Custom Week #7 (continued): Chocri
The chocolate we ordered from Chocri on September 30 finally arrived yesterday (along with a giant box from my dad, so yeah, set for life). Apparently they had trouble with their system. And never check their email. Also, I received an email that addressed me as Kimberly. I don’t know how to chalk that up to language barriers.
But the chocolate is great. In a $10+/bar kind of way. I made one with crystalized ginger, rice crispies, and chocolate-covered Pop Rocks, and it is just about the best bar of chocolate I’ve ever had.
So, I don’t know. If you have a lot of money and enjoy an element of surprise in your chocolate delivery as to when in a six-month period it will arrive, then go for it.
Chocri. An adventure in every box.
[more on Custom Week here]
You can now get chocolate made from cocoa sourced in Uganda.
It is as delicious as you might expect. Also, as far as I know, no ethnic masks were harmed in the making of that packaging.
The more you know.
Thanks, Daddy.
Custom Week prize #7: Chocri chocolate
Custom chocolate is pretty exciting, even when you realize that $100 won’t go nearly as far as you’d hope. After I finished the Giant Box of Chocolate Bars 2011 in August, I was in sore need of a little sweet nibble at the end of my lunch. The temptation, as always with these customizable products, is to go insanely custom, ending up with an one-of-a-kind, thoroughly inedible product. We tried to resist and modify or recreate known favorites.
J, in protest to my generosity with the Slank Shack jerky prize, possessively labeled all his custom chocolate bars “DO NOT GIVE AWAY.” This was our most perfect score in terms of spending; we spent our $100 gift certificate down to $99.87 by carefully controlling our last few add-ins.
The bad news is that we ordered on September 30, and have seen neither hide nor hair of our chocolate bars (eww, hairy chocolate). I sent an email to customer service this morning, so we’ll have to see what happens.
In the meantime, Chocri has a tumblr presence! Check them out here.
My Family Recipe: Wackey Cake
That’s my great-grandma. A woman my mom tells me her side of the family, the Shermans, called Mumsey. Mumsey was a strong-willed lady and mother of many during The Great Depression. It’s her recipe she created then, Wackey Cake, that I use as the first for my My Family Recipe series. (A terrible series name, please feel free to make suggestions for other ideas.)
Her family’s my family, too.
sorrowful report
It’s finally happened. After seven months and one move, we’ve eaten or given away all 24 of those Scharffen Berger dark chocolate bars. Some of the highlight bars:
- eating the better part of one for breakfast with my little sister when she visited this spring
- the one our friend’s Australian shepherd, Koda, ate, foil and all, resulting in a highly memorable afternoon with me, J, Koda, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide
- one given away as a prize at Colleen’s shower
- several shared with my awesome former boss — especially nice because she’s GF and normally couldn’t eat the things I brought
- one shared with the little girls at the tennis club, who commented, “It tastes like wine. It tastes like cherries.” Then, thoughtfully, from the Muslim 9-year-old, “It tastes like alcohol.” Um, how would you know?!
Totally drooling over this one, recommended by a friend.
On a side note, though, isn’t there something off about the way Lebovitz uses “unctuous” in this description?
My search for the ultimate chocolate ice cream ended the day I opened my ice cream maker and took a taste of this version. And before I knew it, I’d licked the dasher as clean as the day I bought it! Intense cocoa powder blended with unctuous dark chocolate results in a perfect chocolate ice cream that’s so perfect you won’t be able to wait to dig in either.
“Unctuous” is a used car salesman, not an indulgent treatsy, am I right? And even if it doesn’t always have that sleazy connotation, I don’t want “oily” associated with a dessert, either. Erlack.
chocolate stout cake (epicurious)
To celebrate a friend’s missed birthday and her homecoming from Ireland, I made this cake early last week. Recently, another friend asked for the recipe.
Note: Just because you believe you have all the ingredients on hand does not mean you are exempt from checking on quantities. As it stands, this recipe makes a massive three layers and requires a pound of butter. This can lead to severe panic, require borrowing at least two ingredients from the neighbors, and result in (unwarranted) yelling at your husband. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
It is, however, very tasty. Read on.
![1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar (or a combination of dark and light)
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup 2% milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract (I feel like it should be ok with less; I’ve never seen so much vanilla called for, especially in a non-vanilla finished product)
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger and walnuts (because then you can pretend these are healthy breakfast food, ha)
Preheat oven to 425°F and line muffin cups with papers. Melt butter in a small microwaveable container or in a skillet and allow to sit and cool slightly while you combine the other ingredients.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir with a wire whisk to combine, breaking up any extra-large clumps of brown sugar as you go.
Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl (including melted butter), adding vinegar last. Stir quickly to combine and add to dry mixture. Stir mixture with a wooden spoon until the wet and dry ingredients come together.
Add in the chocolate and other goodies and stir to distribute. Using a large cookie scoop, divide batter between the 12 muffin cups (they will be insanely full!). Bake for 17-20 minutes until tops of muffins lose their shine and a toothpick comes out clean. (Slightly underdone is just fine.)
[modified, but via]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l441zu5JUC1qz54p6o1_400.jpg)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar (or a combination of dark and light)
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup 2% milk
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract (I feel like it should be ok with less; I’ve never seen so much vanilla called for, especially in a non-vanilla finished product)
- 2 teaspoons white vinegar
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger and walnuts (because then you can pretend these are healthy breakfast food, ha)
- Preheat oven to 425°F and line muffin cups with papers. Melt butter in a small microwaveable container or in a skillet and allow to sit and cool slightly while you combine the other ingredients.
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir with a wire whisk to combine, breaking up any extra-large clumps of brown sugar as you go.
- Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl (including melted butter), adding vinegar last. Stir quickly to combine and add to dry mixture. Stir mixture with a wooden spoon until the wet and dry ingredients come together.
- Add in the chocolate and other goodies and stir to distribute. Using a large cookie scoop, divide batter between the 12 muffin cups (they will be insanely full!). Bake for 17-20 minutes until tops of muffins lose their shine and a toothpick comes out clean. (Slightly underdone is just fine.)
[modified, but via]
We face an appalling choice of succumbing either to Kraft, makers of the plastic flaps of orange cheese, or to Hershey, whose Hershey bars have been likened in flavor — by independent experts — to a mixture of soap powder and baby vomit.”
— London Mayor Boris Johnson on the proposed sale of Cadbury’s (NYTimes)
