The Chocospherian
Incredible Chocolate News	May 9th, 2018

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

Preface	Featured Products
Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deals…	Customer Service
What’s New?	Newsletter
Recipe Corner	Topics

Editor's Note about this Corrected Issue

One of our valued readers pointed out a technical problem with the original issue of this newsletter, which resulted in many of the product links below not working properly when the newsletter was read in an e-mail (as opposed to from our chocosphere.com web site). This corrected issue of the newsletter should solve that problem. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and hope that with everything working properly you'll be able to find all the chocolate that tickles your fancy.

Preface

A little over a week ago we had the opportunity to indulge in alcohol and chocolate -- twice in one day!

One of our special Thursday morning Tasters returned from Italy with Venchi's "Cuba Rhum" chocolates. Each individually wrapped 19g piece has at its center a thick dark chocolate ganache, intensely flavored with rum and then enrobed with dark 56%-cacao dark chocolate. These bold chocolates are perfect for someone who loves chocolate and rum! Could this be the new breakfast of champions? For us, perhaps.

All of the tasters oohed and aahed and Jerry and I were already feeling good when we arrived at the warehouse to greet the Tasting Room Manager for a winery here in Oregon, planning for a summer wine and chocolate pairing event. She brought the wine and we supplied the chocolate. You might think it was "party time" at Chocosphere, but this actually involved some critical tasting and thinking. Finding the perfect match between a particular wine and chocolate is not always an easy task. As we worked our way through the whites, rosé and then on to the reds we were reminded again why we started this business. Life is good. Some people call this work. Someone has to do it and let it be us!

Father's Day

Treat your pappas to very special chocolate. We have beautiful and delicious Alma, Amedei, Michel Cluizel, Slitti and Valrhona boxes for your sweet one to enjoy. Give your Dad tools that are quite functional but in a different and delicious way. They look exactly like rusty tools, but they are delicious Itallian 60% dark chocolate by Slitti of Monsummano Terme, Italy (just a short drive from Florence). Your guy can have that Itallian flair waving his tools around and then just eat them. Wrapped in a very masculine gift box, soy free and just amazing chocolate dusted with cocoa powder to make them look rusty and authentic. And if he likes to fish (or pretend) the Michel Cluizel soy free milk chocolate sardines will make a splash. Five beatiful sardines enscoced in a realistic tin for his fishing pleasure. And if your guy is a cigar aficionado, we can provide chocolate toys from Venchi of Italy's Cuneo region for him to play with. Check out the Slitti "Rusty Tools" Gift Box, Michel Cluizel Sardines, or Venchi Cigars. Some say chocolate is an aphrodisiac and your chosen one will be feeling the love.

Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deals

Here are our amazing Father's Day promo baskets: $150 value for $99.95 and $65 value for $49.95. Click on the links for more details.

Featured Products

We have a lot of chocolate! And we have quite a bit from right here in the United States. So if you want to eat chocolate that is made close to home, here are the brands we carry:

Cacao Prieto, New York City!! manufactured in Brooklyn with cacao from the Dominican Republic featuring bars and incredible chocolate covered nuts.

Taza, Somerville, MA: Stone ground in the Mesoamerican tradition producing bars, discs and chocolate covered nuts. This chocolate is granular, like the ancients enjoyed in times passed.

Guittard, Burlingame, CA: So many kinds of chocolate from a company started in the time of the California Gold Rush! Chocolate bars, blocks, drops, chips, cocoa powders and on and on...

Alma, Portland, OR: Fancy boxed chocolates, Toffee, Chocolate bars, sauces, eggs, bunnies and frogs and other chocolate delicacies.

Chocolove, Boulder, CO: Chocolate bars, peanut and almond cups and the coolest love poem in every large bar.

Dagoba, Ashland, OR: Organic chocolate bars, hot chocolate, cocoa powder.

Suzanne's Chocolatiere, Portland, OR: boxed caramels and chocolate bars.

Scharffen Berger, Robinson, IL: Chocolate bars, drops, chips, cocoa powder and sweetened cocoa powder.

Creo, Portland, OR: Chocolate bars, hot chocolate.

Ritual, Park City, UT: Chocolate bars

Bees and Beans, Portland, OR: Chocolate-covered nougat bars.

Spencer, Portland, OR: Chocolate bars and hot chocolate.

Taste, Provo, UT: Chocolate bars.

What's New?

Ritual Chocolate

These folks are making chocolate at 7000 ft in Park City, Utah! Ritual Chocolate handcrafts small batch, bean-to-bar chocolate using classic European methods with a modern American style. Founded in 2010 by Robbie Stout and Anna Davies, their mission is to produce exceptional quality chocolate while celebrating the complexity of the cacao bean. Robbie and Anna are involved with the entire process from selecting the beans to production and the final review. They source some of the highest quality cacao in the world to make this exceptional chocolate. One of the bars, the "Bourbon Barrel Aged" chocolate bar, is made with a unique and creative technique: aging the cacao nibs in whiskey barrels before processing them into chocolate to create a "mellowing" effect. Other bars are made with additions like Sea Salt or Madagascar Vanilla. Of course there is quite a collection of pure cacao origin bars, each with an authentic expression of the flavor unique to its cacao origin.

Dagoba

“The One for All Cacao Project INSPIRED CHOCOLATE EMPOWERING WOMEN” offers new flavored bars, pouches of dainty little “gems” (individually wrapped chocolate pieces) and new packaging from Dagoba. Manufactured in Ashland, Oregon this chocolate is organic, gluten free, Kosher Dairy, rainforest alliance and non-GMO. With new flavors like Raspberry Mint white chocolate, Ginger Lime milk chocolate, and Picante dark chocolate. It is definately worth tasting.

Creo

Five new Creo bars for your enjoyment: Strawberry Hibiscus white, Brown Butter Dark, Fleur de Sel Dark Milk, Whiskey Milk, and Coffee Cream White Bar.

Bonnat

Morenita high cocoa content (65%) milk bar made with cacao beans from Mexico.

Recipe Corner

Courtesy of Callebaut

Double Chocolate Callets^tm Brownies Yield: 16 large cupcakes

10 Tbsp. unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks) at room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract (La Vencedora vanilla water-based flavoring would work well!)

1/4 tsp. Salt

2 Large Eggs, cold

1/2 cup All-purpose flour

2/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1/4 cup Callebaut Milk chocolate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Brush baking pan with butter and dust with flour. In a heatproof mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar cocoa powder and salt. Microwave on high 30-40 seconds, or until butter is completely melted. Stir mixture until dry ingredients have been fully incorporated and are warm to touch, not hot. Stir in vanilla and add one egg at a time, stirring quickly after each addition. Mixture should be shiny and thick. Add flour slowly until combined. Stir in nuts and chocolate gently, until incorporated. Pour mixture into baking pan and spread evenly. Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes away slightly moist with batter. Cool on wire rack for 20-30 minutes. Run a small knife around edges of pan and cut into squares.

Milk chocolate frosting Yield: 2 cups

3 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick) at room temperture

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/4 cup whole milk

1 cup Callebaut milk chocolate

1/4 cup water

Directions:

In a medium mixing bowl, sift sugar and salt. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and mix until combined. Mix on low speed, slowly adding milk. Whip mixture on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. In a separate heatproof mixing bowl, microwave chocolate on high 1 minute, stirring every 30 seconds. Let chocolate cool to lukewarm and add to butter mixture. Whip on medium-high speed 1-2 minutes, until fully incorporated. Add water while whipping to lighten texgture and make creamy.

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. And when you need help, we are here for you. There is generally someone answering the phones between 8:30am. and 4:30pm. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, with the exception of commonly observed holidays.

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!!

If you're ordering for holiday delivery, please take note of ordering deadlines so we can get the chocolate to the right place at the right time. You can also find a link to our holiday shipping deadline page inside an information bloc shown at the top of the Chocosphere home page and the top of the checkout page.

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