V-Day Giveaway: Dagoba Organic Chocolate

Still trying to find the perfect gift for your loved ones for Valentine’s Day? Dagoba Organic Chocolate has the perfect solution for the chocolate lovers in your life!

Dagoba Organic Chocolate is generously offering up a twelve-bar prize pack to three lucky Chocolate Bytes readers! The twelve bars comprise Dagoba’s three Valentine’s sets:

~ Sweet & Spicy (Beaucoup Berries, Superfruit, Nibs and Xocolatl bars):

The perfect balance of sweet and spicy, this set of four bars combines the acai and goji berries in Beaucoup Berries with the vanilla and cherry-infused Superfuit bar, and balances those naturally sweet flavors with the subtle spiciness of chilies in the Xocoltl bar and cacao nibs in the Nibs bar. The result is a spicy sweet chocolate combination to satisfy every mood.

~ Pure (Dark 59%, Eclipse, New Moon and Nibs bars):

With each bite of these pure chocolate bars savor the deep notes of cacao, the rich textures and satisfying finish. From the roasted cacao bean nibs in the Nibs bar to the tempered sweetness of the Dark 59% bar this four-bar set is a chocolate experience for the pure at heart.

~ Fresh (Lavender, Mint, Chai and Roseberry bars):

To refresh the senses and awaken the mind, this set is infused with fresh botanicals, from the zest of ginger and tea spices in the Chai bar to the sweet raspberries and rosehips in the Roseberry bar. Bright herbal infusions in the Lavender and Mint bars add a cool twist to this four-bar set.

How To Enter:

Leave a comment here telling me which Dagoba Valentine’s Chocolate Bar set most appeals to you. That’s it! (Please note, there is no right or wrong answer! )

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~ Contest ends Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 5:00pm PST.

~ One entry per household. Duplicate entries will be discarded.

~ Three winners will be randomly drawn and notified by email, and will have 24 hours to respond before new winner(s) are chosen.

~ Giveaway open to U.S. residents only.

~ Three winners will each receive twelve bars of Dagoba Organic Chocolate bars.

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Be sure to check out the other current Valentine’s Day giveaways here at Chocolate Bytes!

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[images used with permission from Dagoba Organic Chocolate]

Gail Ambrosius Chocolates for Valentine’s

I recently had the opportunity to try some Gail Ambrosius chocolates, and as I’ve come to find with most chocolate that comes from hand-crafting chocolatiers, they were amazing!

The chocolates come in a variety of flavors — aside from the classic standards of vanilla, raspberry, blueberry and espresso, there are some pretty adventurous ones, like Shiitake Mushroom, Sweet Curry With Saffron, Fig, and even Rose and Jasmine. My favorite, as it tends to be, was the Caramel Sprinkled With Grey Salt, but I did really enjoy the Rica Organica (bliss) and Cointreau.

There are also some fun ones that kids would really enjoy, as well as hot chocolate, chocolate sauce, even a s’mores kit!

Gail’s chocolates are single origin, and she’s actually gone to live with the farmers half a world away to see and live the process herself. One of my favorite parts of her story is:

“And now, here I am taking this cacao they’re growing and selling it as a gourmet product. I feel passionate about working to ensure that these farmers and their families receive a fair wage so they’re able to educate their children. That’s what dairy farming did for my family. Cacao farmers deserve that same opportunity. Real chocolate—grown on trees by farmers with dreams for their children and transformed into truffles on wintry Wisconsin days—is my passion. And it’s my joy to share it with you.”

That’s a chocolatier I can feel good about buying from!

Gail Ambrosius Chocolates are handmade in Madison, Wisconsin, and are reasonably priced and ready to ship. These would make a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for anyone!

[image: gailambrosius.com]

Chocolaty Weekend Links

I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year’s celebration this week! We always like to stay in with the kids, watch some movies and have snacks. I made fudge and popcorn and we put out chips and salsa. Though I don’t make resolutions, this year I want to venture a bit more outside of my comfort zone and try a few recipes that I normally wouldn’t. We’ll see how that goes!

~ Homemade Peppermint Patties at Sweet Cheeks in the Kitchen

~ Raw Cacao Energy Bars from Rawmazing

~ Mexican Chocolate Tart at Love and Olive Oil

~ Espresso and Rum Chocolate Truffles from My Delicious Mornings

~ Raw Chocolate Avocado Pudding at Sweet on Veg

~ Molten Chocolate Cakes from Chat & Chew

~ Banana Chocolate Cake at Piggy’s Cooking Journal

~ 15 Minute Chocolate Fudge from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures

~ Chocolate Nut Biscotti at Doable and Delicous

[image: flickr]

Patric Chocolate Offers Free Shipping

Just in time for holiday and Christmas shopping (think hostess gifts, stocking stuffers, teacher gifts, etc!), Patric Chocolates is offering up free shipping on all orders until Thursday, November 26th (Thanksgiving Day).

All orders of Patric’s yummy chocolate, whether it’s the bars, the drinking chocolate or baking nibs, made between now and Thanksgiving Day will receive the free shipping offer.

Chocolate is the perfect gift for any occasion, but especially during the holidays when people you don’t expect to give you a gift actually do — just pull out a chocolate bar (maybe with a cute little gift bow) for one of those “Oh I got you a gift too!” moments

Patric’s chocolate line-up includes:

~ Single Estate Madagascar 67% bar
~ Single Estate Madagascar 70% bar
~ Single Estate Madagascar 70% bar with Nibs
~ Single Estate Rio Caribe Superior 70% bar *NEW*
~ Single Estate Madagascar 75% bar
~ Single Estate Madagascar 100% Drinking Chocolate
~ Single Estate Madagascar 100% Roasted Cacao Nibs

[image: patric chocolate]

The Chocolate Adventure Contest

Scharffen Berger chocolate is teaming up with Tuttifoodie.com for their third annual Chocolate Adventure Contest.

Anyone can enter the contest, which encourages creative recipe creations for both sweet or savory dishes. The recipes must include Scharffen Berger Chocolate and at least one suggested ingredient from the “Adventure Ingredients” list, which includes fresh mint, crystallized ginger, pandan leaf, banana leaf, sumac, raw honey, cacao nibs, fresh or whole dried chili pepper, malbec, peanut butter, black-eyed peas, rice flour, papaya, cumin, paprika, and smoked sea salt.

Two grand prizes of $10,000 each will be awarded, one for a sweet dish and one for savory, and two second place prizes that include signed cookbooks and chocolate will also be awarded.

Full rules can be found at the Chocolate Adventure website, as well as a look at the judges. You can submit your entry online, and the contest submission deadline is January 3rd, so get cooking!

[image: flickr]

Scharffen Berger’s Big Screen Debut

Artisan chocolate maker Scharffen Berger will be making its first big screen appearance in the upcoming movie, Julie & Julia.

An early pivotal scene finds Julie (played by Amy Adams) standing outside a Scharffen Berger chocolate storefront. It’s in this instant that she makes the connection between cooking and pleasure, which inspires her to cook every recipe in Julia Childs’ (played by Meryl Streep) cookbook within one year and blog about it. (I found an interesting IMDB message board thread stating that Julia didn’t approve of Julie’s undertaking!)

Scharffen Berger chocolate was created in 1997 in San Francisco, California, and began garnering national attention soon after. The bean to bar premium chocolate bars are now considered one of the world’s finest, and the proprietary bean blends come from up to nine different cacao-growing regions throughout the world.

The movie, which is based on two stories — Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia, and Julia Childs’ My Life in France — hits theaters tomorrow, August 7th.

[image: flickr]

Chocolate Covered Bacon

I had to do it. I finally bit the bullet and made my own batch of chocolate covered bacon. It’s apparently become a staple at county affairs across the US this summer, and after reading yet another article about how much people are looking forward to trying it, I decided to whip up some in my own kitchen.

It’s simple enough: I put regular sliced bacon (some people recommend thick slices, but I didn’t have it on hand. The thin worked out just as well) in my Foreman grill, melted some chocolate chips in the microwave (admittedly, I used plain old Nestle chips instead of my good Ghirardelli chips, just in case), and then laid the cooled bacon in the chocolate and spooned it over before setting it on parchment paper. That’s it.

My kids were wary about what I was doing, especially when they saw the bacon come out of the fridge. One of my nine-year-olds got into the fun by helping me drain the bacon, and my ten-year-old enjoyed stirring the chocolate chips when they’d come out of the microwave.

Now, we tried the Vosges bacon chocolate bar last year and were not impressed. So, I was a little worried that I was wasting some perfectly good bacon and chocolate.

The verdict? I’m glad I didn’t use the 60% Cacao chips from Ghirardelli, but not because they would have been wasted. The semi-sweet Nestle chips were perfect – not overpowering but still chocolaty, which let the salty bacon come through. I didn’t use “flavored” bacon – no apple smoked or maple or anything, just plain bacon.

The kids that were giving me the stink eye just minutes before when I told them what I was up to were happily dipping their own little leftover pieces of bacon into the chocolate bowl as we waited for the “dipped” bacon to set up in the fridge.

Like I said, I thought I would end up disliking it as much as I disliked the candy bar from last year, but, and I’m a little ashamed to admit this, they were actually pretty darn good. I can’t see making these often, for obvious reasons, but it was a fun distraction this afternoon and the kids got a kick out of how good the two completely different tastes went together, which would have been it worth it even if they didn’t turn out.

Have you tried chocolate covered bacon? What did you think?

Chocolaty Weekend Links

I love having a whole weekend open without any obligations — especially when it means I can experiment with new chocolate recipes! Here are this week’s chocolate links:

~ Melted Peanut Butter Cup Banana Shake from Happy. Healthy. Life.

~ Pecan Praline Caramel Crack(er) Bars at Chocolate Fool

~ Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie from Simply Gluten-Free

~ Chocolate Espresso Semifreddo at Annie’s Eats

~ Foodie-Friendly Rice Krispies Treats with Cacao Nibs from Very Small Anna

~ Homemade Chocolate Sauce at Suzie the Foodie

~ Vanilla Tapioca and Milk Chocolate Lime Cremeux from Tartelette

~ Mounds Cupcakes at Beantown Baker

~ Coconut Almond Chocolate Macaroons from Adventures in Shaw

~ Molten Chocolate Cakes at Back to the Cutting Board

~ Sour Cream Chocolate Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips from Savory Sweet Life

~ Nutella and Hazelnut French Toast at The Pink Peppercorn

~ Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Macaroons from Brown Eyed Baker

~ Very Good Chocolate Cake at A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen

~ Chocolate-Mint Ice Cream from Seasaltwithfood

[image: flickr]

White Blizzard Chocolate Martini

I’ve really never been one for cocktails. I don’t care for hard liquor and the fruity cocktails usually end up tasting too sweet and make feel ill after just one.

A chocolate cocktail, on the other hand, is something I wouldn’t mind having a little more often!

This recipe for a White Blizzard Chocolate Martini really isn’t season-specific can work both ways – either sitting on the back porch on a warm evening, or curled up next to a fireplace in the dead of winter.

White Blizzard Chocolate Martini
from MartiniArt

4 oz of Absolut Vanil vodka
1 oz of clear Creme de Cacao
2 oz of Godet White Chocolate liqueur
1 tsp of coconut flakes
2 freezing martini glasses

Add the vodka to a shaker half full of cracked ice. Shake vigorously for a full minute. Add the white chocolate liqueur, and Creme de Cacao. Swirl the shaker for another full minute, and then let it rest for a minute.

Strain your martini into the freezing martini glasses. Each glass gets half of the coconut flakes. Stir each martini gently to start the blizzard!

[image: flickr]

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

I decided to make the kids and my husband a treat yesterday and after checking that we had some Rice Krispies in the cupboard (the kids don’t always remember to tell me when we’re out of something), I decided on these Peanut Butter Crispy Bars.

What I didn’t have on hand, though, was any milk chocolate! I was fresh out of milk chocolate chips, had nothing I could use in my chocolate drawer, and didn’t feel like running to the store for it when I had so much dark and semi-sweet around anyway.

So, for the peanut butter/chocolate layer I just used my 60% Ghirardelli chocolate chips (which I also used for the top layer), which is why mine are a bit darker than the ones from the link above. It made for an even richer chocolate flavor, of course, and if I go this route again I’d cut back on the chocolate in that layer just a little bit, as it overpowers the peanut butter a little too much for me.

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars
originally from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Crust
1 3/4 cups crisped rice cereal
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer
5 ounces milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup creamy peanut butter

Chocolate Icing
3 ounces dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon light corn syrup
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

To make the crust: Lightly spray a paper towel with nonstick cooking spray and use it to rub the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan. [I also lined my pan with aluminum foil, which I sprayed with the cooking spray, so the bars could simply be lifted out once they set.]

Put the cereal in a large bowl and set aside. Put 1/4 cup water into a saucepan. Add the sugar and corn syrup to the pan and use a small wooden spoon to stir the mixture just until combined. Cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; cook until the mixture reaches 235 F on a candy thermometer.

Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and pour the mixture over the cereal. Working quickly, stir until the cereal is thoroughly coated, then pour into the prepared pan. Using your hands or a rubber spatula, press the cereal mixture into the bottom of the pan only. Let cool to room temperature while you make the next layer.

To make the milk chocolate-peanut butter layer: In a large nonreactive metal bowl stir together the chocolate and peanut butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled crust. Put the pan in the refrigerator for 1 hour, or until the top layer hardens.

To make the chocolate icing: In a large nonreactive metal bowl, combine the chocolate, corn syrup and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is completely smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled milk chocolate-peanut butter layer and spread into an even layer. I recommend simply tilting the pan to spread the chocolate around as opposed to using a rubber spatula which is more likely to disturb the layer below. Put the pan in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until the topping hardens.

Cut into 16 (or 9) squares and serve. The bars can be stored tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

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