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Please join the new blog about cakes, cookies, candies and chocolate.... Susie Norris Sweets . Bloggin' with recipes, travels, confectionary techniques, interviews, articles and all the sweet stuff.

Hey everyone,

A friend and I are starting up a small chocolate-making company in the Washington DC area called Potomac Chocolate Co. We're hoping to be the DC area's first bean-to-bar chocolate makers. Currently, we're just starting out and learning the process.

We've set up a Kickstarter project to help us get up and running and on our way towards our first bar. If we hit our goal, the money will be used to acquire lots of beans for testing, experimenting and refining our process.

We've set up a series of rewards for different pledge levels, including final bars and bars still in development.

Our goal is to get $1650 in pledges by July 31st. We'd really appreciate any support you could give, and would love it if you could spread the word!

You can see our project page on Kickstarter here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2051922175/micro-batch-bean-to-bar-chocolate-makers

To get more info on us, check out our site and/or our facebook page:

http://www.potomacchocolate.com
http://www.facebook.com/PotomacChocolate

Please feel free to reply or contact me with any questions about our project, or our company in general.

Thanks!
Ben

p.s. Thanks to Clay & TCL for letting me post this!

We are very pleased to launch our new bar made from Vietnamese cocoa beans, conched and refined in our atelier in Kent. If you also process Vietnamese beans, i would be interested to swap a few bars to compare.

Hi All,

I just wanted to let everyone know about this great site ChocoMap . What a greatplace for chocolate enthusiast to find chocolate stores in any city! Ifyou have a store I recommend you put it on there and spread the word.Also a great place to find chocolate news, recipes, and resources.Enjoy!

I am sitting here in Paris, three days after my trip to Lisbons only gourmet chocolatier, enjoying a block of 70% dark chocolate with raisins and a unique and potent liquor extracted from the pulp of the recently harvested cocoa fruit. Its heady and delicious.

It was on my recent trip to Portugals capital that I was fortunate enough to have a friend with a Frommers Guide. Inside, it shared a little-known address on a not-so-well-known street: that for Claudio Corallo on Rua Cecilio da Sousa.


I knew my chocolate block was going to be a winner since the moment we rushed into the small boutique, we were warmly greeted and eagerly treated to a chocolate tasting.

We sampled the 70%, 80% and 100% chocolates, a tasting that ranged from semi-sweet to acidic. Some of the bars had ginger or orange pieces, adding a touch of lovely sweetness.


And some of the pristine chocolates are made into more whimsical bonbons, like these lovelies made with pine nuts.

Claudio Corallo is not for everyone. With a devotion to pure cacao that's cultivated on the tiny African archipelago of So Tom, the beans are meticulously sourced and produced into dark chocolate without any sugar or vanilla. Its hardcore chocolate.

But how wonderful (and, to me, delicious) to discover an Italian man, living in Africa, producing chocolate in Iceland and offering it at a hole-in-the-wall in Lisbon.

Sometimes when youre crazy for chocolate, you really will go to the ends of earth for it.

Check out my blog Confessions of a Chocolatier for a great cherry cordial recipe.

I just got a ton of dark chocolate for $36!

Almost everything they have left is the darkest of the dark chocolate. I even bought a bar of 99%! I didn't know it came that concentrated!

I can't wait to try it all. I'll keep you posted.

I just wanted to write that before it's too late.

We serve this Chocolate Cherry Clafouti (16to 20 servings) on Thursday mornings as part of our chocolate covered Wednesdays. For brunches we pair it with KorbelMoscato Frizzante . At the Camellia Inn we love chocolate,so every Wednesday we cover our guests - inside and out in chocolate withchocolate soap, chocolate treats, chocolate body paint and for breakfast achocolate dish. This is a favorite on Thursday mornings as part of ourChocolate Covered Wednesdays. We describe it as a baked crepe to our innguests. It combines the Old World charm ofthe Limousin region ofFrance with the very best of Wine Country. This lovely desert champagne fromKorbel combines to makes brunch even more memorable.

Chocolate Covered Wednesdays Chocolate Cherry Clafouti

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 c + 2 T sugar

1/2 c + 1 T flour

1 c + 2 T heavy cream

1 stick butter

Pinch of salt

c mini chocolate chips

2 c pitted cherries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease two 10" quiche pans and arrange chocolate chips and cherries in bottom of pans. Combine eggs,sugar, flour, cream and salt in food processor and blend until smooth. Pour 1/2mix into quiche pans and bake 15 minutes. Melt 1 stick of butter, coolslightly, then combine in food processor with remaining batter until mixed.Pour over partially baked mixture and bake for another 15 minutes. Cool 10minutes, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. Although the cherries and chocolateare a fabulous combination, you can substitute another fruit or berry and evenskip the chocolate chips. Adapted from a recipe in Morning Food by MargaretS. Fox

There's so much to learn and finding out more every day is what we seem to have in common. So When Jeff called me from Callebaut and we talked about a way to spread the word about the Varietal line of chocolates that they're offering...doing a pre-show demo for Professionals and those aspiring to be, is what we came up with at the Bucks County Chocolate Show .

It's all about The World of Chocolate and I love it!