Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter: Day 6 with recipes to share!

Looking back at this first week of going 'unsweetened' has not been so bad, overall.  I now enjoy my toast and hazelnut butter with NO agave syrup on it (this may be a permanent change in my life), and I am finding that 70% chocolate is starting to taste slightly sweet to me. I have also been treating myself to some very high end chocolate this week (stay tuned for a post on Bonnat and Amedei chocolate tomorrow), which has given me something to look forward to each day. 

However, I will admit to cheating on this no sugar thing a few times: 

1. On Wednesday I did not have time to make a home-cooked dinner, so I heated up some store-bought Recipe-to-Riches Pulled Pork and was eating it before it occurred to me that the sauce was full of sugar. It was yummy though.
2. Again on Wednesday night, I was making a large solid block of milk chocolate crisp rice for a cake decoration and could not resist eating a bit of the leftovers. Really, there were not supposed to be leftovers, but I created some...to eat them. Self control was clearly not on my mind that evening.
3. I ate two bites of my daughter's leftover chocolate chip cheesecake last night.  Hey, I made it, so it seemed unfair if I did not get to try it!

But that was all the cheating that I have done on my no-sugar program, so that is not so bad. In the past, I would have eaten more than two bites of cheesecake, had ketchup on my scrambled eggs and plum sauce on my chicken fingers (both of which I ate plain this week!). And clearly my body is reacting to this reduction in sugar because I have been experiencing some new mood swings by 4:00 p.m. each day.  So this month of going 'unsweetened' is probably a good detox for me and a great way to evaluate just how much sugar is in my diet.

Another good thing from going 'unsweetened' is that I have come up with a few recipes in my desperation to eat something...anything...that resembled a gourmet dessert.  This is difficult because my diet is so limited this month, with not being able to have dairy or sugar (you can read about why I can't have dairy...or sugar...in the previous diary entry).  Also, I am not having artificial sweetener because I am trying to get my taste buds accustomed to bitter foods, beverages and chocolate (besides, artificial sweetener cannot be good for us...I'm sure of that, even if I do not know the science behind it!).

So here are two recipes that I came up with.  WARNING:  These chocolate desserts are VERY BITTER.  They are more like appetizers than desserts, and you must like very bitter chocolate if you plan to attempt them.

Extreme-Bitter Chocolate Banana Cake - Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free and Sugar-Free (and NO artificial sweeter!)

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces (about 1 measuring cup) chopped 70% or 75% dark chocolate (see "Chocolate Note" below for chocolate)
• 1 cup coconut cream
• 2 ripe bananas
• 4 eggs
• pinch of salt

Chocolate Note: Use a good quality chocolate, preferably a single origin for maximum favour - I used Cacao Barry Tanzanie Origine rare with 75% cacao solids.  But if you do not have access to single-origin or very fine chocolate, use an organic 70% like Camino or Green & Black's or just a 70% Lindt Excellence or Nestle Noir if that is all you can get.  You will need three (3) 100 gram bars, which is about 10.5 ounces - so you can eat 2.5 ounces and use the rest in the recipe!)

Step 1: Puree bananas in blender or with handheld mixer/blender (make sure bananas are very smooth or the texture of the cake will be lumpy)
Step 2: Melt chocolate over a double boiler with the one cup of coconut cream.  Stir frequently until smooth.
Step 3: Blend in Bananas with hand mixer or a stand mixer (i.e. transfer to stand mixer bowl if need be)
Step 4: Beat in eggs one at a time.  Scrape down bowl and mixers between each egg.
Step 5: Once smooth and eggs are blended, throw in your dash (1/4 tsp) of salt and mix thoroughly.
Step 6:  Pour into a 9" spring form pan lined with parchment paper in the bottom (if you do not have a spring form pan, that is fine, just use a 9" pan, but be sure there is a parchment round in the bottom as wide as the pan or you may not be able to get your cake out!)
Step 7: Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 50 minutes. May need a little longer or shorter depending on the type of oven you have. Just check it and be sure the top is just starting to puff (do not cook until it is completely puffed up in the centre or the cake will be grainy).
Step 8: Top cake with a chocolate ganache.  Bring 1/2 cup coconut cream (or water if you want to cut the calories) to a boil and pour over 4 ounces of chopped dark chocolate and stir until smooth.  Pour over cake. You can use the same type of chocolate as you used in the cake or use a sweeter dark chocolate to offset the bitterness in the cake (I used the same!).

For serving (makes 12 slices):
-Tastes best if served two days after it is made as the banana and chocolate flavours really develop.  At the very least, serve it after you have refrigerated it for about 6 hours or more, then bring it back to room temperature to serve. If you can have whipped cream and honey, serve with real whipped cream that is sweetened with a little honey or agave.  As I said above, do not expect this cake on its own to be sweet! 


Sweetened Version: You could add one cup of sugar to this cake recipe and cook for only 40 minutes if you can have sugar.  This will be more appealing to a general audience if you are planning to serve it to anyone who is not used to very bitter chocolate.  Add the sugar to the banana mixture and puree them together.


Dairy Version: Replace the coconut cream with 1/2 lb chopped butter (1 cup).  Mix butter with chocolate over the double boiler, same as with coconut cream above.

The decoration on top of this cake was made by tempering the single origin 75% Tanzanian Cacao Barry chocolate.  For a quick temper method, put 4 ounces in the microwave for 2 minutes on MEDIUM (50%) power.  Then stir until smooth.  Dip the back of your baby finger into the mixture to test if it is ready - if it is same temperature as your finger, it is ready. If it is too warm, stir in 1 ounce more of chopped chocolate until it cools to the right temperature. If it feels too cold, microwave for 5 seconds more and stir. 

Make swirls on wax paper by pouring chocolate into a zipper sealed snack bag and cutting a small hole on one corner to allow chocolate to drip from. I think you can figure out what to do from here...


Pot de Crème au Chocolat Dairy-Free with Coconut Cream and no added sugar (again, be warned this is very bitter!  It is like eating unsweetened yogurt, not sweet pudding)
 

Ingredients:
-8 oz extra bitter chocolate (as above, I used Cacao Barry Tanzanie 75%, but I would recommend a 65% or 70%) chopped unless chocolate already comes in small drops
-2 cups coconut cream (split into two individual cups)
-1 tsp real peppermint extract

Bring 1 cup of coconut cream to a boil in a small pot and pour over chocolate.  Stir until smooth.  Let cool for five minutes.  Stir in remaining coconut cream and 1 tsp of mint.  Pour into 8 small ramekins and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.

If you want a sweeter version, add a few tablespoons of agave syrup to coconut cream.

Stay tuned for a post tomorrow about three very fine imported +70% dark chocolate bars....I`ve been tasting them every day this week! And on Sunday will be another Sipping Sundays in Snowland post about a hot cocoa with Matcha Green Tea.

Also, if you want to read all about why I am going `dark and bitter` in the month of January, click here.

Previous diary posts:
Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter: Day 1
Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter: Days 2 and 3

Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter ...Days 2 and 3

Day 2, like Day 1 of trying to go with nearly no sugar, felt like a bit of a failure. And the start of Day 3 is looking grim. Yesterday morning, I was quite proud of myself for not putting agave syrup on my toast and hazelnut butter.  It was on the bitter side, but I was surprisingly fine with it.  So I happily thought: “no sweetener (check!), calories saved as a bonus (check!)” and went on with my day feeling good about this no-sugar thing in January.  

Then at 10:00 a.m., I was wandering around looking for chocolate to taste and wanted to tackle the Amedei CHUAO bar, but my husband suggested that we wait until our colds pass (i.e. until we can taste things properly again).  Begrudgingly, I agreed.  So I went through my entire tasting cupboard and sought out all the chocolate in the 70% range, looking for anything that I might be interested in eating. I pulled out half of a Valor chocolate bar that I've already tasted.  It was a 70% with banana pulp in it.  So I thought, well, it is made with 70% cacao and the only added favour is banana which has natural sugar in it, so why not? 

As I sat and ate the rest of the Valor Banana bar, I thought about dipping bananas in 80% dark chocolate this week and putting them in the freezer for next week.  Then I thought, "wait, is this messing with my goal here?" I am consuming chocolate that tastes much sweeter because of the banana in it, which sort of goes against my goal of acclimating myself to no sweetness so that I can better enjoy unsweetened chocolate. Hmmmm...but at the same time, I did not choose to limit fruit, just anything with added sugar.  So I made a mental note to try to make a banana dark chocolate cake later in the day.  I also decided not to over think this.

Then in the afternoon, with no other good savoury snacks in the house - not even a cracker because I ate everything the day before - I went back to the chocolate cupboard and found some 70% dark chocolate scraps leftover from some chocolate making I was doing. They were small broken bits of tempered single-origin chocolate, so I dug in.  It was like snacking on a bag of chocolate popcorn.  When I started to feel the caffeine buzz I stopped, feeling guilty about the caffeine and baby-nursing thing.

The evening was better, but again it was binge eating on really healthy unsweetened things (had there been Doritos in the house, I am sure I would have eaten them!).  I even ate a small cup of coconut cream (the really thick stuff, like whipped cream).  The problem is: I have had to drop so many things because I am nursing the baby.  Between limiting the amount of peanut butter that I can eat, wine and other alcohol, and coffee, I personally have also had to limit the amount of dairy that I can have because the baby is having trouble digesting it in his breast milk.  And I love milk, lattes and yogurt.  Coconut cream is one of my few other options if I want something thick like yogurt.  So this no-sugar thing is really taking its toll on what I can eat, and I find myself wandering around eating everything that does fit into my diet.

Hopefully my excessive snacking is just a silly mental reaction to not being able to have sugar and I will get over it in a few days. I need to in order to be prepared for next week when I move to +80% chocolate.

So I woke up this morning and felt like today I would be more successful at this no-sugar thing.  Then, my daughter did not finish her toast and peanut butter, so in order not to waste the expensive all-natural, organic "no-stir" peanut butter, I decided I would eat her toast for my breakfast.  As I was starting to write this blog post, it occurred to me that the peanut butter had agave syrup all over it. Darn.

So I guess I will just try to make the rest of today a success. 

Read all about why I am doing this here.  And you can read my Day 1 journal here.

Diaries of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter (I'm talking chocolate of course!)

January 1, 2012: Day 1 of Reduced Sugar

I thought I’d kick off my month of no sugar by treating myself to some of the world’s finest chocolates (I have not given up all sugar, I can have 70% to 100% chocolate, you can read about my plan here). So today I just casually snacked on bits and pieces of an Amedei Toscano Black (70%), an Amedei Porcelana (70%) and an Amano Madagascar (also a 70%). The blog post on these will be up in the coming days when I have more time to really taste and compare, but next time with Amedei's Chuao bar thrown in. 

The thing about eating a lot of sugar for several weeks (i.e. the weeks leading up to Christmas time, when there tends to be a lot of parties with desserts, truffles, chocolate, candy, etc.) is that you are instantly bored on the very first day that you stop eating sugar.

I have been wandering around the house restlessly trying not to think about tea and cookies all afternoon.  I have snacked on crackers, cheese, almonds, Greek yogurt (it wasn’t “plain” yogurt, but it was a honey-bottom yogurt, so I just did not stir it so that I could avoid the layer of honey at the bottom), rice noodles, green peppers, and the list goes on and on.  I feel like I am on some sort of strange crash diet where I am told that I can eat however much I want, except for the things that I want to eat most of all.

Of course, I am not really on a diet.  I have not decided to stop eating savoury things, like chips, French fries, hamburgers or other kinds of junk food.  But I do not normally eat a lot of that stuff anyway.  When I want something unhealthy to snack on, I usually start with something sweet and it is almost always something chocolaty.  And, I have only decided to drop everything that has added sugar (or sweetener like honey), so that cuts out cookies, cinnamon rolls, honey, muffins, etc.  Again, I do not often consume these things....well, except for the cookies. I like oatmeal chocolate chip or butter cookies that have been dipped in dark chocolate...go figure.  But for some reason, by suddenly deciding that I can’t have something, I want it even more.  And now I can’t stop thinking about cookies.

I have not set any limits to the amount of chocolate that I can eat, just that this week it has to only be 70% or darker chocolate, next week 80% or darker and so on until the end of January. However, I am nursing my baby and feel guilty every time that I eat more than 50 grams of dark chocolate in a day (because of the caffeine). And being unable to eat cookies and being unable to eat any more 70% chocolate today, I started restlessly wandering...which led to the restless (and endless) snacking. 

If only it wasn’t a holiday, and I just had more to do....maybe tomorrow will be easier when I am working again.  Except, of course, I own a chocolate and pastry business and won’t even be able to snack on cake scraps or broken TOFFLEs.  Yikes, this is going to be a long month.

What is a Chocolate Connoisseur?

Step 1 of My Plan to Become One: A month of unsweetened chocolate!

I am always asking myself: what, or rather who, is a chocolate connoisseur?  What would a person have to do to become one? Go to chocolate-making school? Perhaps, but that alone could not be enough.

Experience in tasting a lot of chocolate would be necessary as well. In order to be a connoisseur, you would need to try many, many kinds of chocolate, both good and bad. And different kinds of chocolate made from different beans from all regions of the world. So in theory, you could get a Master Chocolatier certificate and make beautiful showpieces, truffles, chocolate bars and filled chocolates, but not be a Chocolate Connoisseur...at least until you've gained more experience in tasting.

Also, should travel be a requirement to becoming a proper Chocolate Connoisseur? Would I have to travel to every region in the world and taste local chocolate from each?  Or could I get away with just visiting the main ones, like Europe's hottest chocolate spots, including France, Switzerland and Belgium? And should a Chocolate Connoisseur have travelled to cacao plantations across the world in those wonderfully warm locations where cacao is grown?  If so, how many plantations...is one enough, maybe two, or even 10 or 20?

Certainly I am not a Chocolate Connoisseur, according to my own standards. I have neither a certificate nor have I travelled to every corner of the world to taste chocolate.  I do, however, have courses in chocolate making and have gained quite a lot of tasting experience over the last ten years.  I have travelled quite a bit and made a point of seeking out chocolate in every region that I have visited.  I've even devoted entire trips to seeking out all of the chocolate within the region I was visiting.
Although my ultimate goal is to be a 'proper' Chocolate Connoisseur one day, I fear that I never will be.  I have set the bar too high and it would be impossible to meet the standards that I have set for myself to become one. However, I do plan to take it one step at a time and enhance my learning through actions that I think will get me closer to my goal.

The first step is one I have been thinking a lot about lately.  I do not think I can officially become a Chocolate Connoisseur until I learn to like (or at least be able to taste and compare without cringing) pure cacao chocolate.  I'm talking about chocolate with +90% cacao solids...all the way up to 100%.

So I have decided to tackle that task 'right off the bat' in 2012 and make January a month without sugar.  Well, reduced sugar at least. I am devoting the entire month of January to tasting only very dark, very bitter, chocolate. I do plan to acclimate myself to it though.  Week 1, which started today, is devoted to chocolate between 70% and 80%, then in Week 2 I will only eat chocolate between 80% to 90% and Weeks 3 and 4 will involve me only tasting chocolate between 90% and 100% (yuck?).  With all the sugary treats I just consumed during Christmas time (like my annual After Eight chocolate binge), I think I need to start at 70% and work my way up in order to get used to the bitterness.  I think if I started with 100% super-bitter chocolate , I might just give up on the first day!

So there it is.  I have decided to be a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter. Well, for the month of January at least. 

I've also decided to cut out all other additional sugar (other than naturally occurring sugars in fruit and other foods) so that I am fully used to the bitterness that I am expecting in the final two weeks of only eating +90% chocolate.  I have purchased a variety of chocolate, from lower quality to very fine chocolate so that I can identify good quality versus bad.

So maybe I sound crazy.  But we all have our goals in life that we must tackle, and this happens to be one of mine.  So if you are the slightest bit curious about what it is like to (1) drop sugar for a month and (2) eat only the most bitter of chocolates and learn to like 100% unsweetened chocolate (this is only a theory at this point, I may not actually learn to like it!), please feel free to follow me via my blog, Twitter or Facebook.  I will have weekly blog posts called "Diary of a Girl Gone Dark and Bitter" and my regular posts, like Sipping Sundays in Snowland or plain old chocolate bar reviews.  The only difference is that there will be no writing about chocolate below 70% cacao content.

Thanks for reading my ramblings today.  If you would like to read on, click here for my diary of Day 1.

Sipping Sundays in Snowland....kicking off 2012 with Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Sunday...a day for drinking chocolate, keeping warm and sharing recipes

As much as I like fine chocolate, I also remain addicted to a few chocolaty things that I loved as a child.  For me, December was always (and will always be) about After Eights. Yup, I am talking about those minty thin pieces of dark chocolate covered deliciousness.

In my younger days, when the 300 gram boxes of After Eights hit the store shelves en masse as the Christmas shopping season was ramping up, I would buy a box after about a week of thinking about it (or just long enough to appear as though I had some minimal level of self control). Then I would sit down on a Friday night and attempt to eat the box in its entirety. That's right - you heard me correctly - I would eat the WHOLE 300 GRAM BOX in one sitting. And I loved every minute of it. 

Then....my metabolism changed (sorry about this news young readers, but be warned that age 21 may very well be the end of chocolate binge-eating; it was a sad year for me...and for my thighs). So nowadays I attempt to eat a box in two sittings at a minimum, if not three.  I suppose that does not sound much better, but I also jog - a LOT - particularly on days when I consume too much chocolate.

I like to say that eating chocolate and being healthy is all about balance.  Imagine a teeter-totter where on one side the words EAT CHOCOLATE are written; on the other side the word EXERCISE is written.  The thing had better be horizontally balanced or you will have a problem.  In other words, if it is dipping down too low on the EAT CHOCOLATE side, then you might just gain weight.  If it is dipping too low on the EXERCISE side, then you had better eat more chocolate!  Well, that is what works for me.

So despite my attempts at becoming a proper chocolate connoisseur, I cannot break my habit of consuming the annual box (or, ahem, boxes) of After Eights. And I really do not see those little tasty mint thins as a complete evil since, after all, there are no artificial colourings or flavours in them. Besides, I have chosen to forgive any impurities in After Eights' ingredients in order to justify my addiction to them.

I suppose we all have habits that we cannot shake when it comes to treats that we liked as children. Mine is After Eights, my husband's is Turtles and I'm sure yours is something entirely different like Ferrero Rocher, Ovation or even a box of Pot of Gold (yikes). So do not deny it, and do not be embarrassed about it.  Embrace it.  Eat the darn box, get it over with and then move on to something better (better quality and better for you) in the new year.

That is what I am now doing.  I am ridding myself of the annual After Eight binge by dropping all chocolate with high levels of sugar for one month.  In fact, I am planning to eliminate all sugar by the end of the month for at least a week and eat only 100% cacao chocolate. You can read about my one-month master plan for January in an upcoming blog post later today.

So today, my "Sipping Sunday" is actually a hot chocolate recipe that I made yesterday (Saturday) while enjoying my last day of sugar freedom. It was really just another excuse to eat After Eights while warming up on a cold day. And it is a great way to use up leftover chocolate from Christmas, when you are sick and tired of snacking on it (ha ha ha, does that ever happen?)

So here is my recipe for a quick and tasty mint hot chocolate - with or without dairy - so that you can enjoy our own 'Sipping Sunday' (on whatever day of the week you wish):

Easy Soy Mint Hot Chocolate Recipe:

1. Heat up one cup of plain soy milk with no sugar added (I can't have much dairy right now because my nursed baby is not reacting well to it, but you could use regular 1% or 2% milk if you can have dairy).

2. Stir in 30 grams of semi-sweet dark chocolate (I used Nativa, but you can use whatever you like)

3. Then stir four (4) After Eights OR three (3) President's Choice 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Mint Thins into the hot chocolate & soy mixture; stir until smooth (if you can't have ANY dairy, use the President's Choice Mint Thins because After Eights contain butteroil but PC Mint Thins do not, and PC Mint thins have no artificial flavours, colours and the cocoa 70% is specified on the package, unlike After Eights)

4. Top with Cool Whip (if you can't have dairy, but whipped cream if you can) and another After Eight.

Tip: The PC Mint Thins are mintier tasting and have more chocolate, so this will give you a mintier, more chocolaty beverage. However, this brand is only available in Canada, sorry non-Canadians!  There may be a British version though under a different brand, since the package says it is a "Product of England".

Voila!  Here is a chocolate beverage that will help you relax and energize you at the same time, and it will warm you up on a cold Sunday morning.

Here are the package details and ingredients information from the two chocolate mint thins that I discussed today:

After Eight Thin Dark Chocolate Mints, 300 g
Imported by Nestlé Canada Inc. (North York, ON Canada)
http://www.nestle.ca/
Ingredients: sugar, cocoa mass, glucose (from corn and/or wheat), cocoa butter, butteroil (from milk), soya lecithin, peppermint oil, vanilla, citric acid, invertase. May contain milk.

President's Choice (PC) 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Mint Thins, 300 g
Loblaws Inc. (Toronto, ON Canada)
"Product of England"
http://www.pc.ca/
Ingredients: Dark Chocolate (unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, soy lecithin), sugar, glucose syrup, water, peppermint oil.  May contain peanuts, tree nuts, milk and/or wheat.

Bacon-Flavoured Hot Chocolate...Seriously?

I will try anything when it comes to chocolate.  But seriously, bacon-flavoured hot chocolate? Even I think that is an odd combination.  So of course I tried it anyway. And somehow I convinced a room full of willing participants to try it too.

I like bacon-flavoured chocolate. Something about the salty and savoury bacon combined with the sweet chocolate, makes my mouth water for more.  Check out my post about the Vosges Bacon Bar, it really is delicious! And Vosges makes it work with small pieces of bacon ground up in a smooth milk chocolate (and also in a dark chocolate bar too!). However, bacon flavour in a hot chocolate beverage is somehow very odd.  But then again, that is the slogan written on the package of McSteven's Cocoa Combos:  "Oddly Delicious Flavor Combinations".  The flavours in this 'combination' are natural and artificial, plus a strange addition of chipotle pepper in the ingredients list.

The bacon flavour is there, but somewhat subtle.  However, it does not taste like bacon so much as it tastes like hickory smoke flavour. In fact, it tastes just like this bottle of liquid smoke flavour I bought a few years ago (see photo on right).  When I opened the bottle it made my stomach churn.  The hot chocolate did not, since that smoke flavour was subtle, but I am still not sure how much I liked it.  That also seemed to be the general reaction of the rest of the group who tasted it tonight.  No one seemed to like it, nor did they seem to dislike it.  I suppose for me it was interesting, but the reminder of the smell of the bottle of hickory smoke flavour was affecting my ability to really enjoy it.

If you like hickory smoke flavour, then you may like this product.  It is sort of like drinking a hot chocolate while eating something smoked....not so weird, right?  And if you don't like that flavour, still check out McSteven's Cocoa Combos, they have some other interesting hot chocolate flavour combinations that you may just like, such as Chocolate & Curry or Chocolate & Chipotle. I bought this Chocolate & Bacon Cocoa at HomeSense for $6.99 CAD.

Here are the product details from the package of the product that I tasted tonight:

McSteven's Cocoa Combos, Chocolate & Bacon cocoa mix, 198 g
McSteven's Inc. (Vancouver, WA, USA)
www.mcstevens.com
Ingredients: Sugar, whey, nonfat dry milk, cocoa powder (Dutch Process), non-dairy creamer (canola or coconut oil, corn syrup solids), natural & artificial flavors, chipotle pepper, guar gum, salt.  Contains milk.  May contain peanuts, tree nuts and wheat.

Patric American Handcrafted Chocolate: French-Inspired and In-NIB-itable-ly Delicious!

I have in my possession two Patric Chocolate bars and I have never been so excited to try a chocolate brand before! Well, that is probably not true, but right now it certainly feels like it because I have been following Patric Chocolate for more than a year, via the chocolate maker's e-newsletter, Twitter, and other media, but I had not yet tasted their chocolate.

I am also excited to try this chocolate because I have always felt like I would get along well with the chocolate maker, Alan "Patric" McClure (even though we have never met) because I have read on his website that he was forever changed by a year spent in France.  Apparently, the French chocolate tradition inspired him to begin making chocolate.  My story is also similar to his.  I too spent a year France (oddly enough in the same year as Mr. McClure) and decided that I would begin to work with chocolate in a way that I had not seen in Canada before. So since we have a shared inspiration, I feel the overwhelming need to buy his chocolate.

Why am I just getting around to tasting Patric Chocolate now? Well, I tried to buy some online a while back, and quickly learned that they did not ship to Canada.  Then after a few other unsuccessful attempts to get my hands on some, I guess I gave up.  However,  Patric Chocolate is now readily available in Canada through the "A Taste for Chocolate" website and can be shipped directly to poor little fine chocolate lovers like me who are isolated in the cold North. 

I tore in to the package and immediately chose to try the Patric Chocolate bars, despite the other amazing chocolate bars that came in the same shipment (i.e. Amedei, Bonnat, Amano, Michel Cluizel, and more).  I immediately liked the In-NIB-itable BAR. And when I finished that and opened the Patric Signature Blend 70% bar, I liked it too. The chocolate is oh-so-smooth, rich and deliciously full of flavour.  Each one offered me a unique chocolate experience in terms of flavours and texture, but yet a consistency in the smoothness of the chocolate.

The In-NIB-itable BAR is made of Madagascar cacao, which means an instantaneous burst of fruitiness. I'll be the first to admit that my sense of smell is better than my sense of taste, so I cannot always taste all the flavours that other people can, however, the fruitiness was very apparent in this chocolate bar.

The next interesting point about the In-NIB-itable bar was, strangely enough, the nibs.  Usually chocolate with nibs bothers my teeth, but in this case, the nibs were roasted to just the right point where they practically melted in my mouth, and yet still remained crunchy.  Also, there was a heavy 'roast' flavour, like the flavour of a perfectly roasted marshmallow (a tan-browned one, not a burnt one!) or like that roasted flavour of popcorn that has been cooked over an open fire.

And except for the nibs sprinkled on the back side of the chocolate bar, it was a surprise that the chocolate was so smooth, considering that Patric Chocolate is hand-crafted and it has no lecithin in the ingredients list (which helps to emulsify the chocolate and make it smoother).

I tasted the In-NIB-itable BAR against the Amano Madagascar Handcrafted Dark Chocolate bar (also a 70%) and I found them very similar in taste in terms of fruitiness and citrus overtones.  In fact, the smell is very much the same (the Island is not all that large, so one can assume the aromas of the cacao would be similar). However, the Amano bar is much lighter in colour and the flavour of the Patric In-NIB-itable BAR is influenced by the strong roasted flavour of the nibs.

The Patric Signature Blend bar is also very smooth and I liked the experience of eating it quite a lot. It tastes different from the In-NIB-itable BAR because it is made of a mix of beans from different origins, but again there is a strong flavour of "roasted" beans. Overall, it has a strong bold flavour like a robust red wine.

The only thing that I did not like is that - although the chocolate bar is beautiful - it is hard to break a piece off because it is a rather thick and not scored for individual pieces. But if that is the only downside, then it is clearly overshadowed by the wonderfulness of the chocolate.

I do hope that one day I can try the PBJ OMG chocolate bar by Patric, just because I love peanut butter and chocolate.

I just want to send out a big thank you to A Taste for Chocolate, who was able to ship such fine chocolate to a poor isolated Northern Ontario resident who loves the high end stuff. And, of course, to my husband who ordered and paid for the chocolate (it was not cheap, each Patric bar is about $9-$10 CAD + shipping) and gave it to me for Christmas!

As with all my posts, below are the details from the packages of the three chocolate bars that I tasted today. Please note that all three chocolate bars do not contain lecithin (i.e. soy) although Amano specifies that it is made on the same equipment as chocolate made with soy lecithin.

Patric American Handcrafted Chocolate "In-NIB-itable BAR", 2.3 oz (65g)
Handcrafted by: Patric Chocolate, Columbia, MO (USA)
http://www.patric-chocolate.com/
Ingredients: Cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter.  Made in facility that processes dairy products, peanuts and/or tree nuts.

Patric American Handcrafted Chocolate Signature 70% Blend dark chocolate, 2.3 oz (65g)
Handcrafted by: Patric Chocolate, Columbia, MO (USA)
http://www.patric-chocolate.com/
Ingredients: Cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter.  Made in facility that processes dairy products, peanuts and/or tree nuts.

Amano Madagascar 70%, 2 oz (56g)
Amano Chocolate, Orem, UT (U.S.A.)
www.amanochocolate.com
Ingredients: Cocoa beans, pure cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans. "Our vintage equipment is used to process milk chocolate and chocolate containing tree nuts, peanuts and soy lecithin (an emulsifier)".