January 2011 Blog Posts (16)

Jean-Paul Hévin, Patrick Roger, Un Dimanche à Paris… I was certainly getting around to my favorite chocolatiers during my last weeks in Paris. But in the very last few days, I made visits to two brand new chocolatiers: Chloe Chocolat and Franck Kestener.

 

My own copy of Chloé Doutre-Roussel’s bible, The Chocolate Connoisseur (2005), is a tattered, stained mess from all the bonbons I consumed while reading about…

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While opening the Cacao and Chocolate Museum in Cusco, we decided to travel to the "Valle de la Convención" (5 hours from Cusco), region where most cacao is produced in Peru.

Talking to some producers or cooperatives, we saw that in fact cacao is not or poorly fermented in these region because farmers do not receive enough money to ferment their cacao so they prefer selling it without fermentation.

A lot of people here in Cusco prepare and produce what they call "Chocolate para…

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Our ordered chocolate bars from Switzerland, the Idilio Origins, have arrived in our Chocolaterie in Amsterdam. From the great and super 1ero Porcelana Criollo Puro to the delicious and charming 5nto Cooperativa Amazonas. The cocoa beans all come from Venezuela. A pretty new brand from the (milk)chocolate-country: Swiss honour is saved!

For two months now, Clara Isabel and I are in the fantastic city of Cusco, Perú.

Our objective is to open the new cacao and chocolate museum in this city.

For almost 1 month we looked for the perfect place to install this museum. We finally found a great place in the center of Cusco, on the wonderful Plaza Regocijo.…

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Source:  http://ruraldevelopment.info/cocoa.aspx

 

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Some people ask me about Casa Luker and flavours, I like to work with there chocolate but this is personal.

For me the tree couvertures with character are the:Tumaco 85%, Huila 85% and the very best Santander 85%.

 

Its difficult to compare with other brands I'm working with such as Amano, Pacari, Valrhona, Felchlin,...

I like to make my own melange for enrobing my chocolates (bonbons) and so I do for the Santander 85% wich I take 2/3 Santander and 1/3 of Macaé…

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I really enjoy creating new truffles and other desserts and have had two local restaurants use my recipes (for chocolate polenta cake for their special New Years Eve dinner, and my Tiramousse). I publish all of my recipes on my website:

 

http://soulhealing.com/choco.htm

 

and invite you all to view them. Among the truffle recipes, so many are outstanding: the passionfruit, jasmine, black cherry, and pecan to mention…

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Do you want to take part in a small experiment? Yes? Great! Try typing in the word chocolate in your web browser. This word will literally produce thousands of hits. You can view anything from Wikipedia's definition of chocolate to someone's Twitter name! Now, narrow your search to chocolate tasting. This will generate fewer chocolate sites but still too many to view. Lastly, narrow your search even further to chocolate tasting party. What you end up with is, in my opinion, just a handful of… Continue

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i need to import some good compound chocolate in india if you or anyone can suggest me.please email me ali@symcosales.com.

thank you.

I've created a Google custom search engine for chocolate blogs, with a few other sites included that also have writer opinion/discussion. Of course TCL is included, along with 70%, plus a couple of review database sites which are not strictly blogs. The idea is to compile review/opinion sites, and general chocolate blogs.

 

We used to have a list of chocolate blogs here on TCL, don't know what became of that project, but this is a way to search all blogs at once, in case you…

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I don't want to put a "fear" vibe out there, but we have heard from our supplier that with the current events in Ivory Coast and greedy investors buying up cocoa commodities, there may be an increase in prices and a shortage of supply in 2011.  His comment was that "the perfect storm" is coming.  I would like to do more research on this, but perhaps we could start a discussion group about it.

Walking through the streets of Paris I came across, almost by chance, the chocolate place by Michel Cluizel. For those who have never heard of him, he’s one of the most respected connoisseurs of chocolate and he’s internationally known for his special attention to the cocoa beans. His headquarters is in Normandy, where there is even a museum,"Chocolatrium", where there are also workshops on the processing of cocoa. The great… Continue