I bring you the latest chocolate happenings…or at least the latest chocolate happenings that amused me, made me slightly sad, made me go “hmmm”….

First, allow me to present my latest favorite chocolate-and-tea-photograph.The Latest Chocolate Happenings - Celestial Seasoings Tea & Chocolate Still Life Photo

Pictured: Orange peels covered in dark chocolate by St. Moritz & Celestial Seasonings fruit tea sampler.  (I love this sampler, though it is hard to choose between wild berry, true blueberry, country peach passion, raspberry zinger, and wild cherry berry.)

The latest chocolate news that made me go hmmmm….

MycoTechnology Uses Mushrooms to Create Sweeter Chocolate With Less Sugar

“By using gourmet mushrooms and their natural cleansing abilities, we are able to train them to consume only the bitter compounds in chocolate,” the company explains on its website. “The mushrooms symbiotically interact with their food source, giving back valuable nutrients otherwise unavailable in chocolate.”

In other words, we will be able to eat more chocolate.  Because there will be less sugar.  Because some mushrooms took special eating classes.  Ok then.  As long as the taste of the mushroom chocolate is in no wise compromised by the mushrooms themselves (and apparently it isn’t, as “they can make great tasting chocolate”) I’m game for trying it!

The latest chocolate news I got quite a chuckle out of:

The Toblerone debacle (as I call it). If you missed all the fuss, it boils down to the fact that Toblerone, when faced with rising production costs, decided to *gasp* widen the gap between each triangle “mountain” shape they are so famous for (therefore reducing the amount of chocolate per bar).

Twitter went crazy.  A search on #Toblerone provided several chuckles.

Apparently this switch means I may be the unexpected owner of two “limited edition” Toblerone bars that could be worth a lot of money if I hang on to them long enough.  (Which isn’t likely.)  (I say “may”, because I haven’t rustled through my chocolate drawer yet to see if the size I have was affected by the new design.  In all the uproar, not everyone realized that not nearly all Toblerone sizes were affected.)

The latest chocolate happening that made me a little sad:

The Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, which wrapped this Sunday (if I have the story straight).  Judging by a slew of Instagram posts, it was one of THE, if not THE, chocolate events of the year (at least in the U.S.).  Quite a few people came away with quite impressive hauls of craft chocolate (Exhibit A and Exhibit B, to name a few) and it looks like great fun was had by all (meeting the people behind the brands, meeting the chocolate aficionados, tasting all that amazing chocolate)…  I am a little sorry to have missed it, but I most certainly enjoyed all the photos.  I saw SO many brands I have yet to try & so many brands that I have tried once and loved (TCHO, Dick Taylor, Amano, etc.)

(One of the) Latest chocolate(s) I tried for the first time:

Alter Eco Dark Chocolate with Quinoa. While I enjoyed the crunchy dark chocolate itself, I had a blast taking pictures of it.  (Let’s just say by the time I was finished, my mom wouldn’t have wanted the quinoa I “borrowed” back.)  Pictures are coming as soon as I finish sweeping up quinoa from the far corners of my room…

That’s all for now…

 

Alaina Cursive Signature

 

 

 

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It’s Chocolate Week! In the UK.  I’m not in the UK and have never been to the UK and maybe never will have a chance to visit the UK.  But that’s ok. I have assured myself it can still be Chocolate Week.  Not only that, but I’m sure it’s fine if you pretend it’s Chocolate Week too. Even if you’re not in the UK either.

Speaking of chocolate and weeks, there’s been a lot of chocolate happenings going on at my house in the past few weeks.

#1.  There was that Saturday I made Oreo Truffles, Mint Thins, AND Smores Bark… all in one day.

oreo-truffles-and-mint-thins-and-smores-bark
Yeah.  That was pretty epic.

#2. Ever heard of Funny-Faced Fudge?  I hadn’t either.  It started out as rather normal looking fudge that was placed in the fridge to set up. (Back story: The idea was that if some semi-waxy milk chocolate the boys weren’t eating (or at least they weren’t eating as fast as they normally eat milk chocolate) was melted together with a particularly strong brand of sweetened condensed milk that it might turn into a decent fudge.  Let’s just say it was edible and leave it at that.)  When the pan was retrieved hours later, we were amused to find somebody had scratched a funny face into the top. Sorry, no pictures.  It was evening and my no-natural-lighting picture-taking capabilities are shaky at best.

(I’m sure my brother just snorted when he read this.  Fine.  My no-natural-lighting picture taking capabilities are non-existent.)

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