Category Archives: Chocolate

Delight of a Chocolate Cake Top Kempinski Dessert

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Turkish ingredients spike award-winning mini-chocolate cake

Bosphorale, 1013 Kempinski Dessrt of the Year, incorporates Turkish ingendients.

Bosphorale, 1013 Kempinski Dessrt of the Year, incorporates Turkish ingendients.

If you think baklava or halvah whenever someone mentions Turkish sweets, think again. Bosphorale created by the executive pastry chef of Çırağan Palace Kempinski İstanbul was named the Kempinski Dessert of the year. Granted, William McCarrick, said executive pastry chef and also a master chocolatie, is not Turkish. More importantly, he was open-minded in adapting Turksh ingredients into an international confection, also made with Bergamot-scented tea from the Black Sea sweetly paired with delicately dried Malatya apricots and Valrhona chocolate.

“With our focus at Çırağan Palace Kempinski to use local culinary products as inspiration, my cake is symbolic of a trip to Turkey,” states McCarrick,said.  “I combined the best of these regional flavors for my creation, as Turkey produces 80 percent of the world’s dried apricots. and it is among the world’s top five tea-growing countries.”

Among the ingredients ingrained in Turkish cultural traditions and  creatively used in the cake are dried fruits, including apricots that are usually served at village festivals, weddings and other celebrations, while tea has become a culture of its own, with specific brewing techniques and drinking customs. Offering tea and drinking it together are considered a gesture of friendship and hospitality throughout Turkey.

To enter the competition, Kempinski chefs submitted original recipes using  specific guidelines. This year, the key ingredient had to be chocolate, the dessert had to be presentable both as an individual cake and as a platable dessert and it could not be a soufflé, dessert à la minute or ice cream. Bosphorale was chosen as the Kempinski Dessert of the Year in a blind tasting by 80 judges from recipes by submitted by some 50 executive pastry chefs. It will be  offered in all Kempinski properties worldwide throughout 2013. Alas, there’s not a single Kempinski hotel in North America.

Cross-posted to Travel Babel.

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Ducasse’s New Paris Chocolate Atelier

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Star chef’s bean-to-bar atelier opens tomorrow

DucasseChocolate-logoHaving just written about the new Bocuse Restaurant replacing the former Escoffier Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America, I have la cuisine français on my mind. Now comes word via David Liebovitz’s Living the Sweet Life in Paris about a new venture from super-chef ”Alain Ducasse…along with pastry chef Nicolas Berger, who is now running La Manufacture de chocolat, their chocolate atelier not far from the center of the city.” Liebovitz, an American pastry chef and Chez Panisse alum who now lives in and blogs from Paris, points out that the “bean-to-bar” concept actually started in the US and is one of the few (other than the unforunate migration of American fast food) to transfer from here to there.

Liebovitz notes, “It’s very hard to make chocolate on a small-scale and I was skeptical when friends launched the first of those businesses way-back-when in America, which has become very successful.”

Ducasse is a notable chef, restaurateur, hotelier and owner of Ecole Cuisine Alain Ducasse, a cooking school in Paris (they offer classes in English too). Liebovitz’s most recent blog post, “La Manufacture de chocolat Alain Ducasse,” describes Chef Ducasse’s newest venture, a five-year process of bringing this American concept to Paris. It features wonderful images of the process that begins with roasting chocolate beans and ends with mouth-watering chocolate bars. Liebovitz also relates his own work with chocolate while still in the Bay area.

Liebovitz’s very French directions to the manufacture and atelier include the not just the address and phone number but also the arrondissement and the Métro stop: 40, rue de la Roquette (11th) Métro: Bastille Tél: 01 48 05 82 86. He adds that it is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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Cured Hosts All-Colorado Food Tasting

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Try Colorado gourmet items in Boulder

Just the other day, I wrote a post about Colorado Proud and its promotion of Colorado-made agricultural products. The program is very broad-stroke, including produce, meats, farm-raised fish, poultry and other farm products, both organic and conventional. Cured, a small European-inspired shop that offers a hand-picked selection of cheeses, cured meats, table wines, fresh-made daily sandwiches and other unique grocery items, presents a free all-Colorado holiday tasting focusing on small-batch gourmet products on Thursday, December 13 from 4 to 6:30 p.m.

Local products include Bandaged Goat Cheddar from Avalanche Cheese Company in Basalt, Belford and Leyden cheeses from James Ranch in Durango, Nathan Miller’s new line of chocolates from Lafayette, Ritual Chocolate from Denver, pickles from The Real Dill in Denver, MM Local’s preserved fruits, Cured’s owm House Preserves from the Western Slope, Beth’s Bees’ Bee Squared Honey from Berthoud and wines from both Settembre Cellars in Boulder and Jack Rabbit Hill wines in Hotchkiss. 1825-B Pearl Street,  Boulder; 720-389-8096.

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Eat Chocolate to Be Slim(mer)!

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Add to dark chocolate’s benefits lower BMI for those who eat a bit every day

It comes as no surprise to me that a female scientist concluded that eating a bit of dark chocolate nearly every day reduces Body Mass Index (BMI) by 1 percent. According to a welcome report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Beatrice Golomb (University of California, San Diego) found a surprising chocolate benefit bonus. She and her team studied 1,018 healthy men and women who exercised on average 3.6 times a week, ate a balanced and nutritious diet, and still enjoyed 1 ounce or so of chocolate five times a week.

The chocolate contained “extra” calories but is already known to have positive impacts on heart health, blood pressure and glucose level control. The body mass index is a measure of body fat based on an individual’s height and weight, and the 1 percent chocolate bonus translates to 1 point translates to 5 fewer pounds for someone 5 feet tall and 7 pounds for a person who is 5-foot-10.

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New Mexico Pastry Chef Won “Food Network” Challenge

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Chocolate train takes top honors on television chef competition

Darci Rochaud

Darci Rochau, pastry chef at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa on the Santa Ana Pueblo, north of Albuquerque, recently won first place on the nationally televised  “Food Network Challenge.” Competing against three other teams and assisted by her husband, Greg, she won with“The Transcontinental,” an elaborate five-foot-tall chocolate train looping around a mountaintop that she created in less than eight hours.

"The Transcontinental," a TV prize-winner, too eight hours top construct.

The sculpture was made from more than 100 different pieces of chocolate. It was equipped with illuminating headlights and also puffed smoke out of its engine. Rochau practiced nearly every evening for six weeks before the competition in order to perfect the sculpture so the competition day would go smoothly. It certainly seems that it did.

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A Big Food Day in Boulder

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Long-awaited cafe and chocolate shop opened today in downtown Boulder

Remember March 15, 2011, as the day that two foodie meccas opened in downtown Boulder – both after substantial delays but with great anticipation among prospective customers.  Caffè, the second spin-off of Frasca opened next door to Pizzeria Locale, the first spin-off, which is directly next door to the mother ship. I haven’t been to Caffè (in fact, I haven’t been to Pizza Locale yet because the wait for a table has been so long whenever we’ve tried to get in), but I’m sure I will before long.  Westword restaurant critic Laura Shunk has been there though and previewed it for me and every other Frasca fan and cafe-lover who didn’t make it today. It is at 1738 Pearl Street.

I did get to Piece, Love & Chocolate, a super-artisanal, very European-style chocolatier that also opened today a few blocks to the west. The chocolates are exquisite and delicious, as are the petits-fours and the cakes. The brownies can’t be called exqusite, but the sample of the brownie du jour definitely was delicious. And did I write “decadent” yet? Three women are running the chocolate show, and the two I met, Sarah Ambrose, and her sidekick whose picture I took but whose card I neglected to pick up were all smiles this afternoon.The store is at 805 Pearl Street; phone is 303-552-8698.  Here are some images:

The bown paper is finally off the windows and Piece, Love & Chocolate is open for business.

 

A gleaming glass case holds an array of exquisite St. Patrick's Day-themed petits-fours and other decadent sweets.

All smiles behind the counter on opening day.

My husband loves raspberry and I love him, so I brought my sweetheart this perfect sweet heart.

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Today’s Look at Yesterday’s Blaze

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Firefighters spent a good part of yesterday extiniguishing a blaze in a downtown Boulder building that housed four food businesses

From across the Pearl Street Mall, the building on the southeast corner oftoward Fourteenth and Pearl looks unsathed. Firefighters battled yesterday’s two-alarm blaze mainly from the roof and the second floor. No ground-floor windows were broken, which is amazing. Hurdles Jewelry on the Pearl Street side had some water damage, and the four food places on the Fourteenth Street side had various degrees of damage. From north to south they are Oak at Fourteenth where the fire appears to have started, Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop, Tee & Cakes bakery and cafe, and Smooch Frozen Yogurt & Mochi. A closer look tells the tale of fire and water.

From across the street, only the yellow police tape gives an indication of yesterday's fire.

With big plate-glass windows unbroken, Oak at Fourteenth appears unscathed

 

Hot chocolate, anyone?

 

A sign of the social media times advises customers where to find status information.

 

A poster thanking firefighters for their work putting out last September's Fourmile Canyon fire is ironically appropriate again.

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