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Incredible Chocolate News |
October 22th, 2023 |
Written By: Joanne and The Chocosphere Team
NewsletterAnniversary | New Products |
Changes | Bargain Basement |
Recipe | Customer Service |
Newsletter | Topics |
25th Anniversary Celebration
We are continuing the celebration and giving you something special this month. You can get free “if it fits” shipping on chocolate bars. This free shipping is only for the "Chocolate Bar and Tablet" category. Bargain Basement and On Sale products are not eligible for this promotion. The order for bars must exceed $50.00, be placed online and be for shipping addresses in the U.S. Apply the code FREE2023 in the "Gifts Cetificates / Coupon Codes" field right below the shopping cart display to get free "if it fits" shipping. Orders will include normal shipping charges for purchases other than chocolate bars.
This may be the perfect opportunity for some early chocolate bar gift giving without any fancy wrapping! You can ship to different addresses using this promotion as many times as you want within the promotion period.
To take advantage of this promotion, just enter the code "FREE2023" at checkout in the field shown below.
Then, when you get to the "Shipping Method" stage of Checkout, please select:
Free Value Shipping
Keep in mind with the selection noted above, we'll ship with the "If It Ships, It Fits" method according to its terms and conditions during the time of this promotion. To see the "If it Fits, It Ships" terms and condition, which you agree to by using the promotion, please click on this Terms and Conditions link or go to https://www.chocosphere.com/index.php/default/fits-ships-tc/. Note that the "Free Value Shipping" option will not appear if you have even one product in your cart that is not eligible for the promotion. The "Free Value Shipping" option will reappear if you remove ineligible items from the shopping cart.
This offer is valid for consumer orders placed online, from October 23rd through 11:59 PM Pacific Time October 27th 2023, is limited to stock on hand, will not be honored retroactively, no "rain checks", and all sales are final.
Changes
This is the latest news at Chocosphere. There may be a transition happening soon although I can’t tell you more yet. So keep posted and reading the newsletter and you will find out what we have in store for you. For now, we are all here and bringing chocolate from our wonderful makers. There are some New Products and there may be some holes that we haven’t been able to fill, but for most of our popular items we are stocked.
New Products
Check out our “New Products” page for many brand new amazing chocolates.
- A new bar from Only Child “Cashew Later” is filled with Cashew and Almond butter and spices. I had to stop myself from eating the entire bar.
- There are some new Cacao Barry cocoa powders. One is a "black powder" for making all kinds of extra dark baked goods, a dutched light powder and a natural powder.
- Scharffen Berger has an amazing new milk chocolate for home and professional chefs and two new milk chocolate bars. If you’ve never tried their milk chocolate you’re in for a treat. It is one of the best around. And they have a convenient tasting package of unwrapped squares called Chocolate Provisions excellent for wine and chocolate tasting or just eating all by itself.
- Valrhona brought a new couverture: Hukambi dark milk 53% discs, containing Brazilian cocoa, French milk and Madagascan vanilla. It is strong and delicious.
- Our seasonal collection of Valrhona gift items, including their just-arrived Advent Calendars and other holiday-design delicious boxed chocolates.
I’ve left a few things for you to find on the new products page. Enjoy!
Bargain Basement
Wow! With lots of items on the "On Sale" page and on the "Bargain Basement" you can have gobs of delicious chocolate for a very delicious price. We have chocolate from premium makers; Amedei, Domori, Slitti and more with bars as well as baking chocolate and some incredible non chocolate items like vanilla beans and fruit spreads with very low sugar. This is the time of year when we have the most on sale and it seems to fly off the shelf. Remember, On Sale and Bargain Basement items are not eligible for the promotion noted above.
Recipe
Just in time for Fall a recipe from Valrhona!
CHEWY PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Makes 16-18 cookies
Before we get to the recipe, here are some of Joanne's thoughts after making these delicious cookies.
- This is a delicious fall/holiday chocolate chip cookie recipe that can be made vegan with organic sugar. Though there are no eggs in the recipe, the cookies hold together perfectly.
- Jerry and I made the recipe last night. Because we like our desserts a little less sweet, we just lightly filled the cup with brown sugar instead of packing it. Also we're watching our salt intake so we only used a pinch of salt in the recipe.
- The recipe calls for whisking the butter and sugars and I used a hand held electric mixer with a whisk attachment. We didn’t have a nonstick pot so we used a nonstick pan for concentrating the pumpkin puree.
- The instructions call for freezing the half-balls either for an hour or overnight. Placing the tray in the freezer for just ten minutes made our dough pretty solid and it worked.
- We noticed that our cookies didn't flatten when baked. If you experience the same thing you may want to flatten the half-balls a bit before baking.
- We used a slighly smaller disher (around 1-1/2 oz) so we had more cookies.
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE CONCENTRATED PUMPKIN PUREE:
15 oz can (425g) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
FOR THE COOKIES:
12 tbsp (170g) unsalted butter
1 cup (230g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup (67g) white sugar
3/4 cup (170g) concentrated pumpkin puree
2 3/4 cup (330g) all purpose flour
2 tbsp (15g) cornstarch
1 tsp (4g) kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp (4g) cinnamon
1/2 tsp (1g) ground ginger
1/2 tsp (1g) nutmeg
1/4 tsp (1g) cloves
1/4 tsp (1g) baking soda
220 g Oriado 60% Chocolate Feves (discs). Chop some very roughly and leave some as whole feves.
flakey sea salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Concentrating the Pumpkin Puree:
- In a medium non-stick pot, bring the pumpkin puree to a light simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until the puree has thickened and darkened in color, taking care to stir often and then constantly towards the end of the cooking time to ensure it doesn’t burn.
- Remove from the pot and spread out on a plate or wide bowl to cool to room temperature. You will not need all of it.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- In a large bowl, whisk together the melted and cooled butter, light brown sugar, and white sugar until it has lightened in color, about 1 minute.
- Whisk in ¾ cup concentrated pumpkin puree until just combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and baking soda.
- Add half the dry mixture to the wet mixture and using a rubber spatula, fold to combine. Once the dry mixture is almost fully incorporated, add the remaining half and continue to fold until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Add the chocolate and fold to combine.
- Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Using a 2-oz disher (ice cream scoop with release). Scoop out the cookie dough. Each cookie dough ball is about ¼ cup in size.
- Tightly wrap the sheet pan with plastic wrap and freeze for 1 hour or overnight for best results. These can be transferred to a zip-top freezer bag and kept in the freezer for up to 3 months.
When ready to bake:
- Preheat the oven to 375°F with the rack in the middle position. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and place cookie dough balls about 2” apart. Bake for 14 minutes. The key is to underbake these cookies to keep them dense and chewy. Immediately sprinkle a little pinch of flakey sea salt on each as they come out of the oven. Cool and enjoy.
- The cookies will last in an airtight container for 3 days. Bake them one at a time for a treat or all at once to share.
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 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!!
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 at 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.
Newsletter
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.
Contact us at 503-692-3323 and press 0 for Customer Service
Fax 503-692-1494