Chocolate

When I was a kid, I liked Snickers bars and M&M’s and Cadbury Caramellos.  I preferred chocolate cake to vanilla, but I think that was because the vanilla was never very assertive in cakes of the 1970s.  I liked strawberry shortcake and black raspberry pie better than either.

Sometime in the 1990s, good chocolate started to become more widely available in my life, and I think in the entire United States.  Now I am something of a connoisseur, I’m afraid.  Here are a few of my favorite chocolate melters (chocolate makers are the people who turn cacao beans into chocolate; their mocking term for those who turn chocolate into bon-bons is ‘chocolate melters’ – but it’s more polite to call those latter folks chocolatiers) in the US:

L.A. Burdick’s – founded and headquartered in New Hampshire, near the Vermont border; shops in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City.  Their ganaches (the creamy filling in the bon bon) are airy and intensely flavored, and the fillings range from traditional caramel to things like cherry-and-cumin (I love that one).  They are a little bit famous for their chocolate mice (chocolate mouse; it’s a joke), with almond ears and silk-ribbon tails.  I brought these to a family Christmas once and Sister2 picked one up by its silken tail so it dangled upside-down above her upturned face, and bit its head off.  Horrors.  They work with cacao growers and chocolate makers to ensure quality and fair trade standards.  They make very thick, rich hot chocolate that’s a perfect indulgent-breakfast for a slow morning over newspapers, with fresh-squeezed orange juice and a small croissant.

La Maison du Chocolat – French chocolatier with outposts in New York City and the Mall at Short Hills, New Jersey (and London, Tokyo and Hong Kong).  Their hot chocolate is thinner than Burdick’s, but their bon-bons are delightful.  I love the orange-flavored Valencia and the cinnamon-flavored Cannelle and the vanilla Guayaquil and...  La Maison also offers cakes and macaroons and other pastries, so it makes a nice stop for afternoon tea.

J. Chocolatier – Jane Morris is much newer to the chocolatier world than Burdick’s or LMdC, but she has much of value to contribute.  Her ugly butter truffles are made without cream, just butter and chocolate, and they are divine.  She makes a lot of chocolate bars, which keep so much better than bon bons, some bourbon-pecan toffees that ditto and taste wonderful.  She also makes meltingly good cookies.  She sells online, at pop-up shops, and at some shops and restaurants including Cocova near Dupont Circle in DC.

Fleurir – another newer, DC-based shop.  Fleurir has square bon bons, including many milk and white varieties, that are painted in muted colors with happy designs.  They also offer chocolate bars in regional flavors; the Great Plains bar incorporates salted, buttered bread crumbs.

Oh, Chocolate – I just discovered this store, in Madison Park in Seattle, on this trip.  They make the salted caramels sold through Williams-Sonoma, which is quite an endorsement.  I find their ganaches a bit heavier than those of the shops listed above, and the chocolates larger than the two-bite size I prefer, and I don’t care for the thick squiggles of tinted cocoa butter with which they decorate many of their bon bons, but they are nonetheless quite good.  A solid B+.

Donnelly Chocolates – Another big-trip discovery, and a very happy one.  Richard Donnelly studied at La Maison du Chocolat amongst other places, and set up shop in a tiny store on route 101 in Santa Cruz, California.  He has won all kinds of international awards, and one can understand why.

Chuao Chocolatier – I discovered this chocolatier on a business trip to San Diego years ago.  I didn’t make it to southern California on this trip, but if I had I would have found one of their shops and gotten the goat-cheese-and-pear bon bon.  I know it sounds ghastly, but it tastes wonderful.  Good (small) sized chocolates with light ganaches; some very creative flavors with a frequent focus on spices.

Christopher Elbow – A native of Kansas City with headquarters there, Mr. Elbow has earned his international reputation for chocolate excellence.  His bon bons are painted in all sorts of bright colors and exciting designs, and come in all kinds of shapes (but all appropriately small sizes), and his ganaches are light in texture and intense in flavor.  His KC shop also offers a variety of hot chocolates, with different flavorings, and a choice of whipped cream or store-made marshmallows to top it.  All kinds of yum.

Bissinger’s – I discovered this brand, which is considerably larger than most of the artisanal makers in my  list, when I worked for a St. Louis-based company.  My first encounter with Bissinger’s was their hysterically-amusing wellness collection of seven chocolates, packed in a row in a narrow, clear, plastic box, with flavors like blueberry (for antioxidants), ginger (for digestive health) and black sesame (for something else), so you could eat one per day for your health.  They don’t seem to sell those sets anymore; oh, woe.  Maybe they’ll bring them back, and in the meantime the merlot salt caramels are pretty good.

William Dean Chocolates – I found this in a shop in Savannah, but William Dean himself is based in Largo, Florida (not Key Largo; the one near Tampa).  The couverture on some of these was a bit waxy to me, and the fillings were heavier than I like, with less clarity of flavor than the J.’s and Elbow’s and Burdick’s on this list.  However, they were more than good enough to make him worth encouraging if you ever come across his wares, or if you’re in central Florida looking for much, much better chocolate than the supermarket offers.

Goodness, I'm all drooly.