Top Ten Chocolate Indulgences
Writing is about the senses: reliving the touch/sound/smell/feel/taste of a thing. And, if you're like me, sometimes you need something to waken the memories, get the creative juices flowing, or just curl up and savor along with a really good read. For me, that thing is chocolate. So, I decided to share my Top Ten Favorite Chocolate Indulgences* and serve up some sweet memories on the side.
1. Marshall Field’s Frango Mint Chocolate ice cream with hot fudge sauce. Once upon a time, there was a tiny ice cream shoppe in the middle of this massive department store. It was pink and ecru with tiny tables and even tinier chairs and it was ultimate elegance on a platter. (Quite literally, in fact, as - while you waited for your order - a waiter came around with a platter of tiny sugar cookies with a swirl of pink, cream cheese frosting on top. I loved these, too.) But really, there was only one thing to get on the menu: the Frango Mint chocolate ice cream. Frango mints were the signature candies of Marshall Field’s - slightly salty and smooth on the tongue (hence, the name "meltaways") - and the ice cream did not disappoint. A dark, almost bittersweet hot fudge was the perfect compliment. When I turned 10, I got a "Just Me & You" day with my Mom and this is where we went, purchasing ice cream sundaes and a box of the chocolates to eat while watching movies late into the night. The shoppe is long gone and the ice cream was, last I heard, available to take home by the pint if you knew to ask. But this memory still stays with me in more ways than one.
2. Also a thing of the past although its ghost lurks in grocery stores everywhere: the original Dove bars. Before Mars bought the company in 1985 and shrunk them into neat, tiny pre-packed ice cream bars on a stick, these were a legendary confection in my hometown. Sheer blocks of vanilla ice-cream, nearly an inch thick, were hand-dipped repeatedly into smooth, dark chocolate. As a chocoholic and die-hard sugar-fanatic, I can tell you it was nearly impossible to eat a whole one alone. My mother would put them on the table with a piece of wax paper underneath and each of us gnawed and stabbed and broke off uneven shards of chocolate, slurping up ice cream because it melted faster than we could eat it, marking us with smeary fingerprints because the chocolate had such an amazing mouth-melt quality, it buttered under the heat of touch. They were ice cream bars you stood up and respected. Their teeny-tiny, wafer-thin-skinned bretheren wouldn’t’ve stood a chance in a Dove Bar Smackdown.
3. Chocolate pralines by Max Brenner, “Chocolate by the Bald Man” - enrobed nuts dusted in cocoa powder. Chocolatety, chewy, then a crunch as teeth sink through each layer. I first discovered these at the Fancy Food Show and have sought them out ever since. Have a napkin for your fingers, but they're TOTALLY worth it! The gifted Israeli chocolatier can now be found in New York and on the Web.
4. I’m not a big fan of cake, but I have to make an exception for the Flourless Chocolate Chocolate Cake from Rolf’s Patisserie. I’m heavily biased as I had this as my wedding cake - Hubby kept asking for more chocolate liqueur at the tastings and when the chef said she wasn’t sure it would maintain consistency, he said “That’s okay.” (And, in fact, it was MORE than okay!) It doesn’t matter if you have the chocolate mousse filling between layers or the cream-cheese-and-raspberry or just raspberry; in fact, each of our layers had one of each. Trust me, it’s all good!
5. Organic Peanut Butter Bonbon Bar by Vosges. Think of a Reese’s peanut butter cup times a million. It’s smooth and sweet, but most of all: salty! Vosges has an amazing line of bonbons and caramels that include a pinch of salt atop the chocolate that punch up the peanut flavor quite a bit. You wouldn't think chocolate + salt would be a good idea, but if you like the peanut butter combination, it's a logical leap. (If I were touting non-chocolate items, Béquet caramels would get the same nod: salted caramel? Fantastic!) These little bonbons are really heavenly and demand a cup of milk.
6. Ebird’s Perfect Peppermint Cookie by Grand Avenue Chocolates. You’ll have to take my word for it that this was the ultimate in Girl Scout cookie perfection of the Thin Mint cookie dipped in a layer of high-quality chocolate - not too cloying or overly-minty, the taste really lived up to its name. Tragically, the company went under and so these are no longer available. I weep for the loss. Sad, sad day.
7. There are cookies and there are cookies. However, there is only ONE exceptional semi-sweet chocolate-chip (and walnut!) cookie in my book: Carol’s Cookies! These babies are massive; you have to be seriously committed to getting a bite out of them and they reward you for the effort. Perhaps 1/2-3/4” thick, this is a buttery, sugar-filled treat chock full of hearty chunks of chocolate (and nuts, if you so choose which, indeed, I do). Holding one in your hand is like a weight at the gym, which you may as well grow familiar with if you get addicted. I don't even recall when I had my first Carol's cookie, but we kept some in the freezer to thaw as a rare treat and I would be so impatient for the thing to become edible, I'd scrape my teeth against the edges, prying loose cold, cold cookie and leaving teeth tracks behind in the dough. I learned patience by Carol. Better than zen! Hearty, heavenly serious cookies!
8. Joseph Schmidt Truffles. The. Best. Truffles. EVER. 'Nuff said.
9. Chocolate covered candied (stem) ginger. No one has the corner of this market, but let’s just say that my father-in-law knows exactly what to bring me from his trips to Germany. I love the tanginess and bite of ginger and the crunch of the crystallized sugar and wrapping that in dark chocolate? No contest. Keep your M&Ms - I’ll take a fistful of these, thankyouverymuch!
10. Latest favorite: Caffe D’Amore’s Bellagio Sipping Chocolate!. European dark chocolate so dense, it’s like drinking warm pudding but with a rich, not-too-sweet flavor that is a chocoholic’s dream. There are recipes to make chocolate martinis, fondues, mousses and frostings, but I prefer it straight up with hot, whole milk in a tiny cup. I recently blogged about this paragon of hot chocolatey goodness and I don't think I could gush any better than that.
Share a "sweet" memory or your favorite bit of chocolate! These are the things that breathe our fictions to life.
1. Marshall Field’s Frango Mint Chocolate ice cream with hot fudge sauce. Once upon a time, there was a tiny ice cream shoppe in the middle of this massive department store. It was pink and ecru with tiny tables and even tinier chairs and it was ultimate elegance on a platter. (Quite literally, in fact, as - while you waited for your order - a waiter came around with a platter of tiny sugar cookies with a swirl of pink, cream cheese frosting on top. I loved these, too.) But really, there was only one thing to get on the menu: the Frango Mint chocolate ice cream. Frango mints were the signature candies of Marshall Field’s - slightly salty and smooth on the tongue (hence, the name "meltaways") - and the ice cream did not disappoint. A dark, almost bittersweet hot fudge was the perfect compliment. When I turned 10, I got a "Just Me & You" day with my Mom and this is where we went, purchasing ice cream sundaes and a box of the chocolates to eat while watching movies late into the night. The shoppe is long gone and the ice cream was, last I heard, available to take home by the pint if you knew to ask. But this memory still stays with me in more ways than one.
2. Also a thing of the past although its ghost lurks in grocery stores everywhere: the original Dove bars. Before Mars bought the company in 1985 and shrunk them into neat, tiny pre-packed ice cream bars on a stick, these were a legendary confection in my hometown. Sheer blocks of vanilla ice-cream, nearly an inch thick, were hand-dipped repeatedly into smooth, dark chocolate. As a chocoholic and die-hard sugar-fanatic, I can tell you it was nearly impossible to eat a whole one alone. My mother would put them on the table with a piece of wax paper underneath and each of us gnawed and stabbed and broke off uneven shards of chocolate, slurping up ice cream because it melted faster than we could eat it, marking us with smeary fingerprints because the chocolate had such an amazing mouth-melt quality, it buttered under the heat of touch. They were ice cream bars you stood up and respected. Their teeny-tiny, wafer-thin-skinned bretheren wouldn’t’ve stood a chance in a Dove Bar Smackdown.
3. Chocolate pralines by Max Brenner, “Chocolate by the Bald Man” - enrobed nuts dusted in cocoa powder. Chocolatety, chewy, then a crunch as teeth sink through each layer. I first discovered these at the Fancy Food Show and have sought them out ever since. Have a napkin for your fingers, but they're TOTALLY worth it! The gifted Israeli chocolatier can now be found in New York and on the Web.
4. I’m not a big fan of cake, but I have to make an exception for the Flourless Chocolate Chocolate Cake from Rolf’s Patisserie. I’m heavily biased as I had this as my wedding cake - Hubby kept asking for more chocolate liqueur at the tastings and when the chef said she wasn’t sure it would maintain consistency, he said “That’s okay.” (And, in fact, it was MORE than okay!) It doesn’t matter if you have the chocolate mousse filling between layers or the cream-cheese-and-raspberry or just raspberry; in fact, each of our layers had one of each. Trust me, it’s all good!
5. Organic Peanut Butter Bonbon Bar by Vosges. Think of a Reese’s peanut butter cup times a million. It’s smooth and sweet, but most of all: salty! Vosges has an amazing line of bonbons and caramels that include a pinch of salt atop the chocolate that punch up the peanut flavor quite a bit. You wouldn't think chocolate + salt would be a good idea, but if you like the peanut butter combination, it's a logical leap. (If I were touting non-chocolate items, Béquet caramels would get the same nod: salted caramel? Fantastic!) These little bonbons are really heavenly and demand a cup of milk.
6. Ebird’s Perfect Peppermint Cookie by Grand Avenue Chocolates. You’ll have to take my word for it that this was the ultimate in Girl Scout cookie perfection of the Thin Mint cookie dipped in a layer of high-quality chocolate - not too cloying or overly-minty, the taste really lived up to its name. Tragically, the company went under and so these are no longer available. I weep for the loss. Sad, sad day.
7. There are cookies and there are cookies. However, there is only ONE exceptional semi-sweet chocolate-chip (and walnut!) cookie in my book: Carol’s Cookies! These babies are massive; you have to be seriously committed to getting a bite out of them and they reward you for the effort. Perhaps 1/2-3/4” thick, this is a buttery, sugar-filled treat chock full of hearty chunks of chocolate (and nuts, if you so choose which, indeed, I do). Holding one in your hand is like a weight at the gym, which you may as well grow familiar with if you get addicted. I don't even recall when I had my first Carol's cookie, but we kept some in the freezer to thaw as a rare treat and I would be so impatient for the thing to become edible, I'd scrape my teeth against the edges, prying loose cold, cold cookie and leaving teeth tracks behind in the dough. I learned patience by Carol. Better than zen! Hearty, heavenly serious cookies!
8. Joseph Schmidt Truffles. The. Best. Truffles. EVER. 'Nuff said.
9. Chocolate covered candied (stem) ginger. No one has the corner of this market, but let’s just say that my father-in-law knows exactly what to bring me from his trips to Germany. I love the tanginess and bite of ginger and the crunch of the crystallized sugar and wrapping that in dark chocolate? No contest. Keep your M&Ms - I’ll take a fistful of these, thankyouverymuch!
10. Latest favorite: Caffe D’Amore’s Bellagio Sipping Chocolate!. European dark chocolate so dense, it’s like drinking warm pudding but with a rich, not-too-sweet flavor that is a chocoholic’s dream. There are recipes to make chocolate martinis, fondues, mousses and frostings, but I prefer it straight up with hot, whole milk in a tiny cup. I recently blogged about this paragon of hot chocolatey goodness and I don't think I could gush any better than that.
Share a "sweet" memory or your favorite bit of chocolate! These are the things that breathe our fictions to life.