MsSonnetMarwood
Posts: 1898
Joined: 2/10/2005
From: Eastern Shore, Maryland
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: samboct
Let me throw out a couple of pointers-
(and yes, I'm a chocoholic- I also bake with the stuff- and no, I don't give out recipes)
1) Price is no guide whatsoever. Except maybe to how fancy the box will be. Trader Joes has some very nice Belgian Bittersweet chocolate bars at $3/lb that I'll put up against Ghiradelli/Lindt etc at $10/lb- and Godiva at a lot more than that. Trader Joes chocolate covered raisins, peanuts, peanut butter cups etc are an excellent value in general- but it doesn't come in snazzy packaging. The snazzier packages often have lower quality goods at higher prices at that store.
For large bar chocolate, Trader Joe's Pounder Plus bars (either dark or bittersweet) is definately the way to go. I bake a lot as well, and that's all I'll use, except for Valrhona which makes a dark chocolate mousse that is unparalleled. Try rough chopping it as well to use in place of chocolate chips in cookies (and add a little Godiva chocolate liquor to the batter). The scuttlebutt is that Callebaut actually makes the Trader Joe's bars, which explains the quality. Regardless, for the price, it's definately the best to use for baking. I just bought 10 bars to get me through holiday baking yesterday. mmmmmm...
quote:
2) Ignore mass market chocolate such as Hershey's, Nestle, Cadbury, Tobler etc.
For sure, although Cadbury always has a soft spot in my heart. See below :-)
quote:
3) Chocolate varies from country to country. A Twix bar in the UK is actually quite edible, a US bar is not- hence Europeans have different experiences with their brands than we do.
Keep in mind that regulations around milk pastuerization is different in Europe than the US, and that actually can make a marked difference in the chocolate. When we were kids, my dad (who is English) used to go to Europe on business frequently, and was required to bring back Cadbury's, because what you could get in the US wasn't nearly as good. I still try to buy imported Cadbury's products - even in the middle of a rural area, there are 2 places I can reliably get them. You do have to watch the dates though.
quote:
4) Often chocolatiers reputation outlasts their chocolate. Godiva used to make a halfway decent milk chocolate that was pricey 20 years ago, the stuff today isn't close- and it's still pricey for a decent chocolate. Lindt or Perugina is a better value- but here's the rub- the suppliers differ dramatically. Chocolate doesn't age well so you're looking for freshness and preferably European manufacture, and I have no way to tell. A good chunk of Callebaut is going to be cheaper and better though- and with apologies to Kyra- it'll be better than the Cote d'Or as well.
While I agree that most of Godiva's regular chocolates are more hype than substance, I do think really like their truffles. Rocky Mountain are good too. Buy TJ's ifn you want a chunk of Callebaut.
quote:
5) The current trend is single source chocolate from exotic locales in snazzy wrapping, or organic chocolates. Don't touch the stuff, nothing I've had is much better than M + Ms- and some of it's a lot worse- bearing a distinct resemblance to cardboard. While there may actually be some decent stuff out there- the garbage being sold far outweighs it- bad odds.
Mass market chocolate is still mass market chocolate, no matter what the origins - I haven't had much of the "single origin" type, but a Hershey bar to me is still a Hershey bar - I'm not going to bother with it.
quote:
6) For a nice present, I'd pick a good shop online. You can get decent handmade chocolate starting at $15 a pound, some better stuff is closer to $25 a pound. (These are things like turtles, truffles, or nut/chocolate blends.) Don't bother going higher than that-odds are you'll get taken. (Some French chocolates are just outtasight, but that was 15 years ago, and I was visiting. Don't know if what's available mail order comes close- and it won't be cheap.) Don't buy chocolate covered fruit online- chocolate covered strawberries are best done yourself.
Hope this helps
Sam
Sam, we're going to have to barter chocolate torte recipes sometime ;-)
< Message edited by MsSonnetMarwood -- 12/14/2007 11:09:42 AM >
_____________________________
~Ms. Sonnet Marwood~
Deja Moo: The feeling you've heard this bull somewhere before.
|
Any chocolate lovers out there? - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread