Chocolate as Fuel

And not just for humans! I know I can definitely run further and faster on chocolate, but now it appears cars can too!

This provided interesting canape conversation last night so I thought it was about time I wrote about it in my blog:

Two chaps from the UK, Andy Pag and John Grimshaw, have converted a truck and two 4WD vehicles to run on the misshapes of chocolates and are travelling to Timbuktu. Brilliant! I'm so excited about the use of this "chocolate" (I don't think they're using top notch stuff here) for fuel. This trip is not just carbon neutral, it's carbon negative. Though this calculation includes the fuel that will be offset in the coming year if the citizens of Mali use the biofuel conversion machine they are delivering. But it's also because if they weren't using the chocolate rejects for fuel they would only be taking up space in a dump somewhere.

It also works out at about 15p/litre. (That's about US $1.16/gallon.) Isn't it great when things are good for the environment and good for your wallet?

Nice work, gentlemen!

Check out more about biodiesel from chocolate at their site.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I was thankful for the happy music that made me bounce along in the car on the way to work, for the road that took me there smoothly and the sunrise that lit the way after the lights were snuffed out along the journey. I was grateful for the gym at the end of my ride that allowed me to feel good about eating three courses at dinner last night.

Pacific Bar and Grill is such a friendly local restaurant. We stepped into the warmth from the rain and this pub made shiny was almost full with smiling diners. The two waiters looking after the whole floor were attentive though a little scattered! But I haven't had such friendly service in a long time. The food was fresh, simply prepared with good ingredients, and a delicious combination of flavours that didn't try too hard - it didn't need to. Both the tuna and the salmon we had were cooked perfectly and served with bright green leaves (mine Cos, his rocket) and light dressings. The high point was still to come: The Chocolate Brownie, broken up, warmed and topped with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, it was just divine. Crisp on the edges and chewy and fudge-like when you got towards the middle pieces. A delicious dessert that couldn't seem to decide whether it was cake or cookie or something in between, made in-house apparently. I had to use my fork to fight away the persistent attempts to steal it. At this point the head waiter told us he would bring us something to go with the brownie, and promptly brought us two glasses of frangelico on ice. Now that is the way to bring warmth to the heart of your customers and get them to return.

food-full weekend (chocolates too)

I only started feeling hungry again at noon today. I've been too busy eating this weekend to write in my blog. Which now leaves me with a backlog of things to post about.

On Friday night I went to the BBC Good Food Show. I got there quite late so it was a bit of mad dash around as many stalls as I could get to. So many chocolate stores! Including a new one, Vanini:




New to me, at least. They have apparently been making chocolate for decades in Italy but only just been brought over to the UK. I tried all the ganache bon bons and their dark bar too. Delicious! And no nasties in their ingredients either. I look forward to them coming into the shops. By the time I got back from doing the loop of the other stalls they had closed so I didn't get to buy any this time.

After the food stalls closed we went to explore the drinks vendors and then the dining experience. It wasn't quite the choice, or the quality, of the Taste London festival. Theo Randall did have a soft chocolate cake made with Valrhona. The menu said it was made with Lindt but the host told me that Lindt offered them the chocolate and they accepted and then tasted it and decided to use Valrhona instead. It was delicious. I really don't think it's as obvious what quality the chocolate is in cakes as much as in tarts and mousses though...

On Saturday I was chocolate touring all day then went to a friend's hens' party for dinner and karaoke and finally yesterday went to another friend's house for more eating. I feel like I didn't stop eating all weekend. Here are some of the "raw" chocolate desserts we made:

blueberry and orange mousse cake


chocolate fudge!


chocolate and apple cake

a chocolate brownie gift!

I received a note this week that I had a parcel delivery attempt. I ran to the post office this morning to get it. When I returned home I ripped open the discreet cardboard box to find...
BROWNIES!



Sent to me by the lovely Jane of Coco a Moi. Seemed like a great way to start a Friday so I ripped open the box and tucked in. They had pecans in them so surely a good way to start the day? They come in brownie bites so it's easy to just have one or two (or three...).



They are completely different to the brownies I sell on my website. Not just because of the nuts. They are slightly more cakey and it's a very different chocolate flavour, a completely different texture. Yummy. Both so yummy. Mmm...

Chocolate taster and packers wanted!!

Is anyone looking for some extra work leading up to Christmas? One of the BEST chocolate makers in London is looking for some help packing the chocolate boxes. You will get to taste lots of great chocolate as well as be in fabulous company while you work.

Help needed ASAP! Please contact me on info[at]chocolateecstasytours.com if you are interested!

Chocolate Ecstasy Tours Facebook group

I finally got around to starting a Facebook group. I thought it would be a fun way to answer people's questions about chocolate or for people who met on previous tours to reunite. At one point I might get my website to have a forum or something on it but for now I'll just use Facebook. If you are on Facebook please join the group! It is Chocolate Ecstasy Tours.

I was on a conference earlier this week and there were chocolate desserts both evenings. I asked, as I almost always do, what type of chocolate they use. I was specific this time and said "what brand". The waitress came back and told me it was their own brand. Ugh. I don't think so! It's a simple question, I don't know why people have so much trouble with it. Even chefs in some restaurants are vague about it. True, the waitress was possibly quite scared of me seeing as I'd sent my meal back both evenings. I don't remember ever in my life having sent a meal back before. The first night it was a vegetarian "curry". A watery yellow soup with overcooked, tasteless peppers and mushrooms. After pushing it a few times with my fork I plucked up the courage to ask for just the mash and roast vegetables without the lamb shank (didn't trust it would have been organic or even nicely reared). The mash and roast veg were really good. The second night my risotto was lovely and I was so pleased they had managed to make a proper vegetarian substitute. They even gave me the vegetable sides from the chicken dish on a smaller plate (someone saw me coming, I guess).

Now, I say the risotto was tasty, but that was until I bit down on a metal bolt. Well, half a metal bolt. Not sure now if the shavings I thought were pepper were actually ground metal. I felt kind of bad for the waitresses who were mortified. Things like this do occasionally happen and I only had mild stomach cramps later in the evening (!!). I just hope the conference organisers got a discount! The complimentary already opened bottles of wine they offered me, when I already wasn't paying for the wine was hardly compensation!

a weekend in the country

I'm up North this weekend, and reveling in the space of a large house and garden. Something about fresh country air and wide expanses of space that instills new spirit in me. Hopefully it doesn't dissipate on the train journey back to London...

The only downside to being here this weekend is that I'm not in New York at the Chocolate Show. The fact of having a job as well as the tours and booking all my holiday to visit the family later in the year. It's too hard to go to New York for just 48 hours! Being here means I'm not even at the Spirit of Christmas show where lots of lovely chocolatiers are showcasing their wares. My friend called last night to say he had just had a hot chocolate from Bill (McCarrick). Jealous, me? Never. Well, maybe a little. In the New Year I am definitely going to Surrey to visit the Hans Sloane Chocolate studio.

We spent the afternoon yesterday raking up leaves. We didn't bring the appropriate cord with us so I can't upload the before and after photos until we get home. I found, surprisingly, it was fun! Plus, really satisfying. This was the same experience I had a few weeks ago on an outward bounds course where we had to build a barn, and spent the day outdoors climbing and lifting and drilling. Perhaps there is yet more of my father's characteristics in me? I was quite the little tom boy when I was younger and loved climbing trees and building animal sheds and fence. Then I started to realise it was exploiting child labour and did my best to rebel. Suddenly it's become fun again to be outdoors accomplishing something with physical effort.

It certainly hasn't been all hard labour. I picked up the book, The Undercover Economist, from the window sill and managed to get through a few chapters already. Most of it so far is familiar, but a nice refresher on my university subjects. It made me glad I chose the university I did (or that my mother chose it, I might say). Most of the universities offering business studies has a long list of compulsory subjects but the one I went to had only four: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Statistics 1 and Statistics 2. Interestingly, I think perhaps only one of these was on the compulsory list at the other colleges. They have absolutely been the most useful to me in the outside world. Sometimes I wonder what value I got from university, save for a huge amount of experience running committees and things as part of my extra-curricular activities. Then I read a book like this and realise how most of us are so ignorant to market dynamics and why the world works as it does and I'm grateful I had an introduction to it before I joined the real world (ahem!). Though, frankly, even the best economists struggle to exlain the whole picture. Reasonably so. My father always said that the more you know the more you realise you don't know. Is that a way to make the stupid feel smart again? Well, if that's the case, the further I get into this book the more grateful I am for this comment.

I think I'll revert to what I do know: chocolate. (Though even here there is surely much more to know.) Specifically, Sinking Currant Cake. It doesn't have chocolate in its name but it has chocolate in the icing. It started as mocha brownies when my man was small but his mother decided to adapt it for little people's taste and removed the walnuts and replaced them with currants. The currants always sank, hence, Sinking Currant Cake. I'll see if I can get the recipe and put it here or in one of the newsletters (next one coming soon!). It is the only cake he admits to liking, and I just like making cake so better I make one that he will eat too! On second thoughts I might have to make two, to save any arguments!

Chocolate Ecstasy website down temporarily

In case you managed to find this site instead of www.chocolateecstasytours.com. It is currently down. I'm swapping servers and it keeps disappearing and reappearing. Grrr. This means no emails are getting to me either. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Boycott of chocolate

I came across this interesting article today. The bitter life of chocolate slaves. In it, the spokesperson for the Confectionary Manufacturers' Association says that they can't guarantee their chocolate has not touched the hands of slaves. Granted, not an easy thing to do until you decide it's important, and even then, not necessarily transparent. What actually made me laugh - and despair - was his suggestion that "Boycotts will not help anybody. Hand-outs to people without change will achieve nothing." Excuse me? Of course Boycotts will help! How else can consumers make a real difference to large corporations except by voting with their dollar, or pound, or whatever currency?

You might be wondering why I appear to be suggesting we boycott chocolate. I'm not suggesting we stop eating all chocolate, just that we pay more attention to where our chocolate is coming from. Sadly, a Fair Trade seal neither 100% guarantees the farmer's are getting a fair price (corruption has been found within the channel of money passing to the farmers) and some chocolates have no Fair Trade sticker but are absolutely committed to the livelihood of the people who produce their cacao, otherwise they couldn't get the quality they need to make their fabulous chocolate. Amedei, Malagasy and El Rey are brands like this that come to mind.

I've been reading Ethics of Eating by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. The tag line is "What we eat and why it matters." It's actually all about industrialisation of farming and primarily the horrendousness that goes on behind closed doors to the animals, but it is certainly making me think a lot more about everything to do with what we eat. It's a great book if you want to know about why we should care, along as you can handle some gruesomeness.

Chocolate Week is over

Every week is chocolate week for me, but Britain's official Chocolate Week has now come to a close. The tour on Saturday was deliciously fun and it seemed all my guests had a great time too (hooray!). As soon as I get hold of the photos I will post some of them up here. In my opinion, it was the best full day tour yet and each of them have been quite different. It still felt we had too short a time in each place but I think that will always be the case - why would we ever want to leave a chocolate shop? - and this tour was definitely much more relaxed with more quality time than the previous tours. Rather sadly at this stage it will be the last full day tour until Chocolate Week 2008 while I focus on the half-day tours and the other tricks I have planned! But there's plenty of fun to be had on the regular tours. I feel the highlights of Saturday's trip will be better discussed with the pictures so I will return with them to tell you more about it!

Hope you all enjoyed Chocolate Week!

Chocolate Week: 1st event: Damien Allsop and Seventypercent

Some of the bars we tried:


My chocolate high is only just beginning to fade... It's good though because I've been really productive since I got home. I was even productive on the tube on the way home!

It was a fabulous night. Damien gives such great talks about the science behind chocolate. Here is him making a ganache for us:



I learnt the very useful fact that when chocolate appears to seize it just needs more of whatever liquid you are adding to it! And I learnt - by comparison - that a chocolate ganache made with water is MUCH nicer than one made with cream. Oh and I learnt that I REALLY want a foam maker. The silver canister-thing that uses little gas cylinders to produce instant food foam (or instant chocolate mousse equivalent).
This is a picture of the water-based chocolate foam:



Here's my tasting plate. I like to try a little bit of each and save part of the piece so I can compare along the way (because the plate fills up one piece at a time):




Damien also told us a little about his current pet project: adventures with an olive oil ganache, which we got to try with a fifteen year-old balsamic vinegar. I love the balsamic and chocolate but I'm personally not overly fussed about the olive oil. Especially after having the water-based ganaches which are so much lighter. Apparently the size of the microns of fats are larger than those of your tastebuds so fats tend to coat your tastebuds thus impeding your taster to some degree (as well as adding texture/"mouth feel".



Gosh, I really need to sleep. I'm off to a preview of Stardust tomorrow night (non-chocolatey).

Oh, I've finalised more details for Saturday. There's only four tickets left now though! If you want one of them go to www.chocolateecstasytours.com/luxury.htm.

Sweet chocolate dreams...

Chocolate Fondant

I didn't look at these pictures for a while and they aren't as pretty as I remember. I didn't even take a picture of it cut into and oozing. Darn. Might have to make them again. Though perhaps not this week!

Well, you can at least see what the coating of sugar in the dish looks like, and how they are supposed to be cracked on top!

Chocolate Week has started!

Hooray! It's finally here. In some ways it started for me on Saturday with one of the regular tours - we managed to squeeze 14 people on this one! I did my best to limit my choc consumption on this one, knowing the week that lies ahead. I'm not actually going to be able to go along to too much as I have a full schedule in my day job this week and I have to prepare for my own event on Saturday: the Full Day Chocolate Ecstasy Tour. (If you haven't bought a ticket yet there are just a few left! Click on the previous link to buy now.)

I am planning on popping in to Seventypercent's event with Damien Allsop tomorrow night on origin chocolates. My chance to input into a new creation? I couldn't miss that one!

If you want help choosing what to attend this week (there's so much on the website!) drop me an email through my website, or post to this blog!

I'll post a review of what I do get along to.

Have a delicious week!

PS. Newsletter readers: I will post the pics of my chocolate fondant tonight, I've had computer issues this week!

I'm reading this:

Real flavours, by Glynn Christian. This is such a great book about food. Even better the author has lived in both the UK and Australia so I was remindeded of Australia's place in the culinary community, more significant than most people realise. I can't wait to visit again.

When I borrowed this book from my local library the man asked if I was starting up a deli. Er, no, I just really like food. It's an absolutely fascinating book. But maybe just to a food-geek like me. I've only properly read the chapters on bread and chocolate so far but it also has chapters on cheese, charcuterie, spices, oils and basically all the stuff you would find in a deli, which I've scanned too. The reason I haven't read more is because it makes me want to eat and cook and shop for food so I only allow myself to read it if I'm about to do one of these things, otherwise I end up completely distracted (and hungry).

The chapter about chocolate isn't as thorough as other books I have, but still as part of a bigger book about food it gives it a decent coverage. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to seem clever when they go to visit their local farmers' market or explore more of what tastes are out there. Speaking of which, I went again yesterday to the farmers' market in Chelsea to collect brownies for the tour from Clare, and ended up coming home with bags of watercress, olives, brocollini, cheese and other treats. Oops. Clare sells dough so you can go home and bake you own too. Unfortunately her cheese straw dough made such nice biscuits they were gobbled before we could photograph them. Eventually I might get in the habit of taking pictures.

Chocolate Ecstasy in Chocolate Week

Yum. My favourite week of the year is coming! Chocolate Week. This year seems to be the biggest ever with a HUGE amount of events.

I'll be running a full day Chocolate Ecstasy Tour on Saturday 20th October (in conjunction with Seventypercent.com. It's going to a delicious day where people will be personally guided to some the best chocolatiers in London and have the opportunity to ask about all the others too. We get VIP access into stores and we'll be having lunch with an innovative new chocolatier (well, I say new, he's been in working with chocolate his whole life but has only recently started his own chocolate business).

If you're interested in joining us (there are only a few places) go to www.chocolateecstasytours.com/fulldaytour.htm.

You can check out the other events here. (The full day tour isn't up yet but it will be soon!)

I hope you can join me!

Chocolate gets better and better

Chocolate helps fatigue syndrome too! Hmm, wonder if this explains my sleepless nights? Got to love it, people are finally catching on to the fact that, although a treat, chocolate also comes from a bean (seed) incredibly rich in nutrients.

Read more here.

Like they say though - moderation, people! ;-)

It's nice when people say nice things about chocolate tours

How lovely. A friend of mine complimented me on this article this evening, so I went to look it up.

It's a shame they spelt ecstacy wrong. So many people do... A bigger shame I hadn't registered the incorrect address which it links to! I thought I had. Darn. Other than the spelling and linkage error I don't think I could have asked for nicer things to be said. It's made my day. Yesterday my day was made by seeing Clare's (of Milk and Honey) fabulous stall at Kings Road market. She's there every Saturday now. I was thrilled to finally try her other delicacies, already being a raving fan of her brownies which everyone who comes on the tour gets in their goodie bag. She also makes chocolate banoffee biscuits. Yum. She even sells the cookie dough so you can bake your own. She was educating me in the science of making crisp versus soft biscuits (oven temperature + cooking time) and so today I made my own dough and experimented. Bizarrely the lower tempature (160C) came out more crisp - so crisp they just kind of disintegrated. I think I left them in a little too long (14mins). I also should have added a bit more butter. I was also experimenting with the recipe too. I did use the same dough for each temperature test though and the 2nd hotter (190C, 9 mins) batch were still pretty good, though also a teensy bit dry. The kind of cookies you need to have with a glass of milk. Except we don't have any milk in the house, because no one drinks it here. It's bought occasionally for cake making, or guests. The cookies made me nostaligic for the super-dark double-choc cookies I used to make during sleepover weekends in high school. I can't wait to see my girlfriends again later this year.

There were also some people at the market who made amazing soup, and incredible icecream that used agave syrup instead of sugar. If you didn't know, agave syrup has a low GI, but sweetens like sugar. In layman's terms: you shouldn't get a sugar rush. I'm sorry I can't remember the name but I'm going back next weekend so I'll write it down and even take a picture and let you know then! Or just go along and check it out for yourself.

What I saw in Warsaw.

Greek fish:

This was part of the Italian/Polish wedding feast. We also ate pierogi (Polish dumplings), traditional smoked and grilled cheese, sour soup, red cabbage, cold meats and salads, bread and many desserts.

That was an awful title, I know. I am my father's daugher. This, because I make bad attempts at plays on language. I also know this because it's what my mother refers to me as if she's ever annoyed with me. Interestingly, when my father is frustrated or amused by me I am my mother's daughter. Nice, hey?


Back to Poland: the brief trip this weekend for the wedding. I didn't see much of Warsaw in Warsaw (not even the couple kissing!) but I was priveleged to attend this union of Polish and Italian friends of ours. The ceremony and reception was a blend of traditions from each, and not having attended either an Italian or a Polish wedding I'm not too certain what came from where but it was all very entertaining. Much singing and dancing. Thankfully neither country has a wedding speech tradition because versions in three languages would have made it quite a lengthy session! The bride and groom briefly thanked us all for coming, in Polish, Italian and English, and after that we got on with six courses of food, Italian wines and Polish vodka shots, in between random cheers and songs. Well, they seemed random but given the languages were foreign I couldn't tell you this with certainty.

The wedding cake... (White chocolate curls on a chocolate cake with an alcholic cream middle that was thicker than either layer of cake sandwiching it.)


A poignant point. I love passion for food and drink.

I love the people in the Chocolate world

Another indulgent weekend that began with a chocolate tour on Saturday morning (my favourite way to start the weekend, this tour special as a final goodbye to one manager leaving, and a hello to a new manager starting in different store). Then I travelled onto a garden party in the West Country, complete with brass band and full-size skittles runway, and finishing at the London Food Show at the Islington Business Design Centre. I just realised I was wearing my high-heel boots for 18hours straight, with the exception of two hours in the car on the way down when I was a passenger. No wonder my calves hurt still.

It's a shame that the Food Festival wasn't advertised better, at least, it didn't seem like it was. The trouble with going at the end of a three-day show is that the exhibitors are just keen to get home, and many of them have already left, including one of the chocolate exhibitors I really wanted to see.

It was great to see the couple from Gorvett and Stone again. Not only do they create delicious chocolates but they are just lovely as well. Their dark chocolate bar with strawberry and black pepper is perfect. I pinched this picture from their website because mine didn't quite do it justice.


I went by to visit Paul of Paul A. Young Fine Chocolates afterwards and was delighted to find him in the shop - and with exciting news too! He is opening another shop in the Royal Exchange in Bank in just a few weeks. So business is obviously good. And with good reason: divine chocolates with no expense spared on the ingredients. His Autumn range is slowly coming into the stores (how sad to be acknowledging we really aren't getting a summer). Paul also had a strawberry and black pepper chocolate, his was a milk truffle and perhaps even more perfect, as a truffle at least. I never seem to buy enough of his chocolates when I'm there. He's now mastered how to make stilton chocolate truffles that last more than one day - add port! Brilliant. Bizarre, but good.

Other lovely finds at the fair were CurrySlim jars of sauce and FleurDelicia chutneys and marmalades (NOTE: second website isn't there yet). Now, normally I won't touch any products with the word "slim" in the title. Not because I'm not conscious of my diet, but because in my experience tags like "slim" and "lite" tend to imply a whole host of additives, artificial sugars and fillers. As always I scanned the ingredients on the labels and not only is their virtually no fat there is also no sugar. The only sweetener I could spot is pineapple juice, and all the other ingredients are normal things you might find easily in many people's cupboards. I met Fleur as well and was impressed by her insistence on only buying fresh fruit and vegetables and not compromising on ingredients. Her spicy tomato and hot aubergine chutneys are great, they're being picked up by Asda (please don't let that put you off!). Fleur, like a lot of other gourmet food producers these days, left a city job to have a go at making her talent into a business. She's doing pretty well so far, it seems. Good luck to her!

John Scharffenberger - an American pioneer of chocolate

Last night I was invited to a talk by one of the co-founders of Scharffen Berger, the US chocolate company, Mr Scharfenberger himself. Cloistered in a basement room in a Mayfair members' club a group of around ten chocolate obsessives listened as John gave us a history of his own career and Scharffen Berger chocolates, and the complete biography of cacao. Rather than being a patisserie chef, as most of the people who start their own chocolate shops are, Scharffenberger was an agricultural historian, and then a successful sparkling wine maker (Scharffenberger cellars is now owned by Maisons Marques & Domaines).

We tried the "candy bar" brands, the ones sold in most supermarkets. Still real chocolate, but the 70% was a bit rough and woody, according to John this was because there were too many Ghana beans in the mix, and not enough Venezualan. In Venezuela right now the political situation is such that no one can get cacao beans from there except Domori. Sadly, political unrest and poverty affects so many countries that grow cacao. John also brought along a few of the artisan bars for us to sample, including a delicious bar solely from Trinidad and Tobago that had a hint of black cherry to it. In Trinidad and Tobago the reverse is true, where people are choosing not to farm cacao because industry is so great there they can get paid better in other jobs. Scharffen Berger have been making efforts to make it more worthwhile for them, so we get to keep eating chocolate made from their delicious beans.

One of the most interesting bars he brought along was a virtually unconched bar. It was very grainy, sugar crystals and bits of cacao nibs, crunchy and fun like a "candy bar" as I would refer to them - chocolate with extra bits. Keeping the ingredients in more of their natural form means added antioxidant benefits for all of us.

The guests were rather a who's who of the chocolate world in London, which makes sense because it was hosted by the Academy of Chocolate, whose mission is to support and encourage the creation and consumption of fine chocolate. There were obviously many missing, the chocolate world is expanding fast here in London, it's fun to get together with its constituents and discuss (and eat) the good stuff from time to time. Damien Allsop brought along some of his divine ganaches. His USP is that he makes his ganaches without cream. They are water based, though one he brought along was from a fine vintage olive oil, "plant to press in 8 hours". He topped the enrobing on one side with a pinch of maldon sea salt and indented the 2nd bite to hold a small drop of balsamic vinegar. These ones are sold in three restaurants in the UK, the waiter joins you at the table to pour the balsamic, quite an experience. I enjoyed the fuss of this one, though my two favourites of those he brought along were a milk anise with a pear jelly layer, and the pure ganache he made from Bill McCarrick's couverture created here in the UK. Bill, of Sir Hans Sloane Chocolates, is one of only two UK companies to make their own couverture from "scratch". I've been invited to go and visit his studio in a few weeks time - I can't wait!