Chocopologie Bar with Burnt Caramel and Hawaiian Sea Salt

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Hannah

Okay, folks, I realise that this looks like I’ve already fallen off the salt-chocolate-sabbatical bandwagon, but such is not the case. The following was gobbled up weeks ago, in Charleston, and is only now seeing the blog-light of day. Which is surprising, really, because it was rather fabulous.

Knipschildt Chocolatier Chocopologie Bar with Burnt Caramel and Hawaiian Sea Salt

Poor little fella was a bit knocked around by the time I got to him - he came with me all the way from New York through Savannah and DC before being opened in Charleston.

Knipschildt Chocolatier makes only four different flavours of Chocopologie Bar, and I make no hesitation in asserting that I chanced upon the pick of the bunch (even though I have not, in all honesty, tried the others). There’s a Mocha bar, a Mint bar, and a Rosewater bar too, but honestly, look at how pretty this Burnt Caramel and Hawaiian Sea Salt 71% Ecuadorian cocoa chocolate is:

Oh my. I just realised I can see a face looking back at me in this bar... See, with the P and O for eyes? I shall call him Albert.

So, hands up who likes caramel? And who likes caramel with depth, with dark notes of molasses and muscovado sugar, with a butteriness that puts one in mind of Werther’s Original caramels, if Werther’s caramels were thick and almost fudgy in consistency, and had been taken to just-this-side of burnt and then heightened with a goodly sprinkling of sea salt crystals?

Anyone?

A moment's silence, please.

No one? Okay then, more for me. At least I appreciated how the dark woodsy and tobacco flavours of the Ecuadorian chocolate provided a counterpoint to the rich buttery caramel, and how the salt was distributed in large crystals on the underside of the bar so that every bite incorporated caramel, chocolate and salt in a sweet-savoury trifecta.

Knipschildt Chocolatier Chocopologie Bar with Burnt Caramel and Hawaiian Sea Salt Crystals

Yes, those are the salt crystals. Pardon me, the Hawaiian Sea Salt crystals

But, you know, I understand that this isn’t everyone’s pot of tea. I could live my life quite happily without ever playing another round of golf, for example, or with having the memory of the movie Hope Floats excised from my brain. Still, I’m sure other people feel differently. But are you really telling me that you wouldn’t want to try even a little square of this?

I rest my case.

Glimpses of Washington DC's Eastern Market

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Hannah

The crepe man beginneth his crepe-making at Crepes at the Market (ingenious name! Ingenious!)

The crepe man at Crepes at the Market (ingenious nam- oh wait, we've done that already) maketh a crepe with ham, apple, cheese, and his, um, squirty sauce of savouriness.

The gorgeous L.FoodieFulbright decides not to do a Dine and Dash, whilst L.MiteMaster plots how best to dispose of an Australian blogger's body.

If this is not the clearest reference to "Women's Troubles" (*shakes hand to the side dismissively*) in existence, I don't know what is. At Capitol Hill Books.

A poodle in a clothes-and-antiques store, which reminded me of...

The poodle in a chocolate shop in Boston. What is it with Americans, sleeping poodles, and retail areas? (P.S. Could someone please pass me the Chinita and Michel Cluizel bars in the background? All of them? Ta.)

But most importantly, does it sparkle? And teach young women and men that watching unsuspecting people while they sleep and getting beaten up when being... affectionate (*ahem*) is fine-and-dandy? I, for one, won't deign to drink it unless it does.

E. Guittard Nocturne 91% and Lindt 90%

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Hannah

Fancy flavour combinations and sugary delights are all well and good for keeping the novelty alive in one’s relationship with chocolate, but there are times when nothing but the darkest, most intense, barely-a-whisper-of-sweetness chocolate will suffice.

E. Guittard Nocture 91%

As is usually the case with higher-percentage chocolates, this 91% Nocturne by American chocolate company E.Guittard is very dark in colour – on the blacker side of brown – and has a firm texture and snap. Also nicely glossy, its aroma is of hazelnut, coconut, and cocoa powder with a slight hint of earth.

Two factors stood out tasting this chocolate. First was its smooth texture and thick, soft melt, which was quite unlike the chalkiness sometimes found in 85%-and-above chocolate. Second was the intense flavour of fennel that seemed to function as a sheer overlay. While the bar had notes of hazelnut, walnut, iron, burnt toast and even - though this clearly marks me Australian and I believe derives from the mineral strength of the cacao - burnt toast with a skerrick of vegemite, the fennel was ever-present.

Nocturne’s thick texture and lack of sweetness makes it not for the faint of [chocolate] heart. The bar does, however, exemplify how diverse chocolate can be, depending on the cacao used, what type of sugar is chosen, and whether emuslifiers or vanilla are added. To further illustrate this…

Lindt 90%

My opinion of Lindt are as follows: 70% no thanks, 85% yes please, Excellence Chili the perfect accompaniment to watching Ellen with my mother on the couch. (I miss watching Ellen with my mother on the couch!)

Here is the first line of my tasting notes on Lindt’s 90% bar: HOLY MOLY COOKIES BROWNIES COOKIE COOKIES COOKIES BUT NOT SWEET.

I’m nothing if not eloquent.

But I do stand by my reaction. Each time I have this, I’m overwhelmed by how much it tastes like a malt-y, wheat-y, oat-y chocolate chip cookie – just without the sweetness. I love it. Absolutely love it. To me, it’s not bitter, or at least not in an acrid, screw-up-your-face way. Though I must admit that I gave some to L.MiteMaster and Mrs.C and they looked at me like I was crazy when I said “cookies!” I think the cookie idea emanates from the bar’s strong vanilla flavour. To Lindt’s credit, they opt here for real vanilla rather than the fake vanillin flavouring used by so many large-scale chocolate companies.

I love that there is no tanginess or fruitiness to the Lindt 90%, nor even much earthiness. The chocolate simply has that lingering cookie flavour and a hint of brownies – the kind made with cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate (which is not usually a good thing, but works here).

Seeing as I’ve been rather verbose these past two days, I’ll cut myself off here. Though only from the writing, mind you. Not from the chocolate.

There’s One in Every Family – Two in Mine, Actually…

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Hannah

Replace “family” with “tiny little rural Southern town”, and maniacal fratricidal lion with creepy-but-apparently-harmless middle-aged man, and Zazu could well have been referring to Jonesville’s Mr. Bottom.

Three things to note, first:

1) This man’s name was not, in fact, Mr. Bottom. However, I honestly thought it was for several days, so have decided it’s an apt pseudonym.

2) The above quote from The Lion King was chosen for this story as a result of Mrs.C, the LLC virtuoso, describing Mr. Bottom as “the village idiot”. Also because I know all The Lion King songs by heart*, and apparently most of the dialogue too.

3) My time in Jonesville on the whole passed in a lovely blur of chatting to Mrs.C. and Mr.R, watching Arrested Development with L.MiteMaster, and revelling in the glory that is having a guesthouse all to yourself kitted out with movies, novels, and chocolates.

Chocolate and reading - my lovely hosts know me well.

On my last full day in Jonesville, however, L.MiteMaster took a break from writing his graduate school applications and we embarked on a meander around his town with the ever-lovable Doc.

Do you know what's awful about all these photos of Doc? L.MiteMaster actually has another dog, too. This is like an horrible example of favouring one child over another. I'm ashamed.

When heading home along the sidewalk, L.MiteMaster and I found ourselves frozen in place by the sight of a blue car careening directly towards us. The car crossed to the wrong side of the road, clanged down and up again across a large pothole, and screeched to a stop mere feet from our perplexed persons.

Readers, I was looking into a car driven by a leprechaun, but I could see no pot of gold.

Yes, it's a bag, not a pot. Take your semantics elsewhere, people.

When this squat, bug-eyed fellow introduced himself as Mr. Bottom (see above) and began asking L.MiteMaster how he was and who I was, I realised I was not in danger of being kidnapped by little people and forced to dance jigs and merry-make all night.

I was, however, in danger of coming across as rude by giggling at inopportune moments…

Conversational Tidbits of Entertainment

Upon hearing my name, Mr. Bottom exclaimed “I know THREE Hannahs! One works in Walmart, one at the video store… and YOU!” (High-pitched emphasis on the “you”.)

He then turned to L.MiteMaster and asked, in a very serious tone, whether he had taken me “to the KFC at Walmart yet”?

Um, not quite. “But we do have KFC in Australia,” I entered into the conversation.

“Really? With all the eleven herbs and spices? Even the secret ones?” He peered at me, almost suspiciously.

“I believe so…” I trailed off, fearing I had broken some leprechaun code of politeness.

Luckily, he seemed merely excited, and proceeded to tell me that there is a Sydney Opera House somewhere in Australia.

Clkr is brilliant. Exactly the photo I need here.

After some additional mumbling indecipherable over the roar of cars passing Mr. Bottom (going the right way), L.MiteMaster extricated us from the conversation.

The last thing Mr. Bottom called out, head turned back towards us whilst his car drove forward, was:

“You are blessed to have L.MiteMaster for a friend. Blessed!”

He may be a man who sat on his mother’s lap when being driven to university in his early twenties, who tried to perform an insulin injection on a young diabetic girl, who still dances by thrusting his pelvis around despite being well into his forties, and who goes to skate parks and simply runs up and down the ramps (oh small town gossip, I love you), but he got the last part right.

I guess even village fools can recognise a great friend when they see one.

Hurrah for friendsters.

* Including the ones in The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride. “In Upendi / Where the passionfruit grows sweet / And it’s so divine / That you lose your mind / As it sweeps you off your feet”. Brilliant stuff.

B.T. McElrath Chile Limón and Blogosphere Excitement

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Hannah

First and foremost, a shout-out of gratitude and excitement to two wonderful ladies, who have each brought me inexplicable happiness by posting about adventures inspired by this lil’ old blog. I would never have dreamed of finding such camaraderie after less than two months of blogging, and I’m utterly chuffed.

So please, check out Louise’s attempt to find interesting chocolates in Orange, then have a gander at Theresa’s ingenious take on the much-maligned PB & J bar.

Surely all I have to do now is sit back and wait for another incredibly clever blogger (who, unlike the current me, has ample access to a kitchen) to come up with a chocolate-chili-lime pudding, as inspired by today’s chocolate?

B.T. McElrath Chile Limón Bar

Or inspiration for a mole sauce, perhaps?

While rifling through my ever-growing chocolate stash yesterday, I realised that I needed a break from salted flavours. Taste fatigue? Subconscious fear of hypertension? I may never know, yet what I do know is my hand picked a winner when it landed on this bar by B.T. McElrath. Described as “[d]ark and milk chocolates infused with chilies and lime”, this Chile Limón bar is visually stunning. Comprised of ten squares, the front showcases milk chocolate with splodges of dark while the back integrates the dark into the milk via a swirling pattern.

I wouldn't mind the job of swirling the chocolate with a giant toothpick. Are you hiring, B.T.?

My first impression upon tasting this chocolate was of a pleasantly milky sweetness overlaid with hints of hazelnut praline… and then KAPOW, whizz-bang, and other such comic strip terminology, the chili kicked in at the back of my throat. No sooner had I registered this much-welcomed heat than the tang of lime whooshed through my mouth, lingering on my palate with the chili long after the chocolate itself had dissipated.

Never has a splotch been so appealing.

To elaborate, the chili’s effect is a strong heat at the back of the throat rather than a burning on the tongue. The lime flavour is (thankfully) not reminiscent of lime peel but lime juice, so that instead of a citrusy bitterness we get the zip and zing of a key lime pie or a lemon and lime delicious (I make a mean lemon delicious, for the record).

So much nom.

With each subsequent square of this chocolate, my mind jumped from ooh-sweet to mmm-lime-tangy to hurrah-heat! I was slightly surprised at how consistently well the combination of chili and lime worked here, both in the sweet milk chocolate sections and the more muted dark chocolate areas.

I now can’t wait to try the other B.T. McElrath bar currently hiding in my suitcase, although it is, I must admit, a salted toffee chocolate…

Wayfaring Chocolate

adventures in chocolate, travel, cooking, and living

Monthly Archives: January 2010