I Love Chocolate

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

How To Make Chocolate Lollipops

Famous chocolatier Jacques Torres shares his easy recipe for chocolate lollipops. Try this with your kids. You'll all have fun, and you can give the lollipops as presents if you don't eat them first.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Recipe: Chocolate orange loaf cake

By Nigella Lawson

Cuts into 10-12 slices

150g soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
dab flavourless vegetable oil, for greasing syrup spoon
2 x 15ml tablespoons golden syrup
175g dark muscovado sugar
150g plain flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
25g best-quality cocoa powder, sifted
2 large eggs
zest of 2 regular oranges and juice of 1

KITCHEN KIT

1 x 900g (2lb) loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 and line your loaf tin with baking parchment or a paper loaf-tin liner.
Beat the already soft butter with the syrup – if you dab a little oil on your tablespoon measure with a sheet of kitchen roll, the syrup shouldn’t stick to the spoon – and the sugar until you have a fairly smooth caffè Americano cream, though the sugar will always have a bit of grit about it.
Mix the flour, bicarb and cocoa powder together, and beat into the syrup mixture 1 tablespoonful of these dry ingredients before beating in 1 egg. Then add another couple of spoonfuls of the dry ingredients before beating in the second egg.
Carry on beating in the remaining dry ingredients and then add, still beating, the orange zest and finally, gradually, the juice. At this stage, the batter may suddenly look dimpled as if slightly curdled. No need to panic!
Pour and scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, though check
5 minutes before and be prepared to keep it in the oven 5 minutes longer if need be. A cake tester won’t come out entirely clean, as the point of this cake, light though it may be, is to have just a hint of inner gunge. Leave to cool a little in its tin on a wire rack, then turn out with care and leave on the rack to cool.

MAKE AHEAD NOTE The cake can be baked up to 3 days ahead. Wrap tightly in clingfilm and store in airtight container. Will keep for 5 days total.

FREEZE NOTE The cake can be frozen, tightly wrapped in double layer of clingfilm and layer of foil, for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1335366/Recipe-Chocolate-orange-loaf-cake.html#ixzz17CKXnDvC

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A dark-chocolate fix after some dark times

By Joe Mandak

Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. - In the last 10 years, Boyer Candy Co. has survived the death of its owner, a legal squabble among his heirs that halted production for nine months, and distribution hiccups as the firm regained its footing. Which might well have left customers wondering, "Do they still make Mallo Cups?"
They do, indeed.

This month, Boyer set about reminding folks by launching a new product, Dark Chocolate Mallo Cups, it hopes will help reestablish its reputation.

"We've been around since 1936," said Deborah Forgione, director of marketing and one of four trustees who control Boyer, once owned by her late ex-husband. "... We're an old-fashioned, family-owned company, and we don't change that quickly. This is a big undertaking for us."

Industry observers say the move makes sense for a smaller company safeguarding its niche in a field dominated by Hershey, Nestle, and Mars.

"I love it when these regional brands sort of stay true to their original heritage but keep on keeping on, you know?" said Beth Kimmerle, a candy historian and blogger who develops candy exhibits in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere.

The original Mallo Cups, coconut-laced milk chocolate cups filled with a marshmallow center, were invented by Emily Boyer, mother of R.J. "Bob" and William "Bill" Boyer, who sold candy door to door during the Depression.

Distributed nationwide, Mallo Cups account for more than 60 percent of sales at Boyer, which also makes its own Peanut Butter Cups, among other products.

Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, said Dark Chocolate Mallo Cups made sense, as long as the company harbored no illusions they would be Boyer's salvation.

"What Boyer is doing is called a brand extension," he said. "You want to try to expand your business, but in order to do that, you have to have something new to sell."

That's a bigger risk for smaller companies with little advertising clout and more to lose if the new product tanks. Except that Boyer officials believe the new version may be even better than the original.

"It's an exceptionally good taste, with the dark chocolate and the Mallo center," said Bob Faith, an ex-vending company owner hired three years ago as CEO to reinvigorate Boyer after years of turmoil.

The Boyer brothers retired in 1969 and sold the company to American Maize Products, a corn-syrup manufacturer that expanded Boyer's line in the 1970s with varieties including the Minty Mallo.

The new products never caught on, and American Maize sold Boyer in 1984 to Anthony Forgione, a New York entrepreneur who stabilized the company by focusing on its core candies.

His 2001 death almost toppled Boyer, however. His divorce from Deborah Forgione, made final days before he died, set off a legal battle for control between her and two of their three children.

A trust controlled by Deborah and the three children now owns the company, but management instability during the court battles shut privately held Boyer down for most of 2003, and saw Mallo Cups lose coveted space on many store shelves.

Much of Faith's job is undoing that damage. "If you cut off the supply, they're not sitting there waiting for you to come back," he said of retailers. "It's taken time to get people's confidence."

Some problems were easy to fix. Before he ran Boyer, Faith said, his vending company had trouble buying Mallo Cups because of Boyer's antiquated 1,000-pound minimum-order requirement.

That's changed. "We'll find a way to sell you our product," he said. "We'll sell to anybody: the little guys, the big guys, the middle guys."

After revamping its machinery and improving its methods, the factory now produces about 600,000 candy cups a day - about double a year ago, Faith said. And most of Boyer's 70 employees, lucky to work a couple of days not so long ago, are now working full time, with the candy line running four days a week.
"There's still a lot of name recognition out there," Faith said, "and you can't put a value on that."

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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Business briefs: Chocolate, spirits festival aids libraries

The annual Chocolate & Spirits Festival to support the Lee County Library System will be held Dec. 3 at Bell Tower Shops in south Fort Myers.

From 6 to 8 p.m., area restaurants and businesses will feature chocolate creations and festive holiday spirits. Live entertainment by Bob Inkenbrandt and a silent auction also is planned.

Chocolate samples, beverages and silent auction tickets may be purchased at the event for $1 each. Admission is free.

Sponsored by Bell Tower Shops, Bistro 41 and CrŸ, festival proceeds benefit the library system's 12th annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival, set for March 19.

Dining room manager named at Verandah

Van Osborne has been named dining room manager at the Verandah Club community in Fort Myers. He is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations at the club, including the River House featuring Jesse Fish lounge, the 120-seat Alligator Pear restaurant and the open-air River Terrace.

Elizabeth Hodges named to board

Elizabeth Hodges, brand manager with Chico's FAS, has been elected to Island Coast AIDS Network Inc.'s board of directors. She has more than 20 years of retail experience and strong financial acumen, as well as having been a supporter of HIV/AIDS education for 15 years.

Source

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

White Chocolate-Dipped Oatmeal-Cranberry Cookies

Even non-cooks can manage baking a batch of cookies. These holiday cookies are decadent enough to make you look like a baker extraordinaire.

Pack to go: Nestle cooled cookies in a holiday tin lined with waxed paper for transport. For a dramatic display, bring a cake stand.

White Chocolate-Dipped Oatmeal-Cranberry Cookies

Makes 4 dozen cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups dried sweetened cranberries
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces, toasted
1 1/4 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats
3 (4-ounce) white chocolate baking bars, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugars, beating well. Add egg and vanilla, beating until blended. Combine flour, soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl; whisk.

Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating until blended. Stir in cranberries, pecans and oats until blended. Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheets.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets 2 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Microwave white chocolate and shortening in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl on high 1 minute or until chocolate melts, stirring once. Dip half of each cookie into melted chocolate, letting excess drip back into bowl. Place dipped cookies on wax paper; let stand until firm.

Per cookie: 148 calories (56 percent from fat), 10 grams total fat (4 grams saturated), 15 milligrams cholesterol, 15 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams protein, 97 milligrams sodium, 1 gram dietary fiber.