Favorite Type of Chocolate

[Akela]

Interesting... I wonder if you can buy the stuff en bulk. I would love that stuff over crackers.

[Aki]

Dark/Very Dark Chocolate is my absolute favorite. I'll eat Milk Chocolate, but given the choice, I'll take Dark chocolate.

White disgusts me. Blech.

Oh, and there was this one coffee shop my family stopped at in Salem when we visited, the hot Chocolate was rich like dark chocolate.

Which resulted in me having two hot chocolates because my brother didn't like the dark-chocolate tasting Hot Chocolate.

[Set]

I like very dark chocolate. I can't stand things that are overly sweet which is why white chocolate tends to make me sick. I also like it because my mother can't stand it. She won't eat dark chocolate, so I get it because then I don't have to worry about her stealing my candy. It tastes better anyway.

[Silverclaw]

will start to gag any time I taste Onion in anything...it tastes unforgivably awful to me...and yet, everywhere you go, "fried onions" are advertised on restaurant menus as something great and delicious

How sad, I love em Adds a little something extra to burgers and such. Fried onions taste pretty good as well too. But I LOVE Funions! Even though those are in the chip section.

OK back on topic. I love milk and dark chocolate sooo much! It really depends on my mood for which I prefer, but I think dark wins overall Its so wonderful! White chocolate I dont really care much about. I'll eat it and like it all right, but its milk and dark chocolate that has my heart

[vrikasatma]

Finally, a thread where I can pull out the Wonkawolf icon!

I picked dark chocolate because I like the variety. I have a very sensitive and well-trained palate and I can pick out the various flavour components, like a wine connoisseur. I can tell the difference between varietal chocolates' origin by the taste. My particular favourites are from beans grown in Mexico and Indonesia/Sri Lanka.

BTW, we chocolatiers have a saying: it is a sin to bite chocolate. You put a small piece on your tongue and let it melt.

When I was in culinary academy we got exposed to the BEST chocolate in the world. We've been asked to avoid naming brands but I can't help it here: Felchlin owns. It's Swiss couverture that costs about $12 a pound. Insane, yes, but eminently worth it: it's a gustatorial odyssey. I also learned about the joys of gianduja: it's milk chocolate with hazelnut paste added during the conching process. They then work it back and forth for 72 Straight Hours!!

Conching smoothes the chocolate. That's what they tell you, but what it's actually doing is the stones are grinding the chocolate liquor particles down to smaller and smaller diameters. After 72 hours those particles are microscopic. A smoothe chocolate means a chocolate that flows down your throat like milk.

My candy class got to tour the Guittard factory, because it's right there in South San Francisco and my teacher used to work with them. You want a chocolate lover's dream? Grant you, it wasn't exactly Wonka, but they have a cacao tree growing in a planter in the lobby, and to be surrounded by literally hundreds of tons of chocolate in all stages from the roasted beans in the sacks to slabs of fresh couverture...let's just say that our professionalism suffered gloriously And the best part was, when they showed us the machine churning our the couverture slabs, they broke one and let us take the pieces home. There's nothing like the taste of fresh, as in minutes-old, chocolate!

You want a professional's opinion? Forget Ghirardelli for San Francisco chocolate, get Guittard. For those mentioning spicy foods, there's a bar made by Dagoba Chocolates that features red chilies as a mix-in. I tried it once: took a taste, "ah, this isn't as hot as I was afraid..." and thirty seconds later...



Here's a pity: last I checked, it's illegal to import cacao plants and unroasted beans into the United States Mexico is afraid they'll lose their market standing in cacao beans.

[Vuldari]

BTW, we chocolatiers have a saying: it is a sin to bite chocolate. You put a small piece on your tongue and let it melt.

...then hand me a pitch fork and call me the devil, because Biting is my preferred way of eating ALL candies. Including Chocolate.

When something rigid breaks, it is at that moment that whatever scents of flavors it contains are released at thier highest concentration and/or potency. That is why I eat candy frozen whenever possible. (Not just chocolate either...I freeze my Skittles, M&M's, AirHeads, Licorice, gummy whatever and every thing else too.)

I have learned from my own experience that if you bite into a frozen candy and it goes *snap* in your mouth, the flavor you get is much greater than it is at room temperature.

...seriously...try it. ...it's good...

In fact...I've found that extreme cold in general seems to enhance alot of flavors...or at least changes them.

Take TANG for example. At room temperature, it just tastes like Tang. But chill it to the point that it is almost going to freeze (but not so much that it actually turns to slush), and it tastes like Super Tang. Likewise, heat makes it taste completely different. Make it steaming hot and it tastes like orange Cider. ...also quite good.

To sum it all up...eat it cold...Biting is Good...

[Figarou]

You want a professional's opinion? Forget Ghirardelli for San Francisco chocolate, get Guittard. For those mentioning spicy foods, there's a bar made by Dagoba Chocolates that features red chilies as a mix-in. I tried it once: took a taste, "ah, this isn't as hot as I was afraid..." and thirty seconds later...

Heh...brings new meaning to "hot chocolate."



There is some chocolates out there with Rum in it. "Ritter Sport" is one of them.

[vrikasatma]

...then hand me a pitch fork and call me the devil, because Biting is my preferred way of eating ALL candies. Including Chocolate.

Good morning, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles here I said we had a saying...didn't say I followed it I rather prefer frozen chocolate, myself. Well-acquainted with its pleasures. The Food of the Gods is too wonderful to not enjoy at any temperature

[Kzinistzerg]

I have to go with milk or dark. the only thing is:

A) it MUSt be canadian (from ontario, specifically, mroe specifically the hershey factory in smiths falls, near sand lake/ opinican lake/ indian lake in the rideau canal.

b) some white chocllolate is good, but mostly it tastes like sweetened candle wax.

c) sup[ersupersupersupersuper dark chocolate is also awesome.

d) did you know thta you can get 5 pound milk chocolate bars? *drools*

and, off topic:

I happen to be nearly immune to sour stuff. People give me warheads, and i'm like, "yummy!" I can eat ascorbic acid wihtout pain. It's not yummy, but, i can do it. *ascorbic acid is vitamin C, it's WAY more sour than lemons. like, really, really, sour. it's also healthy to eat (not in large quantities, duh) and is good when mixed with apple juice (takes that AWFUL 5-pounds-of-dissolved-sugar taste off).* Also, i'm the only person I know, who will, seriously, consider a lemon a snack. I cna detect the idferences in lemon juice- that crappy storebought stuff is nothign compared to real lemon.

it is, oddl enough, one of my abitions to go to one of teh high school band concerts, stand in front of the brass/trumper section,. cut a lemon in half, lick it, and what them all mes sup, really, really, badly. fun! *goes off to eat a lemon*

also ,the inult "go suck a lemon' isn't an insult. I can do that, easy. I'm just like, "ok" and go get one and then *lick* mmm, yummy.

[vrikasatma]

Checkest this out, y'all:
http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/whato ... s_srm.html
The chocolate fondue fountain!!
I've been seeing the industrial-strength caterers' models for years but could never afford them. They're something obscene like $2500 and up.



This is more like $100 — still pretty unforgiveable considering it's basically a crock pot with the chocolate fountain tower, but what the heck...

Me's gonna nab me one, anyway. Probably next week to celebrate surviving radiation therapy. Ye Gods, is that weird...chocolate/retail therapy against anti-cancer therapy...

[Black Shuck]

Oh! I don't know which one's my favorite! I like milk, I like dark, and I like white (but not white chocolate reeses or kitkats. Something just seems insanely wrong about that and I just can't do it, lol).

I remember me and some kids were in Carcassonne on a student ambassador trip and me, Sam, and Rachel all went to Layne's room. Layne was going to the lobby and she handed a box of dark chocolate to us. She told us that it'd make a really good dare if we played truth or dare. After she left, we all laughed and were like "Pssh! Whatever!" and took a piece. We started chewing and we mentioned that it really didn't taste bad. It sucked, but not like she was trying to make us believe. Then it started getting really nasty and we all got this "Oh gawd!" look and ran to the bathroom! Then we read the box and found out it was 90% cocoa. After that, we took it to the lobby and tried to get the other kids and the leaders to eat some, but no one would, lol.

Has anyone ever heard of Dave's Insanity Sauce? My dad licked some off a spoon and after the spicy burning left his mouth, he said his tongue felt like he had eating something way too hot in temperature

[vrikasatma]

Yeah, I've seen that one. My friend tried it but I was too chicken... We've seen some real intense ones...I gifted him with a bottle of "You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce"...
We've seen ones like "Instant Death," "a** in the Tub," "Thermonuclear Attack."
I think one has to have a mean streak to go into the hot sauce business...

Try the Scharffen Berger 90%, just don't eat a ton of it. Treat it like black truffles and VSOP brandy and you'll be okay. It's good, it has some nice flavour notes in it. My foodie friends and I called it the "Crack cocaine of chocolate." It makes all the difference in brownies, btw. When I make dark chocolate ganache, I like to cut my couverture 80%:20% bittersweet:cocoa block (70%:90%). Gives it a nice zing and richness. Kids won't like it but adults love it. That's okay...more for us!

Side note: I discovered a fabulous chocolate treat at my local store. Yoplait introduced a dark chocolate mousse-type of yoghurt! It's in their Whips! line. It's seriously delicious, satisfying, healthy and I'm going back there this afternoon to nab some more.

[outwarddoodles]

Mmmm! Reading your earleir post, Vrikasatma, you're making me drool!

And Vuldari: I too love to freeze my candies. I love to freeze a big bar of chocolate to chew on later. Unluckily I don't have that much self control, the chocolate is usually gone before it makes it to the freezer.


Otherwise at biting vs. sucking. I usually bite a peice off, suck on it, and then lose my pateince and chew the rest of it. After that I feel bad because I gobbled down a peice of chocolate so quick.

it is, oddl enough, one of my abitions to go to one of teh high school band concerts, stand in front of the brass/trumper section,. cut a lemon in half, lick it, and what them all mes sup, really, really, badly. fun! *goes off to eat a lemon*

Lemons are my favorite fruit, yet I actually don;t like sour things all that much. I thought it was funny anyway when you mentioned this, my band teacher will dance, act goofy, or yell when we're playing. It causes me to mess up everytime and giggle.

[Black Shuck]

Otherwise at biting vs. sucking. I usually bite a peice off, suck on it, and then lose my pateince and chew the rest of it. After that I feel bad because I gobbled down a peice of chocolate so quick.

I am the same way! I get impatient and start chewing on it. Then I eat it and feel kinda bad

[Akugarou]

It's all good! I chocolate!

In order of preference:

1. Dark (not the extra dark tho')
2. Milk (Especially with almonds)
3. White (but not plain, Reeses Peanut Butter cups with white chocolate is quite sublime)

Dang! Now I want some Almond Joy.

[Black Shuck]

I like chocolate bars with nuts, like Crunch bars