bit before we got around to opening it, we find a classic assortment of Lindt's best. Plenty of nougats, good chocolate and nice fillings.

How much is a good portion? I hadn't had dessert yet, so this would make a perfect dessert. After some hemming and hawing around, I settled on trios: 2 sets of 3 berries, and one set of 3 chocolates. Perfect.

Rating:

1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven (very nearly qualified for better than sex)
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:
Germany: you can buy Lindt most everywhere, but not at Lindt's online store, because they've closed for the summer. Will open again when it's cool.

USA: Lindt online: http://www.lindtusa.com/index.cfm

Caffarel Gianduja and a bit of hot stuff

The Box is the source of chocolate for my review today. We're putting aside Lidl and Lindt for the moment, and revisiting Salon du Cacao. Proprietor Michael Behrens helped us select a box full of various chocolates for tasting, and I've been waiting for the right moment to enjoy my Caffarel chocolates.

Caffarel is an Italian company which has been making chocolates for almost 200 years. Clearly in the gourmet class, perhaps defining the class itself.

The first piece up today is their signature piece. First created in 1852, Caffarel blended cocoa with hazelnuts to create the classic Gianduiotto. Not just everyday hazelnuts, mind you, but real Piedmonte hazelnuts, probably the best in the world. Wrapped in a sturdy golden foil, it's a pleasure to eat, letting it melt quickly on your tongue. Odd fact: they didn't get a name until much later, when Gianduja named them during the Carnival of 1865.

New in their collection is an adaptation of the famous Gianduiotto, with a chili pepper kick. Dark chocolate and just the perfect amount of chili, giving you a sense of the heat a beautiful Italian summer can provide.

Just for fun, here's a surprise Caffarel piece: a praline with delicious bits of perfectly toasted hazelnut. I'm not going into too much detail here, because I believe it may have only been available last Easter, and you have no hope of finding it now. Sorry. You really missed something wonderful.

Rating:
1: Better than sex
2: Little bites of heaven
3: Share with your best friend
4: Will do in a pinch
5: Halloween candy

Where to buy:

Germany: Salon du Cacao

USA: stores supplied by Daprano

Italy: Hey, you need a vacation, anyway. Why not Italy? Caffarel in Turin

Chocolate chips, and a cookie recipe

OK, so chocolate is chocolate. Chocolate chips are a marvelous way to keep chocolate in your life when you need to pretend that it doesn't really revolve around chocolate.

Ghirardelli make some of the best chocolate chips around. Their 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips (formerly known as Double Chocolate Chips) are my favorites for baking.

When I can't get good chocolate chips, which is all the time in Germany, I chop up chocolate bars and use chunks instead. My favorite bars for making chocolate chunks are Milka for milk chocolate and Lidl's Madagaskar for dark chocolate. I use milk chocolate chips very sparingly, generally only when someone requests them, because I believe semisweet offers the best contrast to the baked goods.

Here is my very own Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie recipe, pictured above. Enjoy!

Miss Charlotte’s Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup pecans, toasted
½ cup finely chopped coconut
¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup vanilla sugar
1 large egg
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup raisins
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
optional: 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of milk
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Toast nuts by putting them in a medium oven (about 350 degrees) for about 10 minutes. Let cool. Keep oven at 350.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugars with a mixer.
Add the egg and beat until mixed.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and raisins. Coating the raisins keeps them from sticking together in one lump.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture a little at a time and beat until incorporated. Feel free to run the mixer a little hard. The raisins will only make the cookies taste better if they are a little broken up.

Add the oats a little at a time. Add up to a teaspoonful of milk if the dough seems too thick. It will still be a very stiff dough.

Break the nuts into pieces directly into the bowl. Stir into the dough.
Gently fold the chocolate chips into the dough last. Don’t stir too much, or you'll bruise the chocolate.

Use a rounded teaspoonful of dough per cookie. Press the cookie a little flat, because they won’t flow very much.

Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes, or until light golden brown around the edges. Cool as long as you can stand it. Remember a burnt tongue can't taste as well.

Makes about 30-36 cookies.

Chocolate Wars: Lidl's J.D. Gross minis

Shortly before 8 a.m. a small crowd had gathered outside the new Lidl store, located just a few miles from us. We were there so DH could take advantage of the low low price on a 400 Gig hard drive, a steal at only Eur 149. Since we were going directly on to work afterward, I was along for the ride.

One couple eyed us suspiciously as they guarded their place in line, perhaps fearing that we would dash ahead of them to grab the last of the metal rooster and angelfish garden decor, which is all they ultimately bought that morning. I sized up the competition (who else might be there to grab the electronics, always in limited supply?). The last time Lidl sold laptops, there were reports of minor riots outside of store before they opened that day.

No one besides our garden decor friends and a couple of people who stood outside the door for the bottle recycling kiosk. The church bells rang, signaling 8 a.m, and we entered.

As DH searched for the electronics display, I browsed the chocolate aisle. Interesting. Lidl offers several different flavors of plantation chocolate, and today they had a lovely bag of minatures.

If there's anything I like it's chocolate. If there's anything I like better than chocolate, it's chocolate in bite-sized pieces, so I can enjoy several flavors without eating a lot of any single one.Today, I pit each flavor in the bag against the other. The terms of battle?

• Smell


• Color


• Smoothness


• Aftertaste

Lidl's J.D. Gross chocolate is made by Rausch Schokolade.
http://www.rausch-schokolade.de/ (Rausch you can order online. Check out their Chocoholics selection, with their nice wooden boxes)

The Results

Amazonas (upper left corner)
Smell: rich and dark. score: 4
Color: dark score: 4
Smoothness: smooth, with a slight powder feel. Score: 3
Aftertaste: mild, pleasant. Score: 3

Trinidad (upper center)
Smell: milder. score: 3
Color: darker, but not the best score: 4
Smoothness: no powder feel. Score: 5
Aftertaste: medium, with a very slight astringency. Score: 4

Ecuador (upper right corner)
Smell: rich and dark. score: 4
Color: darkest score: 5
Smoothness: a little grain of something. Score: 1
Aftertaste: rather like a black tea. Score 3

Java (lower left corner)
Smell: almost nothing. score: 1
Color: very light score: 1
Smoothness: smooth. Score: 5
Aftertaste: clean. Score 3

Madagaskar (lower center)
Smell: nice and cocoa-y. score: 3
Color: dark score: 3
Smoothness: very smooth. score: 5
Aftertaste: creamy. score: 4

Venezuela (lower right corner)
Smell: dark and a little sharp. score: 4
Color: dark score: 3
Smoothness: Smooth, slight powder feel. Score 4
Aftertaste: a pleasant bitterness. Score: 4

And the winner is: Trinidad! A rich dark chocolate with enough of a good aftertaste to let you know you enjoyed it. I do have to confess that I also love the Madagaskar chocolate. I'll probably buy both in the larger bars.

Lindt Edelbitter Collection for Mother’s Day

Normally we don’t celebrate holidays like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Since she turned 16, DD has learned that every weekend day is Teenager Day, during which she goes out and spends time with her friends, preferably at a disco or on the Stuttgart Schlossplatz.
This year was different. Sometime, while shopping in Stuttgart, she was overcome with love for her mother and decided to give me a Mother’s Day gift. Chocolate was, of course, the easiest selection. In addition to a lovely dinner out at the Irish Pub in the Stuttgart SI Zentrum, she gave me a box of Lindt Edelbitter chocolates.

Lindt & Sprüngli is one of my favorite companies. Not only do they manufacture huge volumes of delicious chocolate, they make the chocolate experience something wonderful. Lindt Germany also produces a regular magazine, with creative ideas from promi-chef Johan Lafer. Lindt USA is no slacker either, with a great website (try the brownies recipe).

This collection provided the usual quality from Lindt. Each approximately 3 cm piece of chocolate is made from their 70% chocolate and is filled with a deep chocolate mousse. Additionally, half the box is filled with either an orange filling or a sour cherry filling spiked with chili. The cherry-chili is the best flavor in the box, followed by the mousse alone. The orange was rather mild, but still a quality product. DH and I finished off my box on Father’s Day, while watching a Lara Croft film.

Reviewed: Lindt Edelbitter Collection

Personality: It just screams “Mom, you’re hot stuff!”

How to enjoy: A great TV chocolate. Modest price, lots of pieces, wonderfully smooth. Pleasurable kick from the orange and the sour cherry/chili flavors. (TIP: you can buy the cherry-chili in both the US and Germany as a whole bar)

Rating:

1: Better than sex

2: Little bites of heaven

3: Share with your best friend

4: Will do in a pinch

5: Halloween candy

Berger Zartbitter Pfefferkrokant

Chocolate with pepper? It never occurred to me that this could possibly taste good. Until last Christmas.
Christmas in Germany is filled with many wonderful things, especially the traditional Christmas markets. DH and I traveled to Tuebingen in Baden-Wuerttemberg one weekend to visit their market. After visiting the numerous booths, observing the contented populace, and buying miscellaneous ornaments, incense, and a lovely cashmere shawl, we were cold. Directly across the marketplace from where we stood was a café, so we dashed inside for a hot drink.
Hot chocolate with hot pepper intrigued me, so I gave it a try. Delish! So when I had the opportunity to buy a bar with interesting spices, I couldn’t turn down Berger’s Zartbitter Pfefferkrokant. Dark Chocolate with (deep breath now): green, black, white and red peppercorns, as well as hazelnuts.
Different from my Tuebingen hot chocolate, the Berger is a smooth bar, with bits of cracked pepper pressed into the back of the bar. Chewing a bite of chocolate, the black pepper taste comes through most strongly, and the pepper taste is more obvious than other chocolates with pepper I’ve eaten. Definitely an unusual treat, but I enjoyed it.

Berger. Seduction has many faces.

Reviewed: Berger Zartbitter Pfefferkrokant

Personality: An in-your-face pepper flavor

How to enjoy: A nice big bite with a tall glass of cold water makes this a refreshing treat. Good to serve to guests to give them a little something to remember.

Rating:

1: Better than sex

2: Little bites of heaven

3: Share with your best friend (the beautiful package makes it a nice hostess gift, too)

4: Will do in a pinch

5: Halloween candy

Cluizel Easter Egg with speckled croquant eggs

Until today, my will to procrastinate has been stronger than my will to eat chocolate. Since Easter, when I first got The Box, I've schemed and planned the creation of this blog. What should it look like? What needs to be said about this finest of foods? What can I provide my Dear Readers to delight and entertain them? Critical questions that received sober consideration before decisions were made. One of my biggest commitments was to keep the treasures I'd found to share with you, which meant not eating them until talkalota chocolate was up and running.

But The Box called. Having lovingly chosen each individual piece under the wise tutelage of Michael Behrens of Salon du Cacao, I was getting impatient for the first bite. When Dear Hubby started tearing the house apart looking for The Box, however, I knew I had to begin.

Michel Cluizel created a lovely Easter chocolate this year. Perfectly formed into a half-egg, he used rich dark chocolate and decorated it with delicate layers of gold and silver leaf. Inside the egg (pictured here incomplete - we couldn't resist any longer), he nestled several speckled eggs.

The chocolate egg itself is characteristic of Cluizel's talents: wonderful smooth dark chocolate, with an aftertaste that makes you go, "Aaaahhhhh." I'd hoped for more delicacy from the speckled eggs. Rather than a light and airy croquant, it was rather sticky.

Reviewed: Cluizel Easter Egg

Personality: A sophisticated presentation of a candy tradition

How to enjoy: Nibble the rich dark chocolate a small bite at a time, maybe with a glass of red wine. Worth the effort to smell and taste. Eat the croquant eggs anytime, they're not so special.

Rating:

1: Better than sex

2: Little bites of heaven

3: Share with your best friend

4: Will do in a pinch

5: Halloween candy

The Box

The Box is the heart of this operation. Hidden deep inside its rich brown recesses lies the treasures of which millions dream. Little bites of heaven, rich, creamy nougat, biting peppery blackness, each day a new adventure.

Join me as I explore one of the greatest pleasures of modern life: chocolate. Situated in the heart of Europe, I'm a stone's throw away from the best chocolatiers in the world. And I'm not afraid to eat it.

Yours,
Miss Charlotte