The Chocospherian
Incredible Chocolate News	March 17, 2016

Written By: Joanne Kryszek, Chocosphere Co-Founder and Chocolate Goddess

What’s New?	Customer Service
Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deal…	Bargain Basement
Cool Contest…	Newsletter
	Recipe Corner

Easter Bunny

It's not too late to get the Chocosphere Easter Bunny to hop over to your home or the home of a treasured loved one. Take advantage of the great special! Large Promotional Easter Basket, a $150.00 value for only $99.95, or the smaller basket at a $60.00 value for only $49.95. Every basket comes with assorted Valrhona eggs and chocolate bunnies. By the way, YES we have Valrhona eggs and Alma bunnies and Venchi chicks WHILE THEY LAST! You can access our Easter offerings by clicking on the picture of the Easter Basket at the top left corner of our home page, or just click here: Easter Chocolate Items

Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deals

Shipping (kind of) Special

For the foreseeable future we will be doing "if it fits, it ships!" Basically any order that will fit in one of the U.S. Postal special rate boxes (or ground if that is more reasonable) we will ship for $10.00. That includes warm weather packaging if it is needed (a $7.00 value). The potential savings over other options on our web site, depending on the size of the shipment, can be up to $25.00 or more. And you only pay $10.00! Get more detailed information about this inexpensive shipping option here: If It Fits, It Ships!

Cool Contest

******** IT'S GIVE-AWAY TIME *******

Enter for your chance to win a vintage wooden box of Valrhona Single Plantation chocolate bars, a $62.00 value!

You can see a photo of the prize by going to Chocosphere's Facebook page. Every order you place between now and April 30th will earn you an entry to win this box.

To enter, write *Facebook Valrhona Prize* in the comments section of your order. You don't have to be a Facebook Friend to enter.

Contest Rules:
Contest is only valid with a minimum of 50 entries.
(if there are less than 50 entries, the contest is null and void and no winner will be chosen)

Orders must be placed by April 30th, 2016

Prize contents :
1 Wooden Valrhona box
4 Ampamakia bars from the manufacture years 2012, 2013, 2014, & 2015
2 Loma Sotoventa bars from the manufacture years 2014 & 2015
1 vintage Valrhona book explaining some of their crops, including plantations not represented above.

Bargain Basement and On Sale

We added some Slitti bars to the 2 for 1 special. There are quite a few items on the Bargain Basement, so it is a great time to do some shopping for yourself. The Grab Bag shelf is getting a big infusion of chocolate, and it's a good time to buy. Grab Bags are still the best buy and better than half off the original price. You get $45.00 worth for $19.95 and $100.00 for $39.95 (original value based on single unit full price). There are consumer grab bags and options for the chef as well.

Please remember that Bargain Basement products are usually past the best-by date, and may be bloomed or broken. Tha Bargain Basement is a place to treat yourself at a great price, but probably not for gift giving.

Also check out our 'On Sale' page. There are two Bonnat bars that are 20% off because the outer carton had one "best by date" and the bars had another. We recieved a discount and are passing it along to you. All Ethereal products will soon be 20% off. We bought a lot and we are seriously overstocked. We don't have many of the inclusion bars, but they are April dates. The rest of our Ethereal stock is just way overstocked. There is a beautiful Domori Single Origin Gift Box that makes an excellent gift for someone who wants to explore really fine chocolate. You will find crystallized Australian Ginger and Slitti chocolate sauces (he's won so many awards) and many other really good bargains on this page. Now is the time to buy big and store it away for the summer and ice cream season.

Recipe Corner

Valrhona Brownie (An original recipe by Alex Espiritu, formerly Corporate Pastry Chef for Valrhona, now our Valrhona representative)

8 oz butter

4 oz Valrhona Extra Bitter 61% cacao Dark Chocolate, chopped.

7 oz. eggs

10 oz sugar

1 vanilla bean

31/2 oz all purpose flour

1/2 cup walnut pieces

Preparation & Assembly

Use a kitchen scale for all ingredients except vanilla and nuts.

In a microwave safe bowl melt dark chocolate and butter together in intervals of 30 seconds. Be careful not to burn.

Mix the eggs with the sugar and vanilla with a whisk until all the sugar is fully incorporated.

Add the chocolate and butter mixture into the egg batter.

Mix until there are no signs of streaks of eggs and chocolate.

Add the sifted flour and mix well until all the flour is fully incorporated into the mixture.

Lastly add the walnut pieces and mix well.

Pour the batter in to a 9 inch cake pan.

Bake at 320 F with fan on for 20 to 30 minutes.

Use a skewer and pierce at the middle of the cake. The skewer should come out clean.

Cool and cut to portion.

Customer Service

Of course we are happy to help over the phone, but we do appreciate it when you place your order on line. It helps us to give the most prompt and accurate service. If you don’t feel comfortable giving your credit card number over the internet, just click the box for "Please Call for Credit Card Info" and we will call you. But when you need help, we are here for you. There is generally someone answering the phones between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday.

There are five of us answering phones at Chocosphere, where we speak fluent Chocospherian. We try hard to answer all calls personally during normal business hours, but occasionally one slips over to voice mail. If you call and end up in voice mail, please leave a message. We will do our very best to call back promptly. If by chance you don't hear back from us in a reasonable time, please call again during our normal business hours.

We each have varying levels of experience. It is our goal to happily serve you the very best chocolate!!

Finally, and very importantly, our web site lists our service commitments as to when we ship an order based on when the order is placed. However, we certainly understand there are circumstances where you may want us to process an order faster, when you need your chocolate "now"! If you need your order shipped faster than our listed service commitment, please place your order online letting us know of your need in the "Comments" section, and then call us (503-692-3323 x 0 for Customer Service) to let us know. We can't guarantee early shipping, but we always try hard to provide chocolate happiness to our valued customers.

If you want us to send a copy as an email every time there is a new issue or to tell you about special offers, please create an account at chocosphere.com and check the newsletter box.

Topics:

If you have a topic you would like us to cover in the newsletter, please drop us a line: customer‑service@chocosphere.com and we will be happy to include it in a future edition

Fax 503-692-1494