Chocolate

by Vicki Reich, from the December 2003 Newsletter

Chocolate is one of my obsessions. I eat it every day. Just a bite or two after meals, but I have to have some every day or I feel like something’s missing. I’m sure there are other chocoholics (a term I don’t really connect with since of course I can quit any time) who understand how I feel about this complex food. When the time came to decide what to taste test for this issue of the newsletter, I had to decide what said the holidays better, chocolate or mayonnaise. After a millisecond of consideration, I decided on chocolate, even though I’ve written about it in this column twice already (we do have quite a few new types of chocolate since the last writing). Mayonnaise will have to wait for the New Year.

I once again enlisted the help of my valiant taste testers, the Hog Heaven Handspinners. They were very pleased we were tasting chocolate and not mayonnaise. Armed with glasses of red wine to cleanse our palates, we dug in. We had nine varieties of dark chocolate to try. I picked only the dark chocolate variety from each manufacturer, but there is a wide range of what constitutes dark. The chocolate we tested can be grouped in three categories, sweet dark, semi-sweet, and bittersweet and I will list them in that order.

In the sweet dark category are Tropical Source, Cloud Nine, Endangered Species, and Cowgirl Chocolate. Tropical Source was the sweetest chocolate we tasted. Testers compared it to Easter bunny chocolate, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar frosting. The texture is not as smooth as some of the other bars we tried. This might be a good first foray into dark chocolate for a milk chocolate eater. Cloud Nine is also a very sweet chocolate with not much cocoa flavor. We could really taste the molasses sweetener. Since we don’t carry a plain dark chocolate from Endangered Species, we tried the Wolf bar with cranberries and almonds, and I encouraged the testers to ignore the fruit and nut flavors and just try to isolate the chocolate. We found that it melted nicely and had a creamy texture but didn’t have a real cocoa flavor and wasn’t very assertive. Mary’s comment of “it felt nice in there but I couldn’t taste anything” seemed to sum it up. Cowgirl Chocolate Mild Mannered, our local favorite, was very creamy with a sweet chocolaty taste; it had the best mouth feel owing to the fact that it has a creamy truffle center.

In the semi-sweet category are Chocolove Rich Dark (65% cocoa content), Organic Chocolove (61% cocoa content) and Scharffen Berger Semisweet (62% cocoa content). Chocolove Rich Dark was the best smelling of the bunch with a truffle-like velvety texture. It was fruity, rich and cocoa-y tasting and as one of the testers put it, “it improved with more.” The organic Chocolove had more of a bite with a smooth texture and a dark chocolaty taste. Scharffen Berger was the sweetest of the semi-sweets but with a good chocolaty taste and a smooth texture. It was one the testers would “pig out” on.

Only two of the chocolates we tried are in the bittersweet category (my personal favorite). They are Green and Black’s Dark, 70% and Dagoba New Moon, 74%. After the taste test, I snuck a taste of Scarffen Berger’s Bittersweet (70% cocoa content) just to satisfy my own curiosity. Green and Black’s had a smooth texture and melted nicely. It has a complex flavor and is definitely the most bitter of the bunch. It would be an excellent baking chocolate and would pair nicely with a sweet dessert wine or a port. Dagoba New Moon was the favorite of most of the tasters. It has a truly complex flavor with hints of berries and other fruit. It is robust and creamy and is so flavorful you don’t have to eat a bunch to be satisfied, a small piece will do. I had to try the Scharffen Berger Bittersweet since this is my usual chocolate of choice. It is the smoothest of the bittersweets and the sweetest but is still complex and robust.

Chocolate is good. Some chocolate is great. That could sum up this taste test. There are chocolates I could easily eat a whole bar of and those that I’d happily savor a few bites. As I find every time I conduct these tests, a lot of the results are personal and you have to try them all for yourself to find your personal favorite. If you want some other reasons besides flavor to make your decisions you might consider the three organic chocolates we tried: Dagoba, Green and Black’s, and Organic Chocolove (Endangered Species is not organic but gives 10% of their profits to help endangered species). You might want to buy local or regional chocolate. Cowgirl Chocolate is a Moscow-based company. Scharffen Berger is made in Berkley, California and Dagoba is made in Central Point, Oregon. You can also consider the relationship between the manufacturers and the growers. Dagoba, Scharffen Berger, and Green and Black’s all have relationships with their growers and pay above market price for their beans. All the chocolate companies have web sites listed on their wrappers to find out more information about them (the Chocolove has a love poem as well).

Here’s wishing you all the chocolate you desire for the holidays and the New Year.

© Copyright on articles, recipes and images are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective contributors, except were otherwise noted.

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