Chocolate Blog

Wild Ophelia

Vosges -- probably my all time favorite chocolate maker -- has a new line of chocolate bars.  They have the same flair as the high end Vosges bars, but a lower price point.  The brand is called Wild Ophelia, and of course I have tried a bunch of their offerings.

First up is the Salted Chowilla Almond bar.  I'm a huge fan of the Vosges Barcelona bar, which is similar in flavor, so this was the first Wild Ophelia bar I grabbed.  Perhaps a little bit less intense than its Vosges counterpart, the Wild Ophelia bar was, nonetheless, delicious.  

I've tried several of the new Wild Ophelia bars and I'll be posting more in the coming weeks!

Daily Gourmet Chocolate Offer

By a strange conicidence, Daily Gourmet has an offer up for New Tree Chocolate, which I just reviewed.  They saw my review and contacted me, and now I have a giveaway for you!

Leave a comment on my blog and sign up over at Daily Gourmet -- if you are one of the first five people to do so, I will send you a code for $5 off a set of 5 New Tree chocolate bars, including the Lavender bar I recently reviewed.

 

In the press...

I was recently contacted by Woman's World Magazine and asked to recommend some chocolate for Valentine's Day.  I recommended Vosges' Exotic Candy Bar Library and they included me in the piece.  It hits checkout stands today, so I'm looking forward to having a look!

Mast Brothers Chocolate

I have a Mast Brothers Chocolate bar to review soon, but I wanted to share this wonderful video with you before I forgot.

Quoted on the CNBC Blog

Today I was quoted at CNBC -- well on one of their blogs. Kinda fun though.

Cute Chocolate Animation on YouTube

Chocolate Video at BoingBoing

Interesting video on BBTV -- Xeni talks with TCHO owner and tastes different chocolate. 

There are also 2 previous episodes:

• TCHO, part 1: chocolate origins.
  
• TCHO, part 2: magical machines, mysterious molecules.

Keep it Real!

You may or may not have heard about the petition that has come before the FDA which proposes a weakening to the definition of chocolate.  The Chocolate Manufacturers of America and  the Grocery Manufacturers Association are trying to have the standard definition of chocolate changed so that a product which contains no cocoa butter can be called chocolate!

Why does this matter?  Well, first of all when you substitute a cheaper fat or oil for cocoa butter the taste and mouthfeel changes -- it's not particulalry nice stuff.  In addition, cocoa butter contains antioxidants -- these fats that they would be substituting are nasty.  We're talking hydrogenated oils and the like.  Things that clog your arteries.  And there are other implications too.  You can read lots more about it at Don't Mess with Our Chocolate.  And also at one of my favorite blogs -- Candy Blog.

I've already left a comment for the FDA to let them know how I feel about this and you can too!

Keep the chocolate real!!