Tag Archive: chocolate bars

Chocolate Romance in 18th Century France

There is a lovely little story on BBC.com featuring a man’s adventure into one of the best-known French chocolate shops in Lyon.

In this shop is where master chocolatier Monsieur Bernachon continues the French tradition of creating papillotes, which are chocolate bars filled with salted caramel, or stuffed with nuts and dried fruits soaked in Grand Marnier.

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Q&A: What’s the Purpose of Salt in Making Chocolate Bars?

Here's a question I recently received from a reader, "What's the Purpose of Salt in Making Chocolate Bars?"

Answer

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Vienna Chocolate Bars

As a kid, I was always crazy about jelly. I liked it best with peanut butter. Don't we all? After a tiring day at school, I found it extra comforting coming home to a no-crust peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I never outgrew it. I still swear by it, albeit I don’t get to have such treat very often now.

Here's a recipe that would somehow bring back some good ol' memories. It's far from peanut butter and jelly, but it has jelly, so it kinda does the trick.
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The Reggie! Bar

I bet there's at least one reader of this blog that enjoys an Oh, Henry! or Baby Ruth candy bar as a guilty pleasure. It has been said in baseball circles that such treats were named after home run hitters Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth.  (Whether baseball has it right is another story.)

Then there's the story of the Reggie! bar...

Reginald Martinez "Reggie" Jackson was born May 18, 1946. He was dubbed "Mr. October" due to his clutch hitting in the postseason. Jackson is an ex- American Major League Baseball right fielder, and he played for four different teams from the year 1967 to 1987. Currently, he's serving as a special advisor to the New York Yankees.
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Goodbye King-Size Chocolate Bars?

Mars, Incorporated is one of the world's renowned makers of confectionery, pet food like Pedigree, and other food items such as Uncle Ben's rice and Dove ice cream bars. They are the manufacturer of popular candy bars such as Twix and Snickers. Reportedly, by the end of 2013, they'll no longer sell chocolate products that contain over 250 calories.

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, this globally-known company manufactures other well-loved candies such as Skittles and M&Ms as well as Juicy Fruit chewing gum. They claim that it's part of an attempt to enhance the nutritional value of their food items and to be able to market them responsibly.
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Butterfinger Cake Recipe

Everything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening, or so they say.  Butterfinger Cake can be cold hard (and yummy!) proof to that, but so be it. After all, it's not so bad to indulge once in a while in something that you know can't do your figure any good.

Butterfinger® is a candy bar made by Nestlé which has a crumbling and orange-colored center that can be compared to crisp caramel and peanut butter and it is covered in chocolatey coating. It has been around for decades and is a darling to many.

This cake recipe is such a guilty pleasure most especially to those who love Butterfinger candy bar per se.
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World’s Largest Chocolate

The holidays' high is still lingering, and I know your system is still loaded with all the good (but not necessarily healthy) stuff!

New Year means new anything. Case in point: new world record.

In Ooty,  a hilly tourist town in Tamil Nadu India, a chocolatier, named Fazloor Rahman, of NPS Supermarket, has set a new world record for the longest home-made milk chocolate bar.  The record-setting bar measures 18 meters in length and 0.75 meter in width.  That beats the previous record made last March by an Italian confectionary which measured 14.87 meters long and 0.75 meter wide.
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Chocolate for Cats?

Neighborhood Cats has been chosen as the Charity of the Month for November 2011 by Rescue Chocolate, a Brooklyn NY-headquartered chocolatier which was founded in January 2010. 100% of the net profits from each handcrafted, all-natural vegan treats are donated to animal welfare organizations across the country.

The Neighborhood Cats are aiming to encourage humane measures to lower the feral cat population in the country. The particular measure they are taking is called TNR (trap-neuter-return). TNR engages trained volunteers to gather the feral cats that they can find, getting the cats spayed or neutered, and then returning them to their colonies to peacefully live out their lives. Also NY-based, Neighborhood Cats is well-known in the feral field as developers of educational materials including books, videos, and online courses that tackle TNR.

"I’ve lived with dogs all my life and never with cats," said Rescue Chocolate Founder Sarah Gross. "But I’m certainly aware of the problems that cats face on the streets. I’m really honored to be able to be a small part of the solution."
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Undeclared Milk in Chocolate Products

Milk allergy is not very unusual. Just like any other allergies, when a person who is allergic to milk eats something containing milk products, or even just a trace of it, the body’s immune system automatically deems the milk as harmful foreign bodies. The immune system reacts by creating specific antibodies which are intended to repel these “invaders.”

After a person allergic to milk eats a certain food that contains, well, milk, the release of chemicals to supposedly protect the body can affect the respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, skin, and the cardiovascular system which in turn causes allergy symptoms such as wheezing, abdominal pain, and headache, among many others.

Nowadays, a lot of foods are made with milk and milk products so consumers who are allergic to it have to pay extra attention to what’s in almost everything they consume. Milk allergies are unfortunately more serious than just lactose intolerance as it can cause those who have it to be suddenly and severely ill right after consuming milk or even products that contain such.
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Hershey’s Air Delight

Yesterday (July 28) was National Milk Chocolate Day.  Did you do anything special to celebrate?

Hershey's Air DelightI spent a little time reviewing chocolate-related press releases and found something that had previously missed my attention...   Hershey's introduced an aerated chocolate bar called the Air Delight.

Other chocolate manufacturers have had aerated chocolate for some time.  For example, I wrote about the 75th anniversary of the Nestle Aero bar last October.  Overall, aerated chocolate accounts for about $500 million of annual global confection sales.
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