All Blog Posts (542)

Introduction to Sweet Paradise Chocolatier

Aloha and welcome to my blog/profile/page.I am the owner of Sweet Paradise Chocolatier- I am "artisan" chocolate maker in Hawaii and have a small bohemian confection shop with a full grown replica of a cacao tree inside. Its in the windward town of Kailua on Oahu. ( the town Barack Obama and family vacation in ) All my chocolates are made fresh in small batches using my own recipes and focus on tropical fruit, nut and spice flavors since thats what is most readily available here. I love to… Continue

Added by Melanie Boudar on February 5, 2009 at 4:31am — No Comments

Academy of chocolate awards controversy

Hi everyone,

First blog and a hot potato one!!!

Some of you, chocolatiers in the US, may be considering entering the above awards in the UK.

Well, we have participated successfully to them for the last 3 years but this year

made the unpopular decision not to as we feel that the Academy has to address a number of issues

to run these awards professionally.

If you want to read more, check out our reasons and suggestions… Continue

Added by Artisan on February 3, 2009 at 7:30am — 2 Comments

Hershey closing the Scharffen Berger Berkeley factory

Goodbye to a pioneering location for American artisan chocolate....

or as the guys at SFist put it: -- Scharffen Berger Soon To Suck --

Apparently production will move to a Hershey plant in Illinois. Sad, and disappointing. Here is the text from the SFGate.com article (I can't get the hyperlink to work, sorry) --

(01-27) 18:28 PST -- The Hershey Co. said Tuesday it plans to close Scharffen Berger's West Berkeley manufacturing plant as well as the San Francisco… Continue

Added by Madame Cocoa on January 30, 2009 at 7:01pm — 1 Comment

Faculty for the 2009 World Pastry Forum Announced

Carymax LLC has announced the faculty for the 2009 World Pastry Forum on their new website.

The World Pastry Forum offers two different instruction tracks - the Hands-On track and the Demonstration track.

The Hands-On track offers students just that, a hands-on opportunity to do a deep dive into specific topics with world-class… Continue

Added by Clay Gordon on January 27, 2009 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Sweet Freak scoop: Hot Chocolate Festival comes a day early

Just as I was reminding Alex that we're six days out to City Bakery's month-long Hot Chocolate Festival, I got a message from Maury: the festival not only starts a day early, but is staying open late to celebrate.

The 17th annual festival kicks off this Saturday, the 31st, at the normal opening hour of 7:30 a.m. But just in case you're… Continue

Added by Sweet Freak on January 27, 2009 at 3:47pm — No Comments

Manhattan's best 5 cups of cocoa

Because it's snowing in New York. Because it's the holiday season. And because it's one of the silver linings of winter: these are the hot chocolates you don't want to miss.

Jacques Torres

When you walk into Chocolate Haven Soho, the heavenly scent of chocolate is all around you. Belly up to bar and order my personal favorite: the peanut butter hot cocoa.…

Continue

Added by Sweet Freak on January 24, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Black Mountain Chocolate

Cross posted from The Chocolate Note

In the small mountain town of Swannanoa, just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, we meet up with David Mason, 36 year-old founder and chocolate maker of Black Mountain Chocolate – the newest American micro batch producer.

David and his wife Sarah, both native Floridians, were attracted to the Asheville area by its reputation as an… Continue

Added by Casey on January 22, 2009 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Nunu now open

Nunu has new digs from which to peddle its oh-so-lovely chocolates. Two years after starting the company, they have appropriately cute space on Atlantic Avenue, not so far away from Sweet Freak favorites Atlantic Diner and Betty Bakery.

The hot cocoa and tea are still coming, but all the caramels and ganaches are ready to be snapped up. Like the best selling hand dipped… Continue

Added by Sweet Freak on January 22, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

The stealth attack of Bond Street Chocolates

While we've all been waiting for Bespoke Chocolates to debut, Lynda Stern—bam!—opened Bond Street Chocolates on 4th Street. God, I'm loving the East Village these days.…

Continue

Added by Sweet Freak on January 21, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Bean to Bar Chocolatiers Passion and Care

In the past few months I have visited with a few bean to bar chocolate makers and one thing that impresses me is the care and dedication shown throughout the entire process.

Last week, I was visiting with Art Pollard of Amano Chocolates and I could not believe the personal touch he added to every step of the chocolate making process. I was with him while he roasted beans, winnowed them, added them in the melangeur and was refining them also. Each step of the way was so exacting. The… Continue

Added by Eric Durtschi on January 13, 2009 at 4:50pm — 1 Comment

Unique Company

Unique Technology

• Prints high-resolution images directly on the

surface of chocolate and other food products

• Unlimited product customization capabilities

• Easy to use

• Up to 620 pieces per hour

• Economically makes 1 piece or 1000 pieces

• Fits on a 6' table

• Easily portable enabling live printing on

chocolate at any event

Unique Products

• Top-quality exclusive products with broad

market appeal… Continue

Added by Chocolography TM on January 9, 2009 at 4:23pm — No Comments

Hot Cocoa Specials

I participated in the Holiday Specials offering a free chocolate bar with any hot cocoa mix ordered. I wanted to extend this offer in some way. If you now visit my website, you will notice I'm offering a free piece of chocolate with any hot cocoa order. It may be a truffle, chocolate bar, a chocolate buckeye, who knows! Visit my website: http://www.laurieschocolates.com

Added by Laurie Douglass on January 9, 2009 at 11:34am — No Comments

Spiritual & health benefits of chocolate by Rev. R. M. Peluso

Hi,

I'm Reverend R. M. Peluso. I'm an interfaith and nondenominational minister and I lead Chocolate Tasting Meditations of CM (tm). My meditations have been featured at the Chocolate Salon in San Francisco and The Community of Peace & Spirituality (now disbanded) in NYC.

I am quite happy to take my meditations where ever invited.

You can read more about what I do at Http://ministry.rmpeluso.com

click on Meditation.

My experience is that truly tasting… Continue

Added by Rev. R. M. Peluso on January 8, 2009 at 11:11pm — No Comments

proud to be a Muse

I was feeling like maybe I needed to go to the Nerd Zone to chat because I'm creating an exhibit "The Journey of The Pod" and immersed in books about the history of chocolate, people who made history in chocolate and environmental concerns about cacoa. Maybe I'd fit in. I want to have fun with all this information I have swimming around in my head so I can keep learning new things and share with other Nerd, Starting, Swapping, Brewing people.

O.K. I got overwhelmed with the choices. I… Continue

Added by Gretchen Tartakoff on January 5, 2009 at 8:00pm — 3 Comments

New website for my company, Pure Chocolate

Hi there and happy holidays everyone! I am excited to announce the launch of my brand new website, purechocolatetruffles.com.

I've been… Continue

Added by Dawn Olson on December 23, 2008 at 6:04pm — 3 Comments

HOLIDAY DISCOVERIES

This rainy December day marks the end of my first year back in the chocolate production business after a few years off teaching baking & writing. Some things have changed! Many, many more artisans going bean to bar. I don't work bean to bar myself - I'm all about confections - but I've sampled some very delicious products from companies like AMANO in Utah. More chocolate shows. More health news, more "spin", more single origins and high percentages, more daring flavor combinations and… Continue

Added by Susie Norris on December 17, 2008 at 8:45pm — 2 Comments

The Beginning of Our Chocolate Travels

To enrich this community I've been asked to bring over some of the content we've published on our chocolatier "diary". To give a bit more about who we are what a better place to begin than the beginning. We're having a lot of fun in the Charlotte, NC area and we hope this inspires you to either participate more locally, or try your own thing. :)

Where do we begin on this epic tale of homemade chocolate insanity. Do we start at the… Continue

Added by Andy Ciordia on December 17, 2008 at 10:27am — No Comments

Tumbador chocolate website.

I wanted to introduce our company to all of you via this little blog spot. we've been in the wholesale for 3 years now, we decided early this fall tho launch a retail cart and it is now live on our website at www.tumbadorchocolate.com .
Please fell free to give me any type of feedback, it is always appreciated,
thank you,

Added by jean-francois Bonnet on December 17, 2008 at 8:24am — No Comments

TCHO Beta Bar Tasting (or, 3 smiles and a frown)

Happy to have received my "sample box" from SF corporate offices of TCHO this week, I could not WAIT to do an early morning tasting. I broker our new gift collections, just released this month, and it was like an early Christmas for me -- opening the express-delivered box and pulling out all the little brown paper squares and the slick-packaged new formulations. What JOY!! OH, and the smell of chocolate from a freshly opened shipping box!! Dreamy.

But on with it..there's tasting to… Continue

Added by Madame Cocoa on December 6, 2008 at 11:27pm — 1 Comment

Is red cocoa the latest trend? Is it as precious as chocolate diamonds?

I've been looking for the actual difference in flavor in red cocoa by looking at how it's processed. I'm not sure if there is one or if it's just dark cocoa that has the red hue? Do you have any favorites that I could try out and see that it is different?

Added by Gretchen Tartakoff on December 5, 2008 at 5:27am — 3 Comments