Forum Activity for @The Chocolate Tourist

Ihave a running theory that chocolate goes with everything, but some of these combinations mentioned are challengingeven my particular brand of optimism.

This week I picked up dark chocolates with basil and white ganache, as well as one with roasted red peppers from Tifa Chocolate in AgouraHills, CA. Both are utterly delicious - strong basil flavor but it still works with itsheavenly chocolate robe.

I'll post pics and reviews of both soon (thechocolatetourist.tv/blog)!

That one was interesting. I liked it, but it's a strange one, for sure.

Oo I like this topic!

I have tried some strange combinations in chocolate bars before like potato chip, coconut curry and white chocolate olive, but I JUST stumbled upon Cocanu chocolates. Several of the bars have wood in them, and they are surprisingly good!

I just got to taste a pretty fascinating set of mushroom pralines, made by the fantastic hungarian chocolatier and bean-to-bar chocolate makers " Rzsavlgyi Csokold " ! Although I like combinations of savory/salty flavors with chocolate (such as more common classics with pepper, chili, or smoked salt...), I have to say that I was a little affraid of eating mushroom flavored chocolates. Their pretty box contains 9 pralines of 3 different mushroom flavors (Chanterelle, Morel and Porcini).

Guess what? They all taste great and I bet they make an incredible combination if eaten with a good, strong wine (the mushroom taste is not overly dominant though, which was probably a wise decision).

Coco Sala in Washington, D.C. sells chocolate covered bacon strips. I thought my kids would love it but the combination was just too much to handle. They love chocolate. And they love bacon. But not together!

I am going through the "Bean to Bar" program at Ecole Chocolat. The program includes tastings to compare chocolate from different regions, cocoa percentage, etc. I've found a couple chocolate bars that had the taste of smoke - one good and one bad.

The Michel Cluizel 85% Grand Noir had an incredible smokey flavor - reminiscent of sherry oak barrels burning in a barbeque pit, with a nice scotch whiskey lingering aftertaste.

On the other hand the Michel Cluizel Mokaya 66% Mexique had a terrible smokey aroma / flavor. While on the one hand it was somewhat bland, it had an unpleasant tobacco undertone. Made me think that they were smoking cigarettes or cigars while they prepared the chocolate! YECCH!

Very good points. I was merely restating the company's marketing. I will avoid that in the future without referencing peer-reviewed research.

Note that I did say that the best was 70% bittersweet even though it also had some camel's milk. So to your point, chocolate with higher cocoa content is better for diabetics, and in this case it is the best tasting chocolate with camel's milk anyway.

I have to butt in regarding camel milk. If the company actually says is has less lactose, fine, it may. If they say it has more insulin, then they're big-time confused or just misleading you. No milk has insulin. Further, it wouldn't matter if it did because you can't take insulin orally. If you did, it would be digested and denatured as a protein and would therefore have none of the effects you'd expect from insulin. For a diabetic, they'd probably be better off with chocolate with higher cocoa content than milk chocolate, which has more sugar than very dark chocolate. Sorry for the distraction -- I just don't like anyone being mislead, even unintentionally. OK, back to chocolate!

This combo actually makes sense to me. The ouzo is kind of licorice-fennel flavor and the hot chili. I've occasionally eaten a bar from Vice chocolates in California that's 65% cocoa and is topped with dried figs and fennel seeds. I'd like it a little higher in cocoa content but I'm quibbling. Very good.

Oh, and I can think of another one: Once a friend of mine gave me Ouzo-chili-chocolate as a present. Maybe from Greece? I don't remember it. The only thing I remember is that it tasted way better than it sounds ;)

Aussie vegimite and white chocolate. The vegimite kind of caramilises and the sweet from white choc mixes well with the saltiness from the vegimite. We did them for Australia day and ANZAC day. Very yummy.

Once in Belgium I tried a chocolate with a chili-mango-taste. It was pretty odd and nothing I would eat a second time honestly..

I have tried camel's milk chocolate. Several years ago when the volcano in Iceland stopped air traffic in Europe I had to fly to India. I decided to stop in Dubai. On the way back home to the US I got stuck in Dubai for 24 hours (free hotel and food!). I bought several varieties of chocolate made with camel's milk, though I thought the best was the 70% bittersweet cacao, though it had some camel's milk.

By the way, camel's milk is healthier than cow's milk: according to the company, camels milk offers five times more vitamin C than cows milk, has less fat and less lactose and more insulin, making it a good option for diabetics and people who are lactose intolerant.

You can buy their chocolates by calling the company (Al nassma).

For me the weirdest combination so far were pretzels covered with chocolate. IDK if that counts as weird enough but that's all I've got now)

I believe (so I've been told) that this 'smokey' effect also changes the colour of the cocoa powder that is produced from these beans. I've actually got some in storage not that I would know how to turn them from "bean to bar". I agree with the minimum 50%.

I also happen to like the taste of smokey cocoa beans, at least those I've tasted. I'm sure there is "good smokey" and not-so-good smokey. I'd probably take such a bar as you described over one that was just bland. For me, it's how it tastes at about the 75% level. At 50% of below, you can disguise a lot.

When it comes to different flavours, I feel it is interesting to note the difference in origins of cocoa beans, for example, whilst nearly all European manufacturers stay away from Smokey Cameroon beans there are some factories that only purchase these smokey beans. In Douala and surrounding regions their cocoa beans are forced through fermentation with the aid of fires, they part sun dry and part artificially dry. However when the beans arrive in Europe if they have a smokey smell to them they are instantly rejected by the receiver most of the time as the flavour is affected. The rejected beans are then normally sold as salvage (tonnes of the stuff) however I had the pleasure to taste a chocolate bar made from these "smokey" beans and I thought it was rather unique and different yet still enjoyable. The barbeque effect was to my liking. Unfortunately due to the lack of demand these smokey beans are rarely used for chocolate making.

I believe more chocolate combinations are attempts by chocolatiers to widen their potential customer base.

I go the other way because I am prominent in healthy chocolates for folks with special dietary and/or religious needs.

Dave Lambert

David's Delicious Chocolates

I found a dark chocolate with a bacon taste in my wanderings.

Dave Lambert

David's Delicious Chocolates

the e home for healthy chocolates for folks with special dietary needs and/or religious needs

I think I tried chocolate covered bees when I was in high school, about a hundred years ago. Friends actually held me down on the floor and forced it on me. They're dried and granulated, so you could not detect any bees per se or even individual bee parts, only the knowledge of them andthe crunch that comes with granules of any kind. I didn't know much about chocolate then, so it was probably run of the mill quality. People do eat with their eyes and their heads however, so the thought was enough to cause me to not want it again. There are so many ingredients people have added to chocolate, I have to ask myself the point. More specifically, what doyou (the chocolatier) wish to get out of the combination with chocolate? If it's just to sensationalize the end product, fugettabout it, in my book. (The poop thing comes to mind here.) If to produce a real flavor sensation, terrific.

My ChocolateBanquet.com spreadsheet of flavors combined (purchased, made, tasted) with chocolate, now tops 300. In the hands of a true artist, almost anything can work -- even smoked salmon or anchovies (Modern Dwellers Choc. Lounge, in Anchorage AK). I've only come across one item I couldn't finish -chocolate covered insects, although I've been told I picked the wrong insect chocolate. Maybe when I'm feeling adventurous again I'll try chocolate covered ants. Yes, I love Zotter's sense of adventure (blue cheese, grapes). The camel milk chocs. aren't bad, no gamey flavor; but I don't care as much for sweet, milk chocolates (no matter what type of milk). Fun to hear what others are tasting.

OK, please tell me they dry it out and compost it first. Please. Of course, if it's composted and dried out, and they only add a tiny bit, it may be relatively harmless (although I still wouldn't recommend eating it). I know that when people speak of eating "alternative protein sources" such as termites, roaches, etc. these are often dried and ground into a course meal texture, so you really don't recognize the original ingredient. I'm adventurous, but poop is where I'd really draw the line, even if it's been autoclaved.

I have made chocolate covered gummy bears along with gummy worm bars...pretty good..different and fun! my favorite right now is caramel coconut!

try this wonderful italian recipe: tortellini di cioccolato alla ricotta con porri e paprika..... very good !!!

Sun dried tomato chocolate sounds nice actually

Hi Nena

We make two chilli chocolates, they are both fresh cream ganaches, one white and one dark, the white truffle is covered in white chocolate and a Sao Thome version for the dark. The reason we think ours are a little different is that we use fresh red chillies chopped fine in our ganache plus of course a touch of Welsh vodka never hurts does it?

This combination gives an almost fruity heat which creeps up on you when you've already said "that's not very hot is it?" Suddenly WOW "I'm getting it now!" It never fails to amuse especially when we put them out on sample and people try them without asking what they are :-)

White Chilli Truffle - Wales the True Taste - Gold 2010

Dark Chilli Truffle - Academy of Chocolate - Bronze 2011

Dark Chilli Truffle - Great Taste - Gold 2011

Best regards

Emma

Hi Virginia, do you mind explaining these delicious sounding goat cheese truffles in more detail? Do you substitute goat cheese for butter in the ganache? Or enrobe little balls of straight goat cheese? I want to start playing with the combination as I was just informed that I have a schinus molle tree (pink peppercorn) growing in my garden, sure enough i tasted the little berries and they were the freshest pepper taste you can imagine!

h

Thanks to Howard and Hanna ( www.mamorchocolates.com ) and Andrew Donnelly in Melbourne Australia, we produced a Kava flavoured 70% dark chocolate (KokoKava) made from SAMOAN GOLD trinitario cocoa beans grown here in Samoa, now available from www.kokosamoainternational.com in Sydney. We had five islands represented, Tokelau, Routuma, Kiribati, FIJI and Samoa, all sitting around a bowl of grog (kava) and these kava fanatics just loved the Cocoa Samoa Limited KokoKava 50gm bar...with 250mg of Vanuatu kava ... we now want www.c-spot.com to review our KokoKava chocolate bar. X-citing times. Steve stevebrownsamoa@gmail.com

Nothing exotic as blood and cherries, I'm afraid.

mango and jalepeno (white choc ganache) is about as off the wall as I get.

Chai spice is another -butter ganache with typical chai spices

Nanaimo bar is another, a typical Canadian treat, but mine are mini sized--graham crust base, coconut custard top, enrobed in bitter 70%

Strawberry and black pepper work well--again, a white choc. ganache

cool to see your bread comment! i used to spread rounds of artisanal baguette with apricot preserves and enrobe them in 56% by Callebaut..... and also the same process with a thin slice of gianduja on each round of crusty bread.... the texture combo and the salty- sweet- dark is pretty phenomenal

yeah I hear you! it's the smoke that makes it difficult, not so much the cheese... IMHO

Hi everyone: A fascinating discussion because I have been working on new flavours for sometime. My training is not actually as a chocolate chef, I'm actually a PhD food chemist. Currently I am producing about forty flavours for high-end clients in Australia and New Zealand (although I'm a Hungarian-American). In the past I've not only done all the alcoholic flavours (see beer chocolates at right) but also deer velvet and venison salami chocolates. Plus we have our line of aphrodisiac chocolates for men and women using rain forest herbs from Southeast Asia. The numbers of men enjoying Tomcat Alley certainly swelled to epic proportions! My Pocket Venus truffles revive a flagging female libido too. They are best served as a matching set. Just now I got lots of attention for my garlic truffles and kangaroo salami truffles , which are actually an hors d'oeuvre. I'm brewing up now something that I can only reveal now as an "Operatic Chocolate". Kind regards, Hanna Frederick, Mamor Chocolates and High Tea Szalon, Melbourne, Australia

Oh! chocolate in Seattle turned me on to goat cheese truffles with crushed pink peppercorns on top. easy to make, don't keep very long and definitely a distinctive taste. I love them!

yes, and the smoked alder salt that is out now is delicious with chocolate.....ground sage added to it with peanuts and chili is to die for.

I am still trying to work out chocolate chili bars. Does anyone have any pointers on how to perfect it...When I add just cayenne powder to my bars, they are hot without any chili flavor...should I be satisfied with this? HELP!

Paul Young's marmite truffle

I'm not big on flavored chocolate, but I tasted some white and black truffle oil ganaches in dark chocolate, also olive oil ganaches in Montreal by Genevieve Grandbois. Until reading your column here, I thought that was pretty far out. Some of the combinations described in the comments...I dunno.

OK, the breast milk thing takes the cake. There was a chef in Brooklyn, I think, that was written about maybe last year or so, who used the extra breast milk his wife produced to make cheese, ice cream, etc. and served it in his cafe/restaurant until he was stopped. I thought donating it would have made more sense. Combining it with pralines and chocolate? No -- although I think there's at least enough material to do some stand-up comedy with the idea.

I didrecently have a taste of a John Kelly habanero & jalapeno truffle fudge bar. Much more heat than the usual ancho/chipotle mix that is used by some chocolatiers. It doesn't hit immediately, but when it does, it's definitely not for the faint of heart.