The Chocolate Life

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April 2010 Blog Posts (12)

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The Chocolate/Tempranillo Experiment

I have a particular love affair taking place with Tempranillo at the moment. Okay, so maybe I actually have a love affair taking place with many food and wine

lovelies right now, but will get to those later on. :)





I was first struck by Cupid’s arrow when…

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Added by Chrissie Bettencourt on April 29, 2010 at 4:48pm — 3 Comments

How to turn crackers into cookies.



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Added by Lori O on April 29, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

Making Semisweet chocolate from unsweetened chocolate

I need a semisweet chocolate with very little sugar (somwhat bitter) for certain items (such as the bottoms of my coconut macaroons). This semisweet chocolate must be tempered. I usually use unsweetened chocolate, sugar, vanilla, cocoa butter, and regular butter. What should the ratio of butter to cocoa butter be to have enough cocoa butter crystals to temper the chocolate? Or should the amount of cocoa butter be some % of the total weight of the finished chocolate?

Added by peter tynberg on April 27, 2010 at 6:30pm — 1 Comment

Roasting day

Since it started out snowing today I decided to do some roasting to warm things up a bit. The new melter/tempering unit came today. I'm very excited. I hope to get town inspection this week. The last thing on the list for the health inspection is the packaging and labeling.

Back to…

Added by dale montondo on April 27, 2010 at 3:45pm — No Comments

Toffee Trouble...

I made my buttercrunch recipe from this book: "Formula and Theory for the Artisan Confectioner" and it's perfect every time. However, the last two batches gave me trouble and I wonder if anyone has advice. When I poured it onto the mat, the butter separated. Any thoughts?

Added by Laurie Douglass on April 27, 2010 at 12:34pm — 1 Comment

The Rules

For anyone who seriously loves chocolate, here are The Rules.

Anyone who disagrees with them can stay after school and clean the erasers.

Added by Lori O on April 26, 2010 at 12:55pm — No Comments

Choco Files

You can check out my reviews of the chocolates I've tasted at Choco Files. I also explain my review philosophy and I'm adding more and more files with my ratings for each bar.

Added by ChocoFiles on April 21, 2010 at 6:10pm — No Comments

Nibs?

Well, I kinda know what nibs are (what they grind up and mix with sugar, or milk, or whatever to make what we commonly know as chocolate, right?). But I don't really get the concept of eating them.

So, I bought a chocolate bar (dark, of course) with nibs on it at Naked Chocolate Cafe here in Philly. I expected it to have an intense chocolate flavor, like how coffee beans have a strong coffee flavor. But I was surprised to find that they had…

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Added by Dee on April 13, 2010 at 9:47pm — 3 Comments

CADBURY CHOCOLATE!!!!!

The culinary college I went to, Liaison College, has a wicked contest going on right now. You can win 365 Dairy Milk Bars simply by entering on their homepage http://www.liaisoncollege.com/ .

Clark

Added by Clark on April 13, 2010 at 9:39am — 1 Comment

cacao farming in hawaii ...

I AM excited to share my photo journal of cacao farming on big island ... http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000300272243#!/album.php?aid=2063356&id=1244869327

~ aloha ~

Added by deedee devi on April 12, 2010 at 7:05pm — 1 Comment

Vanilla-chocolate's jungle sidekick

Good-quality vanilla beans make wonderful homemade extract.

When you think about vanilla, you might picture the familiar brown bottle of extract next to a bowl of butter, eggs, sugar, eggs and flour. Chances are you can practically smell the vanilla’s potent fragrance -- warm, earthy and resonant with cherished memories of cookies past. If you were to taste a pinch of the cookie dough, you would notice the completeness vanilla provides the sweet brown sugar and rich butter…

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Added by Susie Norris on April 6, 2010 at 7:55pm — No Comments

Enjoying a new blend of flavors...goat cheese and balsamic ganache

Who knew that goat cheese ganache would be so smooth and obscure in its own way? I figured that with almond milk pulling together the flavors instead of cream and black current balsamic with and added splash of Chambourg....it would happen.



Participating at the local Chamber of Commerce Women in Business fundraiser, I beta tested the results and there was no competition with the traditional ganache....everyone came back for the… Continue

Added by Gretchen Tartakoff on April 4, 2010 at 10:05pm — No Comments

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