Blogs
Drinking chocolate, gelato, killer cappuccino, and handmade chocolates with striking ingredients like whiskey, orred peppers. All packaged in a southern California smile.
Is Tifa the ideal chocolate shop? Probably. But we wont say that until weve tried all of them.
Get your freshhot chocolate recipe on Mondays! Courtesy of The Chocolate Tourist.
I may not be Irish, but I can still appreciate a country that brings us Guinness, sheep farmers and Chris ODowd. And Saint Patricks Day is for everyone, right? Today we raise a glass to himself, full of chocolate and touched with Irish cream.
Wine and chocolate, anyone? In today's tour, The Chocolate Tourist producer Leanne Westphal invites you to brave the rain andtaste Kollar's red wine truffles, milk chocolate ganache, and dark chocolate with Grand Marnier.
It doesn'thurt that Chef Kollarhimself came out to offer a sample! What service.
Read more on The Chocolate Tourist blog.
InHollywood, the air is thick with Oscar prep so I got downtown earlier this week to scope out the chocolate situation.
JKC signature truffle fudge is basically fudge covered in Callebaut and topped with sea salt. Unique, decadent, and delicious! Take a look at the full post for pictures, tasting, and the full story:
JohnKelly Chocolates in Hollywood, California
Spraying Toxins on our food: Is your food being contaminated by a Paint Gun?
By Christian Berke, 2014-02-26
Plastics play a part in every phase of food production and preparation so they couldnt possibly be harmful right? You might be surprised. Recent health controversies have spawned new discussions about the safety of plastics in the food industry, especially linked to the potential health risks from Bisphenol A (BPA), a common chemical used in food packaging. Environmental scientists (Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health) warn that non-food grade plastics may be transmitting dangerous toxins into the foods they come into contact, with risk of doing long-term damage to our health. If you`ve noticed a strange chemical taste when drinking from a cheap water bottle, or even from croissants, this may be down to poorer plastic grades contaminating our foods. After a food blogger got more than 50,000 signatures in a petition drive, high street chain Subway recently announced that it is removing a chemical, also used in yoga mats and shoe soles, from the bread of it its popular sandwiches.
So let`s focus in on another area - Paint Guns, widely misused for years to spray oil, chocolate, egg wash etc. on our foods. These Paint Guns are produced mainly in Asia using cheap materials that are rarely even close to being suitable for the kitchen environment. In defense of kitchens using Paint Guns, in the past there probably wasn`t always a choice of alternative sprayer, and information about plastic toxins was just as scarce. However, todays ethics and risk avoidance practices have encouraged many thousands of chefs, bakers and food industry professionals to choose a professional Food Sprayer that has been certified as being produced with food grade materials, such as those using the KREBS, Schneider, Matfer, Unilever, Retigo or Mallet brands to name a few. These are high quality Swiss made professional products that are designed be taken apart for thorough cleaning so that you can work quickly, hygienically and reliably.
[Moderator Note: The rest of this post was a commercial message for one of the brands of spray guns mentioned. Those paragraphs have been removed.]
In a previous post I wrote about the two most famous chocolatiers in Amsterdam. Yesterday I focused on a far less known chocoholic place in this city on my blog: Van Velze's . The chocolaterie and patisserie was founded by Robbert van Velze and Deborah Kilroy more than 5 years ago, but remains one of the less known chocolate place in Amsterdam. This might be due to its location in Amsterdam Oost, which is still a fairly underrated part of the city. However, van Velze is just another good reason for a short visit of Oost. Van Velze offers a small but good selection of bonbons, as well as other chocolate products and tartes. The bonbons are traditionally enrobed chocolates, mostly with ganache fillings. They use single origin chocolate for their products and have a number of very good flavor combinations. If I'm correct, the chocolate actually comes from Costa Rica and is made by Belcolade in Belgium (far less known than Callebaut, Belcolade is another big chocolate manufacturer in Belgium).
Among my favorites was the Port/Cranberry, which has a very delicious dark ganache filling and a dark chocolate coating. I also enjoyed the Red Wine/Licorice, which somewhat surprised me. Personally, I found none of the red wine or a licorice chocolates I ate up till now really convincing. Yet the mixture of red wine and licorice combines astonishingly well, I found. The acidity and fruitiness of the red wine is nicely complemented by the sweet, herbal taste of the licorice.
Some of Van Velze's chocolates...
Although devoid of those grand and fancy eye candy decors its sheer simplicity makes you more focused on the essence of what chocolate is. A centerpiece of chocolate display but it was a cornucopia of the festival's uniqueness with their emphasis on organic cacao products and highlighting local artisan chocolatiers.
Impressive was the effort that couple Alex and Jessica of Choco Locco Gourmet of Chocolate have put together to organize the Philippine Chocolate Festival. I am happy that there are individuals crazy enough to showcase the talents of budding artisan chocolatiers and cacao growers. And make the public understand the effort of farmers to produce cacao and the talent and love of artisan chocolatiers and chefs to produce nice chocolates and dishes and drinks with chocolate. Participants like students from Rizal and the public in general benefited a lot from those talks and presentations and the many chocolate trivia and facts that were shared.
Read more here - http://pinoychocophile.blogspot.com/2014/02/philippine-chocolate-festival-2014.html#.UwdXOGKSx23
Like a new machine, new display, new engine, both machine have a vibrating table.
Searching for a Chocolate bar company to produce a 2.5-3.0 oz caffeine induced chocolate energy bar under our private label. Please contact John at jhbearsfan@yahoo.com or 616-430-2136
Hello Friends, Happy new year. I have not contributed a post this year.
Am looking for a new or used bean to bar production line ( 100kg-200kg) please send me a quote and pictures to steve@pinkfoodsindustries.com
Regards,
Stephen Sembuya