Read more about Fabric Chocolates and their products here and here.
Viki is inspired by textures and motives that she finds around her and creates her own chocolate moulds. Photo: Fabric Chocolates
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? I love cooking together with my husband. My task is the fish soup, but I forget every year how it’s made. 😀 (traditional Hungarian recipe, part of the Christmas Eve menu – LBC)
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? We are always listening to Phil Collins.
3. What does the Xmas period mean to your chocolate business? Luckily many people find us to get their presents. It can get stressful to get ready with everything, but it is still the best period of the year.
Iza and Zoli have built a lovely little chocolate factory next to their home in Albertkázmérpuszta right next to the Austro-Hungarian border. They welcome visitors who want to understand how chocolate is made from bean-to-bar and look behind the scenes of a small-batch chocolate factory.
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? These questions are a bit hard for me. Since we are working with chocolate it got a bit harder to get into the Christmas spirit because we are so busy. And as Zoli used to work in pyrotechnology we still sell fireworks for New Years Eve, so it changes everything during Christmas-time too.
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? Jingle Bells and Last Christmas, but really only for a few moments, and then we go on.
Sophie Jewett founder of York Cocoa House and York Cocoa Works. Photo: Sophie Jewett
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? I have to say the last few years with our Christmas craziness its been near impossible to get home for Christmas though I did manage to this last year. It has to be my dad’s pancakes, he makes them every time we’re together as a family, but there seems something particularly special about having them together at Christmas.
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? Anything by Michael Buble – though it does become a little weary by mid-December at the Cocoa House with him on non-stop!
3. What does the Xmas period mean to your chocolate business? Everything, it’s our busiest time of the year, though seeing our regular visitors who have joined us every Christmas Eve for the last 7 years is something very special being part of the Christmas traditions of other families.
Dorothy and Shane Neary, NearyNógs. Photograph: Columba O’Hare
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? We have a little tradition that everyone finds ONE favourite sock.. to hang up on Christmas Eve and that is their Christmas stocking.
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? Favourite Christmas song… well that’s a tie between Fairy tale of New York or White Christmas from the Home Alone soundtrack. It’s our fav Christmas movie.
3. What does the Xmas period mean to your chocolate business? Christmas means round the clock chocolate because it’s the most wonderful time of the year! 😉
Read my previous blog posts about Harrer here and here.
Karl Harrer hand tempering on marble (photo credit: Harrer Chocolat)
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? For many years now, on 24 December Karl gets up very early in the morning to go back to his hometown Mattersburg in Austria. Christmas starts there for him with breakfast on the main square among family. And more importantly, he brings back home the lights of Betlehem.
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? I cannot start decorating the Christmas tree without listening to Bojtorján band’s song “A mai nap” (This day) and of course Christmas Eve is not complete without “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night).
3. What does the Xmas period mean to your chocolate business? The period before Christmas is probably the busiest for a pastry shop, but also full of love because we can watch the children joyfully eating their chocolate Santas and the happiness in the eyes of those who got our products as gifts for Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is spent among family, these are the only days in the year when we are closed for business.
It was lovely to meet James in person to collect his chocolates for the Taste.Better.Chocolate. Advent Calendar in October, 2018
1. What’s your favourite family tradition during this period of the year? We unintentionally have accumulated a few family traditions around this time of year, from picking out and cutting down a fresh Christmas tree together, to dads own creation special cocktail on Christmas morning. However my favourite tradition is our newest one of making and decorating gingerbread people. To be honest though, we tend to hugely over decorate them to a point where they are almost inedible but for that hour or two on Christmas eve all 5 of us come together as a family, huddled round a table to mess about and have fun. – (I have attached a photo of our obscene creations)
[photo: J.Cocoa]
2. The Xmas song that puts you in the mood for the holiday season? A difficult choice, it is a close call between Shakin Stevens and Paul McCartney, but I think it is Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ that wins out. My brother used this song in one of his very early short films he made He filmed people ‘de-stress’ during Christmas by getting them to smash up toys with a hammer. It was funny to watch, and amazingly did actually make people much happier. Always reminds me of Christmas.
3. What does the Xmas period mean to your chocolate business? Early mornings and late nights with the daily grind 🙂 But it also means a time for me to express a more creative side developing Christmas products such as hand decorated santas, snowmen, filled chocolates and limited edition flavours. Plus it means Christmas markets and I enjoy decorating our chocolate market stand with lights and trees making it very festive and stand out.
You can read more about James’ zero waste chocolate business and lifestlye here.
When I was thinking about the design elements of the advent calendar, I wanted something natural and minimalist. It was a true lightbulb moment when snowflakes came into my mind and I remembered that there aren’t any identical snowflakes, every single snowflake is different. ❄
I thought that this helps me show that craft chocolates are unique too, you can’t find identical bars even made by the same maker or from the same beans. There are so many variables along the way and that’s all the beauty of it. I like to embrace the diversity of flavours and textures and only expect consistency from makers in terms of quality of ingredients used, quality of processing but not a consistent flavour. . I particularly like how the screen-printing and white digital printing appear on the kraft paper and the cardboard lid. The touch of red from the ribbon gives it the festive feel and a pop of colour.
Here I wanted to create a sort of blank (neutral and natural) canvas for the wonderfully diverse (and colourful) chocolates to shine through. So from the outside you have a minimalist, natural look, and as you open it, you’ll get a confetti of colours, flavours and textures.
I knew all that folding, hole-punching, cutting, ribboning, filling, packing will be so so worth it! I can safely say that I touched every single sachet, in every single box. I had a very limited starting budget, but more importantly I wanted the design to reflect the chocolates inside. Craft chocolates, handmade, small batch chocolates. It was so natural to create a handmade box for them. Wish I was as quick as on these videos (4*faster). 😄
Eating chocolate is a no-brainer. You open the package, break off a piece (or bite right into the bar? :)), scoff it in, swallow, repeat. Ok, but what about TASTING chocolate? That is a whole different experience. I’m talking about mindful tasting here. When you sit down, take a moment to enjoy a piece of quality chocolate, indulge and use all your senses. It can be quite a meditative experience and I’d encourage you to practise everyday.
In case you feel a bit lost and don’t know where to start, I created a small flash-card that shows you the basic steps and guides you through your tasting. In today’s post I will give you some more detailed guidance on the first part of the card which covers the topic of mindful tasting by using your senses.
You will find the other sections in the upcoming posts:
part 2 (the bean-to-bar process)
part 3 (the cocoa belt – cacao origins)
part 4 (the flavour wheel)
Mindful tasting: use your senses!
The most important thing that you can do to practise mindful chocolate tasting is to really tune in with all your senses and pay attention to what you feel and discover through each of them. Some of them will give you cues to assess the quality of the chocolate, others will help you broaden your flavour spectrum.
1. Appearance
We almost always take our sight for granted, and we don’t even think about it. Although it is one of the most important senses that helps us decide to buy a chocolate or not. Our eyes are constantly drawn to harmonious colours, images so the packaging of a chocolate bar is the first thing we notice. And further on, when you are about to taste a chocolate, you should also pay attention to what you see.
You can look for signs of good craftsmanship and check that the chocolate has a nice sheen, glossy surface, which shows that the bar is in a perfect temper. Signs of heat damage or bad tempering include: dull surface, white spots or streaks. This means that the chocolate has lost its perfect crystalline structure either during production or while it was stored and transported.
Air bubbles or holes (popped air bubbles) show that the chocolate was either too thick (viscous) at production or that the maker didn’t manage to get rid of the bubbles by tapping the mould. This is not so much of an issue with solid bars (although it does affect the visual experience), but with any filled chocolates, the burst bubbles can let air and moisture enter the inside of the chocolate and start to grow mould. The same applies for cracks that can usually be seen on the bottom of the filled chocolates where they were capped. Filling can leak out and moisture can get inside and grow bacteria. The shelf life of such chocolates shortens considerably.
untempered chocolate sets with a bloom
Chocolate dust is a phenomenon that happens usually when the chocolate wrapping is not tight enough and during transportation the chocolate gets bashed around inside the packaging so that the surface and corners get knocked off creating a fine powder and tiny pieces floating around in the packaging. This gets worse if the bar has something sprinkled on top as well.
2. Sound
Listen to your chocolate. It is calling your name… 🙂 Jokes aside, you can assess the quality of the temper by breaking a piece of chocolate in half. You should hear a sharp and loud snap. This means that the crystalline structure of your chocolate is perfect. If the chocolate is soft and crumbles as it breaks, and makes no snapping sound it is probably quite warm and your chocolate is getting out of temper. Bear in mind that the more cocoa solids a chocolate has the harder it will be to break it and the sharper the snap will be. Milk and especially white chocolate tend to have softer snap, but you should still be able to break them with a snap if stored at a proper temperature.
3. Touch
Cocoa butter melts at 34°C (93.2°F), so our body temperature is perfect for melting chocolate. The more cocoa butter a chocolate has the easier and quicker it will melt in your hands. That’s why you shouldn’t hold chocolate in your hand for too long. Even after a few seconds you will leave your fingermarks on the surface of a chocolate. By touching the chocolate you can also look for the smoothness of the surface. In case your chocolate appears dull because of getting out of temper (cocoa butter bloom), by rubbing the surface you can rub off the cocoa butter that separated and the surface will get a bit shinier again.
4. Smell
Our nose has more aroma and taste receptors than our tongue. It is very important to focus on using your smell if you really want to discover the chocolate (or other food) that you are tasting. To see how much difference it creates, experiment with the following:
hold the chocolate you are about to taste as far out from you as possible. With your other hand, hold your nose and only breathe through your mouth. Now, put the chocolate in your mouth and let it melt, move it around in your mouth, then swallow. Only release your nose when all the chocolate is gone.
repeat the tasting with the same chocolate but now bring the chocolate close to your nose and smell it before you put it in your mouth. As you let the chocolate melt and move it around in your mouth make sure to breathe through your nose all the way.
Mix up the two methods by starting with your nose held, then release just when the chocolate is completely melted in your mouth and you are about to swallow.
Compare your experience. The first tasting didn’t deliver much flavour, did it? It’s exactly like when you have a cold and a stuffed nose. You can’t taste much. Smelling your chocolate prior to tasting will enhance your tasting experience as you will be able to detect much more flavour.
Try not to smell the chocolate while it’s still inside the packaging as the smell of the wrapper can alter the aromas of the chocolate itself. Be careful not to have any strong smelling perfume on you, and don’t use perfumed handwash or cream (also don’t cut onions right before tasting – happened to me…!) as these can make it hard for you to smell the real aromas of the chocolate. If the room where you taste is a bit cool, you might not be able to smell much. You can try to warm up the chocolate in your palm a little bit so the melting cocoa butter can release the aromas more easily.
5. Taste
Finally, you get to put the chocolate in your mouth and taste it. There are various methods as to how should you do this. Some say never munch on the chocolate, be patient and wait until it melts completely in your mouth. But if you have a thick piece, this could take ages. So I recommend you to do an initial few chewing movements to chop up the chocolate into smaller pieces that will melt more quickly. Same applies for when you have inclusions such as nibs, nuts, or other things that need to be chewed. Again, you can play around with various methods to see how different your tasting experience becomes:
Slow tasting: Smell the chocolate, put it on your tongue, breathe trough your nose and wait until the chocolate melts completely in your mouth. Don’t chew, but you can move around the piece with your tongue. You can close your eyes and cover your ears to minimise audio-visual distractions and focus solely on your smell and taste. Try to catch every single flavour note, focus on the texture, mouthfeel (is it creamy, grainy, sticky, greasy, does it leave a film coating on your tongue, how easily does it melt), and pay attention to the aftertaste, how long does it linger, where can you taste it. Note whether the flavour is balanced, constant or does it create waves of flavour notes that develop one after the other. Where can you taste sweetness, sour and tart notes, is there any bitterness, astringency (your mouth drying out like when you eat walnuts or drink dry red wine).
Speedy tasting: smell the chocolate for a second, put it in your mouth, chew vigorously then swallow. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. What flavour note was the most dominant? Did you detect sweetness or astringency? What happened with the aftertaste? How did this affect the texture and mouthfeel? The idea behind this type of tasting is that you can still find nice flavour notes, but compared to the slow tasting, you are missing out on so much! As the cocoa butter is the flavour carrier, it releases the flavour componds as it melts. If you just chew the chocolate and swallow, the cocoa butter doesn’t have enough time to fully melt and unlock all the flavours.
You can use various types of visual aids to put into words what you just tasted. The flavour wheel on the reverse of this tasting guide is there for you, but feel free to use other flavour wheels or maps you can find. More on visual tasting aids in part 4 of this series.
Don’t forget to check out the follow-up parts of this series: part 2, part 3, part 4.
To maximise your tasting experience check out these other tips too before you start.
All the photos used are taken by Lilla/Little Beetle Chocolates and may or may not be having a Little Beetle Chocolates logo watermark on them. Any other image used will be clearly referenced. Re-using any of the images from this blog is forbidden, unless authorised by Little Beetle Chocolates.
Today is very special. My dream project, the Taste. Better. Chocolate. Advent Calendar just got a huge step closer to become a reality. And this is only possible because of you all who supported my campaign.
THANK YOU!
So to all 131 of you who backed my Kickstarter campaign in the last 32 days, let me express my most profound gratitude by saying Thank You! And then I get back to work because the project doesn’t end here at all. Chocolates are still on the way to Little Beetle Chocolates HQ, boxes and sachets are being prepared, shipping dates are getting closer. I’m crazy busy, excited and literally still can’t believe that this happened! 🙂 Thanks again!
Also, I would like to take a moment to thank the 24 chocolate makers featured in the calendar for accepting my invitation, for delivering their highest quality chocolates and for their continuous support. In addition, without the help of my husband, my family and my closest friends I wouldn’t be able to pull this off either, so huge thanks to them as well (but no rest until 1 December, haha!).
MORE CALENDARS?
After the Kickstarter doors closed, there are still about 40 advent calendars remaining. I’m already negotiating with some retail partners but in case you want one or a few more calendars extra, reach out to me via email to arrange a purchase. Disclaimer:due to the time restriction for shipping I can accept purchases from UK only. Thank you for your understanding.
