Chocolate University Online Blog
The Festival of Chocolate, Florida’s only all-chocolate event and the grandest celebration of everything chocolate in the Southeastern United States, will be taking place on January 14-16, 2012 at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).
Local and regional chocolate and confection companies will be featuring and selling treats such from truffles and cupcakes to ice cream and chocolate drinks.
Guests and patrons can also participate in fun chocolate competitions conducted for the young and the young-at-heart. Go nuts in piling a skyscraper of cookies or in their signature “Face the Cookie” contest.
If you’re a chocolate geek, eat your heart out as you learn about the history of chocolate and the process it undergoes from tree to treat. Fulfill your fantasies about becoming a detective in a hunt where you’re supposed to uncover fun chocolate facts in the Chocolate Museum.
Chocoholics of all ages will surely have fun creating chocolate lip balm and armpit fudge. Get to witness models in “Yum-way” as they strut their stuff made out of candy bar wrappers. The tasteful (pun intended) and artsy creations will be displayed at 2:30pm on Saturday, January 14.
Renowned pastry chefs and chocolate makers will be sharing some chocolate treat creation tips. You can do this at home whether you are a chef looking to master your skills in working with chocolate, or a die-hard chocolate fanatic on the lookout for new, creative, and interesting chocolate treat recipes to whip up for yourself or for people in your life. Also, you’ll get to see these experts in the flesh and live in action as they compete with another.
As you may have seen in previous blog posts, wine and chocolate pairing is becoming all the rage. We know for a fact that chocolate per se is a pleasure, and so is wine. Get down to details to know how to match these two properly as you take part in interactive classes hosted by a professional wine and a chocolate expert.
Head to Tampa, Florida, to experience the Festival of Chocolate and have the sweetest three days of your life!
Time: January 14, 2012 at 9am to January 16, 2012 at 5pm
Location:
Museum of Science And Industry
4801 E. Fowler Avenue
Tampa, Florida 33617
http://tampa.festivalofchocolate.com/
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocolate celebrations, chocolate companies, chocolate destinations, chocolate exhibit, chocolate facts, chocolate museums, working with chocolate
Yael Rose has loved chocolate pretty much all her life. She finds Zen in drinking a cup of hot chocolate or munching on cocoa nibs. “To be honest, I think it’s an addiction,” she said. “There’s something about the smell and colors of chocolate I simply can’t resist every single time.”
She took this intense love for chocolate to a pro level and became the director of The Chocolate Festival. This event will be happening in Brighton, London and Oxford around Christmas and Easter. It will be all about chocolate and it’s taking place down London’s Southbank Center Square (Belvedere Road) from December 9 to 11, 2011.
The ongoing affair will be presenting more than 30 stalls that offer a selection of delectable chocolates, from hot chocolate to artisan truffles. Plus, you can try most of them for free! People who visit can also get the chance to have chitchat with renowned British chocolatiers such as Paul Wayne Gregory, Bill McCarrick, William Curley, and Damian Allsop to learn a thing or two about chocolate.
Furthermore, you can take advantage of the free tutored tasting, talks, and culinary demonstrations in the Chocolate Cookery Theater with the culinary expert Valentina Harris. Top names in the chocolate world such as Chantal Coady who founded Rococo Chocolates, chef Steve Walpole, and the authors Rachel de Thample and Signe Johansen. Even people with health conditions like Celiac Disease and Diabetes can join the fun as the demonstrations will include recipes that are free of gluten, wheat, dairy and sugar.
Visitors will also be able to learn professional and top-of-the-line culinary techniques and recipes from Rococo Chocolate and Sir Hans Sloane Chocolate during “Masters of Chocolate” Day on December 10. This will only cost £5 per head.
“Even when I am at the festival, after days of eating chocolate, I find it hard to resist if a chocolatier offers me a taste,” Ms. Rose said.
So gather up chocophiles there in London! This event doesn’t happen every day so why not take advantage of it?
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocolate celebrations, chocolate destinations, chocolate exhibit, chocolate recipe
Event International is presenting a show that would make any chocophile’s heart melt. The 14th Annual New York Chocolate Show, the largest event solely dedicated to chocolate, started yesterday November 10th and will be taking place until Sunday November 13th at the Metropolitan Pavilion on 125 W 18th St.
More than 65 national and international chocolate companies are gathering to offer their finest chocolates and chocolate-inspired products to entice all the chocoholics who will pay a visit.
Hurry up and get to the show! You don’t want miss the chance to treat yourself to different head-tilting good chocolates in this once a year event. If you have any self-control remaining, you can even buy chocolates for the self-confessed chocoholics you may personally know.
The show assures visitors that they don’t only get to eat chocolate, but they’re also in for other interactive and fun-filled activities. Little kids will have a shot at creating chocolate-themed arts and crafts in the Kids Zone.
Renowned and award-winning cookbook authors will be present for book signings and there will also be culinary demonstrations from the expert chocolatiers and pastry chefs. Be there and get to witness chocolate-inspired theatrical performances! Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts and Food Network’s The Next Food Network Star are also participating. Yes, you read right. It’s that fun, educational, and entertaining all at the same time.
“Visitors can expect to taste a lot of good chocolates, but, more than that, to be able to buy a lot of really good chocolates for a very cheap price,” said Rotem Lichak, the event coordinator.
Cut yourself some slack and sync your cheat day with this event! People of all ages will surely enjoy this family-friendly experience.
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocolate celebrations, chocolate companies, chocolate exhibit, chocolate show
Eighty students of Royal Oak, Michigan, had a field trip downtown last October 12 and turned a pedestrian plaza on Washington Avenue into a work of art which will be used for the Chalk & Chocolate Art Tour scheduled this weekend. There will be a tent set up at Fifth Street just in case it rains.
Shop curators and restaurant owners downtown will be hanging chalk art masterpieces done by 100 elementary school students in their windows. Also, they will be offering their confectionaries for the first-time affair in Royal Oak.
An opening night party starts at 6 p.m. Friday with a benefit at Fifth Avenue for the Royal Oak Neighborhood Schools art curriculum. The door charge is $40 which includes live entertainment and food from six restaurants and all sales incurred go directly to district art programs.
The free tour runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday followed by specially priced items for “chocolate happy hours” at restaurants who will be taking part in the event from 4-7 p.m. Children will get to eat all weekend at Andiamo and Rock on Third without spending a single dime.
Gayle’s Chocolates will also be participating by making a special box of chalk-shaped chocolates which will cost $5 which will be donated to student art projects.
Anne Kuffler, Ariana Gallery owner, said: “I like the fact that it’s a cultural event raising money for school art programs,” She will be providing chocolate brownies and chocolate-covered strawberries for visitors in her gallery this weekend. “It will bring out people to look at and appreciate art that isn’t necessarily on canvas or permanent. Some of the high school students are unbelievably good and inspiring. They don’t get enough pats on the back — even from their family. I remember my grandfather telling me don’t be an artist.” she added.
The Chalk & Chocolate Art Tour is sponsored by Our Credit Union, Absopure Water, Mediation Center of Southeast Michigan, Fifth Avenue, Andiamo, Rock on Third, WOW High Speed Internet; Hour Detroit and d Business; Groupon; Piece of Cake; Gayle’s Chocolates; Five 15 Media Mojo & More; Peggy Goodwin of The Goodwin Co.; Fox 2 News; and Metro Times
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocolate art, chocolate celebrations, chocolate exhibit, chocolate party
I know it is absolutely nowhere near Easter, but it just feels right to share this info on the spur of the moment. C’mon now, cut me some slack! 
For starters, Easter is known as the most sacred Christian holiday of the year. Jesus Christ’s resurrection after his crucifixion is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday.
Did you know that ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year? No child’s Easter basket is ever complete without a chocolate Easter bunny or two. But how did Easter get mixed up with a rabbit? Where did that come in?
No one knows for sure but rumor has it that this is so because rabbits are well known for their enthusiastic breeding habits, making them a common symbol of fertility.
Another legend points the Easter bunnies to the Goddess of Fertility, Eostre, for whom the term “Easter” was derived. The legend says that Eostre found a wounded bird in a snowy forest one winter. In order for the bird to survive the cold, she turned it into a rabbit. But the transformation was unfinished, because the rabbit continued laying eggs. As a thank you, every spring, the rabbit decorated her eggs and presented them to Eostre.
Or maybe because rabbits are known for their high-energy mating schedule and it was just intended as an Easter inside joke, but who knows? People started creating rabbit-shaped pastries and cakes by the beginning of the 19th century, and later on came up with Chocolate Bunnies!
Whether to eat the ears first, or the tail or the feet, it’s all up to you. But most of the Easter bunnies lose their ears before the other parts of their body. Chocolate bunnies have evolved into creations that are milk, dark or white chocolate.
And there you have it, the origin of chocolate Easter eggs, bunnies, and all of those spectacular chocolate stuff that chocophiles cannot live without! Life without it is just downright boring, especially at Easter, which is, yes I know, and I’m saying it again, nowhere near.
Categories: fun chocolate facts
Tags: chocolate bunny, chocolate celebrations, chocolate holidays, Easter bunnies, holidays
It’s not very often that you get to devote one whole week just for a particular food. Suffice it to say, if the subject is chocolate, we get all the more devoted, and craving, so to speak.
Chocolate Week, UK’s favorite themed week, or should I say, favorite week, is here again for its seventh consecutive year to celebrate the foodstuff that has its origins in ancient Aztec and Mayan culture. Even though we know we can enjoy it any time of day and any day of the year, it’s the time of year when we can ultimately celebrate chocolate… for a week! Imagine that.
Chocolate week 2011, starting October 10, has a plethora of events lined up for everyone, over 350 events happening across the whole of Britain, from chocolate art workshops and tasting to hot chocolate sampling and dessert-making demonstrations, indulge yourself in chocolate madness.
The UK’s renowned chocolatiers and chocolate companies celebrate Chocolate Week by hosting the said events, as well as producing exclusive products, new launches, offers, chocolate meals, cocktails and recipes.
The events include:
- Chocolate Unwrapped – a chocolate exhibition in London on the 15th & 16th October. Over 4000 visitors and 40 exhibitors are expected to come. It showcases top British chocolatiers and chocolate companies along with chocolate makers from France, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Holland and Germany. Patrons get a shot at viewing chocolate art, meeting the chocolatiers, taste the top-of-the-line chocolate, watching chocolate being made in the tiniest chocolate factory in the world, and the list goes on.
- The Great Chocolate Cake-Off – a hunt for the best-tasting amateur chocolate cake.
- William Curley’s pop up shop on St Martin’s Lane, London
- Hotel Chocolat initiates its tasting adventures pack so visitors would be encouraged to do chocolate tastings at home.
- Paul A Young, one of the most popular chocolatiers in UK, teams up with another popular fusion chef Peter Gordon to make a 6-course chocolate dinner at Providores, don’t fret if you missed it yesterday, there will be another one on Friday, the 14th of October.
- Thorntons continues its 100th birthday celebrations by giving away a chocolate smile to their visitors.
Chocolate Week was intended to promote the world of fine chocolate, the independent artisan chocolatiers and the chocolate companies who work in direct partnership with the cocoa farmers. This is to encourage chocolate buyers to pay a fairer price for their chocolate.
For more details on the week and participants, visit chocolate week.
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocolate art, chocolate celebrations, chocolate companies, chocolate exhibit, chocolate party, chocolate week
Did you know that in Mexico, chocolate is used to make offerings during the Day of the Dead festival? This particular fiesta acts as a commemoration to pay tribute and honor all the deceased members of the family. Chocolate and sweets are important components of the festival. People give each other skulls made of chocolate or sugar. The Day of the Dead fete is celebrated throughout the country on the 1st and 2nd of November.
As morose as it may sound, it is in fact a cheerful occasion where departed loved ones are reminisced. Some families even construct altars dedicated to the dead relatives. The altars are filled with flowers, candles, wooden skulls and photos of the dead. The families celebrate and bring to mind the deceased members by eating the favorite foods of those passed. The specific foods that are specially eaten in this celebration are pan de muerto which is a skull-shaped bread and Calabaza en Tacha which is a dessert made with sweet pumpkin, cinnamon, and piloncillo, dark sugar cones.
Other families visit and get together at cemeteries where their relatives are buried. The grave sites are wonderfully bedecked with candles and cempasúchil flower. This orange marigold was the specific flower that the Aztecs, who were the first ones to be associated with chocolate, used to remember their dead. Some families also bring toys for dead children and even bottles of alcoholic liquor to adults.
Each place in Mexico has its own unique cultural style of celebrating. Merriments take place throughout Mexico and they celebrate in high spirits, but the liveliest ones are in Patzcuaro, Oaxaca, Chiapas and San Andres Mixquic which is a small town in Mexico City.
People in Mexico usually perform dances wearing wooden skull masks called calacas. Chocolate and sugar skulls are also made in some parts of the country and the name of the dead person are engraved on the forehead of the skull, a friend or a family member will then eat these.
When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, they deemed this practice as profane and barbaric as the Spaniards viewed death as the end of life. Nonetheless, to the Aztecs, Mayans and old civilizations in Mexico, death is just a continuation of life.
The Spaniards tried to cease the tradition but in vain. However, it is possibly no coincidence that the Day of the Dead festival is celebrated on November 1st which is All Saint’s Day, and November 2nd, All Soul’s day.
Try booking a trip to Mexico on the Day of the Dead festival just to try it for taste!
Categories: fun chocolate facts
Tags: aztecs, chocolate celebrations, chocolate holidays, holidays, mayans
As you may have read in the earlier blog posts, one of the things that makes a chocolate and beer tasting great is the fact that it is unusual, yet it works! Even people who say they don’t like beer, often do like chocolate so everyone can enjoy the event.
Last week’s Craft:Beer+Food event was a huge hit, the pairings were sublime. If you weren’t able to attend, fret not, as a sequel to this delightful affair is anticipated. After Craft:Beer+Food comes the next big thing, BitterSweet:Beer+Chocolate. It is a non-profit happening that enables local breweries to showcase their beers along with the remarkable chocolates of Seattle’s own Theo Chocolate.
BitterSweet:Beer+Chocolate presents the connection between craft beer and artisan chocolate. This event showcases beer paired with chocolate and even beer made with chocolate. Sound interesting, eh? Eight of the Seattle area’s most renowned brewers are taking part in BitterSweet. As expected, they will be providing beer from their regular listings coupled with products from Theo Chocolate, which will be collaborating with them. In addition, they will also be producing new beers just for this event.
Chocolate makers and confectioners from Theo are the ones held responsible for the pairings. For those who haven’t tried this before, head to Theo Chocolate in Fremont and taste the marvelous list of products that they are offering. Their mouthwatering goods are worth your time and effort!
There was a different vibe when the team of brewers was introduced to their counterparts at Theo Chocolate, a good vibe, specifically. Amazingly, they speak the same language and share the same passion for their craft. With the use of chocolate from Theo and byproducts from the chocolate-making process, the brewers plan on making innovative, fresh, and original world-class beers.
Save the date as doing anything else will only make you, as the cliché goes, miss half of your life. Get to experience it and walk away amazed.
BitterSweet: Beer+Chocolate
Seattle, WA
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Categories: chocolate in the news, chocolate pairings, fine foods & beverages
Tags: beer, bittersweet chocolate, chocolate celebrations, chocolate pairings, Chocolates, food pairings, Theo Chocolate
People who come to pay a visit at the Bruge’s Choco-Laté Festival, held in the Belfort bell tower, can relish their much loved dessert in whatever shapes & forms possible! So all you chocoholics, listen up and unite. Succumb to your every chocolate craving and indulge in your favorite sweet treat!
Choco-Laté is the annual festival of our favorite guilty pleasure. The vibes that chocolatiers give off at several stands lure the customers and magically bring them to a chocolate haven.
The festival will be hosting an array of activities to make visitors drool with tons of interesting and fun interactive programs such as body painting, chocolate recipe exhibitions, creations such as sculpture by chocolate artists and sculptors, a chocolate village for the little ones, and a “chocolate walk” through the town of Bruges, among many others.
The patrons are given a chance to learn about chocolate creations and recipes that are easy enough to do by themselves during live demonstrations by top chefs, bakers and chocolatiers.
Today, chocolate is used as a health aid and also for aesthetic purposes, not just to curb our sweet tooth cravings. Some of the innovative means of using chocolate are through treatments such as chocolate massages, chocolate packs or cocoa therapies.
Practically any chocolate is tempting, but as with what was stated on yesterday’s blog post, pairing it with a nice glass of wine will surely kick the chocolate delight up a notch. Choco-Laté will be revealing the art of delectably combining chocolate with other delicacies. Case in point: fruits dipped in chocolate fondue, and that is just one of the basics.
And finally, for the true blue chocolate lovers, the festival presents a Choco-Laté junior – a creative corner for kids where they can nourish their imagination in chocolate through fun body painting, sculpting and decorating, and many more.
When: 11 – 13 Nov 2011
Where: Belfort, Belgium,
Cost: €10; under 12s €6; under 6s free
Opening Hours: 10am-6pm
For more details, visit www.choco-late.be/en.
Categories: chocolate in the news, fine foods & beverages
Tags: Belgian chocolate, Choco-Laté Festival, chocolate art, chocolate celebrations, chocolate destinations, chocolate exhibit, chocolate games, chocolate pairings, chocolate party
The title is one of the advertising slogans of Thorntons, a household name in UK for chocolate retailing. The company was established in 1911 by Joseph William Thornton who eventually turned the business over to his sons, Norman and Stanley Thornton. Since then, it has always been Britain’s go-to store when it comes to high-quality chocolates. This year, it celebrates its Centenary birthday. And what better way to celebrate their 100th birthday than sharing it with their customers?
The first ever Thortons chocolate shop was opened in Sheffield in the year 1911 and it was called the Chocolate Kabin where you are magically transported into a chocolate heaven as you step inside the store. Today, as a Centenary birthday treat, Thorntons wants to give their customers a chance to experience such delight. They excitedly bring you the recreated Thorntons Chocolate Kabin where a Golden Key to the chocolate factory is hidden. And the lucky winner gets to be Willy Wonka for a day! Isn’t that such a sweet treat?
Go and grab the chance to experience the chocolate lucky dip, or see chocolates come plummeting down a truck directly to a super duper chocolate scooper, where you can also have yourself a chocolaty treat.
As you leave the delightful and almost enchanted Kabin, you can give donations to the Live Mechanical Chocolatier in exchange for chocolates. Such donations will be going to the NSPCC, Thorntons charity of the year.
One lucky customer who finds the Golden Key from each place the Chocolate Kabin visits will get a chance to see behind-the-scenes at Thorntons and visit their chocolate factory to take a look at how they have been manufacturing their chocolates for the past 100 years. You don’t get to experience this everyday, so for our readers in the U.K., try your luck and let us know how it goes!
The Thorntons Chocolate Kabin will be visiting:
- Covent Garden, London on Friday 2nd September
- Liverpool One Shopping Centre on Saturday 10th September
- Nottingham off Market Square on Saturday 17th September
- Edinburgh Castle Street on Saturday 24th September
- Sheffield Fargate on Saturday 1st October
For more info visit Thorntons Centenary website.
You can also find your local Thornton’s store or buy chocolates online when you click here.
Categories: chocolate in the news
Tags: chocola, chocolate celebrations, chocolate companies, chocolate destinations, chocolate history, chocolate manufacturing, favorite chocolate, Thorntons
« Newer Posts — Older Posts »
|
