CHOCOLATE!!!

I'm a chocolate snob. I very rarely buy most mass market chocolate, except to give away at Halloween.  There is at least one exception:

Dark Chocolate M&M's 

From Blog Photos

M&M/Mars also makes some darn funny commercials!!!


I know, any excuse to show off.


I love to bake and with the holidays upon us I thought I would give you some of my holiday baking tips. To me recipes are not the most important thing in baking, to me it's ingredients, technique and tools. Let's start with ingredients, by far my favorite is:

 Valhrona Chocolate

From Blog Pictures

Yes Valhrona Chocolate is expensive, but it's worth it. There is a limited selection available at Whole Foods Market and a large selection available at Surfas in Culver City California, either at the store or through their new web site. It's also available at other web retailers so shop around. Don't buy the prepackaged bars, it's a lot more expensive that way. There are far too many varieties for me to list here, what I use is the cocoa powder, sometimes the unsweetened chocolate but when a recipe calls for semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate I usually use the Abinao. I don't like things too sweet so this works great for me. The percentage on the package refers to ratio of cocoa and cocoa butter to sugar, so for instance the Abinao is 85% cocoa and cocoa butter and 15% sugar. What's also great about using these varieties is that they tend to be bitter so I'm less likely to snack on them. Buying them in the feves is a lot easier than hacking of a piece of a big thick bar but easier to snack upon. Now Valhrona is far too French and snooty to make something as American and pedestrian as chocolate chips so I like Cacao Barry Mini Chips. I like mini chips better than the big ones and at $7.56 for two pounds that's about the same as the major brands and these are so much better! Cacao Barry also makes what they call Chocolate Vermicelli:

From Blog Pictures

We call them either chocolate sprinkles or jimmies. These are however one of the most dangerous things mankind has ever created! The reason I lifted the picture off the website is that I don't dare have these in the house. I will open the and immediately start pouring them in your mouth until the box is empty. The woman mentioned in my first post once said: “I could eat them right out of the box”, I gave her a look and she said “Okay, I do eat them right out of the box”. Maybe that’s what killed the relationship and oh yeah, she didn't love me let's not forget that.

ANY recipe that calls for any kind of chocolate will be so much, actually incredibly better with these chocolates!!!


Now before you get all excited about the health benefits of chocolate you need to know the fat and sugar in all chocolate negates all the health benefits. You can eat straight cocoa powder, but that's no fun!