Duffy Sheardown monitors his chocolate refiner

Red Star chocolate

Today Kate Johns (of Chocolate Week and Nudge PR) and I made our way up to the North East of England, to Cleethorpes. This traditional English seaside town is the unlikely home of the UK’s second bean to bar fine chocolate maker, Red Star Chocolate.

Despite the impression some British chocolate companies like to give, until very recently no one in the UK was making fine chocolate directly from cacao. In fact, probably Cadburys were the only company in Britain making any kind of chocolate from the bean.

That all changed when Willie Harcourt-Cooze came along, in a big TV media splash launching ‘Willie’s Delectable’ chocolate and finally putting Britain on the fine chocolate maker’s map.

Willie is now joined by another new artisanal chocolate maker, Duffy Sheardown. Duffy has just made his first batch of commercial chocolate, using beans from Calceta, Ecuador. These were provided by Jorge Felix and his Italian based World Foods company. Calceta is Jorge’s ancestral town in Manabi province, Ecuador and home to some of the finest cacao I’ve tasted in Ecuador. (I was lucky enough to visit with Jorge during a visit to Ecuador last June.)

Racing formula

Duffy was first inspired to start making chocolate a few years ago, when he heard that “Cadburys was the only company in the UK making chocolate from beans”. Duffy’s background is in motor racing, but that sounded like a challenge he couldn’t resist, and he began to wonder exactly how hard it would be to make your own chocolate.

Adding sugar slowly controls the temperature

A few years later and the result is a modest and inexpensive setup in a small industrial unit in Cleethorpes. Here Duffy has proved that making chocolate is both easy in principle, and difficult in the detail.

From the samples we’ve tasted though, Duffy has shown it’s possible to make a pretty good quality of chocolate without building a million dollar factory.

On the other hand, as Duffy tells us, while there’s plenty of help out there for the budding chocolate maker, some things you just have to work out for yourself, such exactly what is the best temperature to conche at.

Chocolate making is a progressive art. The best producers are constantly trying to improve their quality, tweaking recipes and adapting their machinery. It’s early days for Duffy, but he takes an approach he picked up from his motor sports days – change only one thing at a time, then if the result is an improvement (or negative), you know what made the difference.

Duffy’s chocolate making equipment may not exactly be high end, but he is making good use of the most important tool available to any chocolate maker – taste. For example, his approach to roasting – keep tasting the cacao every few minutes until it stops tasting better.

Too many chocolate makers get lost in technical details and sophisticated quality control tests and expensive equipment, while ignoring basics, like how the cacao or chocolate tastes at every stage of production. Without this kind of approach, the results are rarely good.

Sources

Duffy with Calceta cacao bags

As ever, there’s a simple message in Duffy’s cacao sources, common to good chocolate makers and chefs alike – choice of ingredients.

If you start with good ingredients and treat them with respect, you will usually have a good result.

As well as Jorge Felix’s single origin Calceta from Ecuador, Duffy is experimenting with cacao from Brazil and Panama, and also finishing liquor from a number of other sources, including Madagascar, which from what we tasted turned into a pretty good chocolate.

We tried all of these in various percentages in both dark and milk. As these were test batches, the results were mixed, but a few really stood out, like the Madagascar milk.

While we were at Duffy’s factory, he was finishing some Peruvian liquor into chocolate, and from the sample we tried off the refiner, this could turn into a pretty good chocolate too.

Local chocolate

Duffy is very much about making chocolate for his local market, aiming at local retailers and local shows and fairs as his company gets going.

Perhaps here he could be the harbinger of a new trend – for local, micro-brewery type chocolate makers.

It was be easy to imagine that in a few years time the UK would have a handful of small chocolate makers spread around the country, all with some national presence but grounded in their local economy.

Red Star's Indian made refiner/conche

This is a model that seems to be taking hold in the US and just starting in Italy.

There’s no doubt though that if Duffy can keep going in the right direction and maintain his flavour based approach, you could well be seeing his chocolate on sale in high end chocolate emporiums and national outlets soon.

It’s very likely that the first, commercial, eating chocolate bar was a British invention, made first by Fry’s then Cadburys.

It’s been a long wait, but we finally have another two independent chocolate makers in the UK, this time working with fine beans from around the world.

Red Star Chocolate is a very welcome addition to the fine chocolate world.

As usual with most BBC programmes featuring fine chocolate, my hopes of something informative are dashed. The BBC have a misinformed policy of not naming brands in their programmes. (Unless the company is larger enough to turn their products into ‘news’, so Cadburys Creme Eggs are ok to feature in the main evening news, apparently).

This policy is understandable if we’re talking Coke or Nike or Kellogs. It doesn’t make much sense for fine chocolate though. In fact, it completely blurs the message and in this case, the point of the programme.

Take the mousse, the first recipe. Only three ingredients are needed – chocolate, sugar, eggs. Blanc tells us “It is actually the quality of the chocolate that is very, very important … if you have a great chocolate, you have a great chocolate mousse.” I absolutely agree, the difference is enormous.

Does choice of ingredients matter?

Do we get to find out what the chocolate Blanc is using is? No, of course not. (Though the sharp-eyed will have spotted ‘Valrhona’ on some of the blocks – which most of the time are childishly turned upside-down.) Raymond Blanc is clearly a Valrhona man, but we’d never find that out without recognising the chocolate or being very canny with our pause buttons.

Do we get any clue what makes the quality of chocolate or how to choose it? No, of course not. Couldn’t we have at least been told it was French?

If we were being shown a matching wine to go with the mousse, we’d be told the region, vinyard, vintage. Here, nothing. We just get the extremely patronising “There are hundreds of varieties of chocolate on the market, and for Raymond, 100% dark chocolate is irresistible”. Is it? Any 100%? Paste chocolate, as Valrhona would call it, has to be pretty good to be eaten at 100%. Manjari can just about do it. That’s not true of many others.

I feel sorry for Raymond giving his staff Dairy Milk. If you can’t win people over with Manjari 64%, then you’re definitely doing something wrong. Or was that ‘reality’ editing?

We get to the Delice. “For this, Raymond’s using a dark chocolate with seventy per cent cocoa solids” we’re told in the sexiest drama-doc voice possible, as if this is somehow a sign of quality or is going to give viewers any idea of how to create this recipe. Percentage is not a sign of quality in chocolate. (For those who do want to know, the chocolate he used is almost certainly Valrhona Guanaja.)

Brands matter

Fine chocolate IS about the brands, and it’s about the artisans behind those brands. It’s not about random bulk packaged chocolate bought from supermarkets. The taste is completely different.

So a whole programme of chocolate recipes from a great chef, with no hint at all allowed about how to choose the prime ingredient.

We’re told all the time how easy these recipes are. Well, maybe, but they’re sure not going to taste very good if you’ve just popped down to Lidl and spent £0.89p on on 100gs of unbranded 70% ‘dark’ chocolate.

By the end we’re at William Curley’s Richmond shop – great of course to see Raymond and William together. Knowing William, I am pretty sure he will have talked about the quality of chocolate he uses. (William exclusively uses Amedei). Obviously this is edited out.

We have a nice time in William’s kitchen, but no mention at all of ingredient quality, no mention of freshness. These are key to the modern chocolatier, choice of chocolate is king. No clue at all why William is one of the UKs best. Doing it ‘by hand’ is apparently enough according this programme.

It was good to see Blanc in action, but all we got was chocolate fudge.

I would like to be reassured by the BBC that next time I watch a wine programme, they’ll be no mention of the names of any vinyards or companies, no matter how prestigious. Or perhaps we could have a more grown up policy about fine chocolate?

Art Pollard in a cacao plantation

Art Pollard of Amano

In a specially arranged last minute event, Art Pollard – the chocolate maker behind award winning US chocolate maker Amano – will be our featured guest at our February tasting.

Art will explain the philosophy of this new US chocolate maker, and will tell us how Amano went from kitchen samples to leading fine chocolate maker in just three years.

Amano already make one of the widest ranges of origin bars, and Art will take us through sampling their growing range of dark and milk chocolate and tell us about the sources of Amano’s cacao.

As usual, we’ll finish off with an optional dram of whisky with matching chocolate, or you can just stay around and chat with fellow chocolate enthusiasts.

Limited places are available for this short-notice event, so book your tickets soon. Price includes a free bar of Amano dark or milk chocolate to take away, worth £8.

Info

Book your tickets through PayPal – no account needed, all major cards accepted.

7.30pm-9.30pm, Thurs 11 Feb 2010
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
London Members’ Rooms
19 Greville Street
London
EC1N 8SQ

William Curley's new shop, Ebury Street, Pimlico, London

It’s taken quite a while, but it would be hard to argue that it wasn’t worth the wait.

William and Suzue Curley finally opened their second London store this week in Pimlico – at the second attempt, following the early closure of their first Central London venture in Mayfair.

Now Britain’s Best Chocolatier (as voted by the Academy of Chocolate for the last three years running) is back in a bigger and better flagship store to supplement their original Richmond shop, that could only be described as – ‘fabulous’.

Inside the new William Curley shop

More like a chocolate emporium than a mere shop, the Pimlico Road store is probably the largest chocolate shop in London.

The new shop features not only the full range of William Curley fresh patisserie and chocolates, but also a dessert and drinks bar, late night opening with licensing, exotically decorated seating areas and an upmarket but laid back feel.

The shop certainly has an air of plush luxury, but is not at all intimidating to enter.

Some top-end chocolatier boutiques can make you feel like an intruder into a much loftier world, where actually you only came in to buy some chocolates. (I couldn’t level that accusation at any of the current crop of London stores though).

Curley’s new shop keeps it friendly while layering on the style, creating a space you want to hang around in, not just dive into for a few minutes for a quick shop.

Serving from the new limestone counter

The design has the usual Curley Japanese and French influence, this time with a little ‘cacao’ thrown in. One wall is covered with cacao sack style hessian, on which is printed the names of famous cacao origin countries. (Along with the odd Japanese city, which can be spotted by the eagle-eyed – it had to be pointed out to me.)

The front seating area features a beautiful gold and black mural, creating a cosy sit down area ideal for impressing a date with champagne and chocolates, while at the back of the shop there is more seating, great for long chats and business meetings.

Brownies made with Amedei chocolate for just £2 a go

Though you might be shopping in a heavenly chocolate environment, Curley’s prices are fair and decent and there’s no sense of products being given orbital price tags just to make them appear somehow luxurious.

It would of course be possible to leave the shop with a much dented credit card, but many small items can be had for a few pounds. Often these are priced for barely more than you’d pay in a high street chain, for something that is on the face of it a similar item.

The quality is, of course, on a different planet. Sublime brownies for a mere £2 a go are just one example.

As well as the new shop, Curley also has new bags and new packaging for solid and filled bars, which make them just a bit more gift-worthy.

There’s also a new drinks menu and a few new patisserie items available, including “Citrus entremet” – layers of hazelnut sponge, lemon ganache, chocolate sponge and dark chocolate mousse accompanied by lemon curd.

The entremet was so good, I’d taken a few bites before realising I really should take a photo. The aftertaste was excellent and really lingered.

Citrus entremet, too good to resist

Congratulations go to William and Suzue – Ebury Street is a real acheivement and once again the Curley’s have ‘raised the bar’ for the London chocolate scene.

This can only be a good thing as London takes another step forward to becoming one of the leading fine chocolate centres in the world.

Certainly well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Nearest tube: Sloane Square, or Victoria if you don’t mind a walk or a short bus journey on the 211. Pimlico station is actually some distance away.

Info

William Curley
198 Ebury Street
London
SW1W 8UN

Tel. 020 7730 5522

Opening Hours:

Monday to Saturday 9:30 – 18:30
(Coming soon: Monday to Thursday 9:30 – 10:00pm)
Sunday 10:30 – 18:00

We’ve all eaten Callebaut chocolate at some time or other, usually unknowingly in one of the many private label bars or products currently on sale around the world by an endless list of chocolate companies, brands and chocolatiers. Now that reach will be extended a little further, with a significant hit to competition in the bulk high end couverture business.

Questions are left as to what extent the Chocovic brand will maintain it’s own distinct style, and how this will affect the many smaller Spanish businesses that Chocovic supply, such as Cacao Sampaka – a chocolatier chain born with the support of Chocovic, and others such as Enric Rovira. Will they now just be Callebaut customers, or will they still be buying a distinct couverture?

Perhaps in time, Chocovic will be positioned within the Callebaut range in a similar way to the ‘Barry’ name, now used for a few of the companies better country origin chocolates. The other big question on everyone’s lips is … who next?

The really good news though, is it looks like Amedei have finally listened to fans of their origin chocolate and are bringing out their Cru range in the 50g bar format. The six country origins have previously only been available as 5g tasting squares in selection boxes of 12 or 36, or single varieties mini-boxes of four. These were never widely available though, leaving Amedei’s country origin range little known – at least in the UK.

More on the ‘Cru’ origin bars when we get to try them, in the meantime though, we received some of Amedei’s new products along with our Chocolate Week samples. These included ‘Quadrotti Toscani’ – filled mini-bars with a range of praline based flavours, and ‘Crema Toscana alla Nocciola’ – hazelnut and chocolate cream spread in a jar.

Quadrotti Toscani

Amedei's new Quadrotti Toscani range

In the fine chocolate world, Amedei are best know for their solid chocolate, winning awards and plaudits for their bean to bar production. Just as important to the company though is their praline range, which was actually the original inspiration for the formation of the company, back in the late 1980s.

Up to now though, filled Amedei products have been limited to traditional pralines, available in collection boxes, but now Amedei have launched a new range of praline filled bars, in a handy four-square 45g size.

The milk coated gianduja bar features ‘Crema Toscana’ (more on this later) and a slight crunch from ground roast hazelnuts. Very smooth, light, delicately flavoured. Rather sweet of course, but enough flavour and substance to create a really fulfilling combination.

Milk chocolate coated croccantino is very sweet, but there’s nothing wrong with sweetness done well, when taken in moderation. The sweet bite with added crunch lingers on the tongue well. This isn’t exactly the heights of Amedei’s ‘9′ 75%, but length is always the best indicator of quality, and this hangs on really well.

Normally I might be dismissive of white chocolate with a pistachio filling, but the reputation of Amedei’s ‘I Frutti’ solid white chocolate with roasted pistachio bar precedes this new bar. When fresh, this solid bar has a fantastic roast pistachio flavour – not surprising, as I understand that Amedei roast their own nuts. The new filled praline version gives off a similar aroma, along with of course a strong aroma of the milk. In some ways, this seems less sweet than the milk offerings, and a slight crunch adds a little textural variation. I’m again surprised that a white chocolate based product turns out to be the best of the range.

The dark chocolate bar in the range features a 66% Amedei coating with a praline and almond filling. The ingredients are all natural, as in the rest of the range, though this particular bar features ‘natural flavours’ at the end of the ingredients list – absent in all the others, a little mysterious and something I’d question in a product from any other maker. I’m suspicious of anything in a recipe that is not a known food. ‘Flavours’ may be innocent enough, but transparency is better, especially as Amedei make a point of telling us that the bars contain no soy lecithin or colourings. Perhaps Amedei can clarify?

The hazelnuts used are ‘Tonda gentile delle Langhe’ Piemonte variety, which create a gentle textural background for the well roasted almond. The flavour balance is very good, though personally I would have preferred a bit more of a kick – perhaps a little salt? The length here is a little sour, so in this topsy-turvy praline-filled bar world, the white chocolate offering in the Quadrotti Toscani range comes out best, while the dark praline is the least successful.

Crema Toscana alla Nocciola

Amedie's new chocolate cream spread

A new departure for Amedei, a cream spread, again made with ‘Tonda gentile delle Langhe’ Piemonte variety hazelnuts, in this case making up 47% of the recipe. There’s no doubting the gorgeousness of this spread – a good simple recipe, made with quality ingredients.

Personally I could have lived with a higher chocolate content, though I challenge anyone who tries ‘Crema Toscana’ to deny that they didn’t eat at least some of it directly from the jar with a spoon.

All in all, interesting and accessible departures from Amedei that should bring their name to a wider audience.

Amano Dos Rios bars

Last year Lourdes Delgado and I visited the Dominican Republic, as part of a whirlwind tour in August 2008, taking in four fine cacao producing countries in 21 days. Our first stop was the Dominican Republic, which is now becoming well known in the public consciousness as a source of cacao used in organic and Fair Trade chocolate. (As seen on many a supermarket shelf.)

Nazario Rizek

Some very fine chocolate has also been made from Dominican Republic cacao, including some of the most famous names, including Valrhona’s ‘Caraïbe’ and Michel Cluizel’s ‘Los Anconès’. The cacao for both of these, and many others, comes from the family owned Nazario Rizek company, a cacao grower and processor focusing on the quality end of the market.

Los Anconès has always been one of my favourite fine chocolates, noted for its green olive and tobacco notes and dark complexity. (Though this has been toned down in recent years. It was just too complex for many tastes). So I was on a kind of pilgrimage to get to the plantation. You can read all about it here.

A fascinating part of that day was a visit to one of Rizek’s very advanced collection and fermentation centres, near the city of San Francisco de Macorís in Duarte province, where Rizek use plastic boxes for fermenting their cacao. Your first reaction might be that this must have a negative effect on flavour (hints of polythene?), but if you’re into fine chocolate at any level, you’ve already tasted chocolate made from beans processed in this way, without noticing any adverse effects.

A unique liquor

About half way down my travel blog post from last year, I mentioned a liquor tasting session Lourdes and I were treated to after our tour of the Rizek facility. In that previous post, I rather skimmed over the experience, but I don’t think I’ll ever quite forgot the aroma and flavour notes of one particular laboratory liquor sample.

The sample in question had a unique bergamot aroma. On tasting, there were strong flavour notes of orange and rose. I’d never come across anything like this before. This was a combination I won’t forget, but I wondered if I’d ever taste anything like it again. These unique notes were entirely the result of experiments Rizek had been making using different fermentation techniques to create different flavour profiles. (With, I believe,  help from visitors such as Chloé Doutre-Roussel.) The cacao used, incidentally, was from some or Rizek’s farms in the areas surrounding the fermentation facility.

What was really interesting to me here was the idea of the cacao grower taking the initiative and developing new flavour profiles. Usually chocolate makers prefer to give the impression that they are solely the ‘auteur’ – the director – of the chocolate they are making, but I was learning here this might not always be the case. Rizek, it seemed, were actually being more adventurous than most chocolate makers.

A Nazario Rizek plantation in the San Francisco de Macorís region

Turning theory into chocolate

After this experience, it was half jokingly that I hoped in my post last year that a chocolate maker would produce a chocolate from this single source.

Even if a chocolate maker was interested in these most unusual flavour notes, would the notes survive into a finished chocolate? Would the cacao be too unusual to make into a single-fermentation chocolate (we’re well beyond origin and variety here!), or would these beans end being used to spice up an otherwise bland blend?

It would need a chocolate maker who produced well refined European style chocolate, but whose philosophy was to keep the flavour notes of the chocolate as close as possible to the notes of the cacao. That left only one chocolate maker whose Yahoo! id I have on my list; Art Pollard of Amano Artisan Chocolate.

Art and I chatted online about the liquor and its unique flavours, and he seemed up for the challenge. To cut an already rather long story short, over the next year Art was able to secure an exclusive supply and a new Amano chocolate, the limited edition Dos Rios, was born.

I don’t want to take any credit here other than for spotting a good thing when I see it and passing the news on. What I think is important here is to recognise the joint work of both cacao grower and chocolate maker in achieving this chocolate. Without the inspiration and effort of both, it would not have been possible.

Tasting Dos Rios

So, at last, onto the actual chocolate itself, which I was able to taste for the first time only minutes before the Academy of Chocolate open event with Clay Gordon, which took place a couple of nights ago.

First congratulations have to go to Amano for preserving the aromas and flavours of the liquor. This is no mean achievement and was sometimes in doubt during the development process. I suspect these notes are coming from a very full fermentation, and one early kitchen sample Art sent us had – as well as the bergamot, orange and rose – a really distinct ‘Stilton’ note (you know, the way that Stilton can be cheesy and strong, but there’s a slight floral edge in there as well). That was pretty interesting of itself, but it didn’t quite sit with the other notes.

Amano have actually had to develop a more delicate refining process to preserve the flavour notes of this chocolate, which is why the chocolate is grainier than other Amano bars, though you wouldn’t notice this in the mouth unless you were looking out for it.

The result is one of the most unique chocolates available, though it may not appeal equally to all tastes. The nose is Earl Grey bergamot, green cardamom and yes that slight hint of cheese. Tasting the chocolate, you will be convinced that the chocolate has been flavoured. (I can guarantee it’s not, having tasted the source).

The dominant note is rose water, drifting off into spice and perhaps fresh apple. There is that stilton hint, but it just about plays nicely with the other notes. There are tannins here, but they are soft and mild, like you’d find in a good Japanese tea, rather than being overly drying.

The length is giant. The rose goes on, and on, and on. Hardly diminishing over time. I can’t think of any other chocolate that holds on so long and so solidly, except perhaps the citrus of some Madagascans. It could almost get annoying if you had too much. (The length even continued after eating different origin chocolate!)

It’s rare to make a fully formed chocolate at first attempt, and I think this applies even more in a case like this, where the chocolate maker is working in uncharted territory in terms of flavour notes. The chocolate is perhaps not as balanced as it might be, and the flavours notes don’t sit as tightly together as they might. Or perhaps this is just too freshly made – a few months on the shelf might actually help.

So this is not a perfect chocolate, but it is one of the most interesting I’ve ever come across, pushing the envelope of flavours on the chocolate tasting map into whole new territory. The name ‘Dos Rios’ refers in this case – or so Art Pollard tells me – that the chocolate has two rivers of flavour (bergamot and chocolate), as well as being the name of a nearby farming community.

You might not want to eat Dos Rios every day of the week, but you sure should give it a try. I think it would be pretty interesting to cook or bake with as well. Congratulations go to both Nazorio Rizek and Amano for the achievement.

Stocks of the limited edition ‘Dos Rios’ should be hitting the shelves in the US and Sweden soon, with hopes of a forthcoming UK supply. (Fortnum & Mason are now stocking the current Amano range).

Clay Gordon runs US chocolate website and social network “The Chocolate Life” (the US equivalent of Seventypercent and with whom we share many members). Clay is an authority on fine chocolate in the US and author of “Discover Chocolate”.

Clay will be giving us an overview of the US chocolate scene and introduce some of the new breed of American chocolate makers – some already known in the UK, and some very new.

Info

6.30pm Thursday 22nd October 2009

The Arts Club
40 Dover Street
London
W1S 4NO

TICKETS: £20

HOW TO BOOK:

Complete the booking form below and return with a cheque to:

Academy of Chocolate, 53 Cavendish Road, London SW12 0BL

Cheques should be made payable to: ‘Academy of Chocolate’

Clay Gordon Presents to the AoC 22.10.09

A small selection of Chocolatier Blue's range

When Art Pollard and Matt Caputo were in town last week for the Academy of Chocolate Awards they very kindly brought me a box of bonbons to try from Chocolatier Blue, a US based chocolatier ran by Chris Blue. (The website was not working at time of posting.) Chris was previously the chocolatier for Charlie Trotter’s restaurant in Chicago, but now has branched out on his own, setting up shop in Berkeley, California.

Chris exclusively uses Amedei chocolate, and according to his promotional blurb, is the only chocolatier in the US allowed to do so. This makes him the counterpart of London’s William Curley, who has a similar relationship with Amedei, though William also specialises in patisserie.

By the time I got to review the collection, the chocolates were at least two weeks old, so the flavours might not be as sharp as when freshly made, but I didn’t detect any signs of the fillings passing beyond their shelf life.

WordPress, bless it, ate my first version of this post, so this is a little truncated from the original, and rewrites from memory are never quite the same. Luckily, I still had a few of the bonbons left at the time of reconstruction.

The collection

Orange julius – a double reversed triangular shape and a shocking sparkling red colour. We’re told that the colours are all natural and made by Chris himself. Quite an achievement. The orange is delivered in a white ganache, which takes off the citrus edge and makes the filling rather sweet. Reminds me of orange cream biscuits. Well made, but a little tame – gently orange rather than sharply citrus. Again, the after taste indicates the quality of ingredients used. Nothing bad here.

Pistachio – a soft marzipan. These are roasted Scicilian pistachios, and you can smell the roast in a very pleasant way. The filling is really, really creamy, not at all grainy. I’m not overwhelmed with pistachio flavour – it’s rather light, but this is more than made up for by the creaminess of the centre, which is quite remarkable. The after-effect is yet again very pleasant and lingering.

Oreos in milk – a cheeky one this. The filling is said to be crushed Oreos, white chocolate and fresh farm cream. Crushed Oroes. You don’t find that listed in the ingredients of many fine chocolates! Kind of works though, creating a straightforwardly chocolate and cream flavour.

Espresso – a rather high tall oval, dark shell and sprayed on top like a cappucino. Good coffee flavour here, the quality most felt in the after taste, but could be a little stronger.

Ants on a log – one of the more bizarrely named chocolates I’ve come across, and a quick check of the description card was needed to be sure this wasn’t some novelty ‘I dare you’ filling. The name actually refers to a childhood healthy snack Chris ate after arriving home from school – peanut butter and raisins on a celery stick. We didn’t have that kind of wholesome snack where I came from, round our way it was ginger nuts and milk all the way! (Can you make a bonbon out of those, please Chris?)

Fortunately we are spared actual celery, and the filling is home ground peanuts, currants and the celery part comes from celery seeds. From humble beginnings, this is an outstanding chocolate and for me the best of the set. The celery seeds really work in the length, with a lingering flavour that surprises you by its persistence and delicacy. Neither does this ensemble filling seem too sweet. A definite winner.

Caramel – every chocolatier has a salt caramel these days. It’s like vanilla ice cream or steamed rice in a Chinese restaurant. If you can’t get those right, you’re in trouble. They all make a great baseline to judge by. Chris’s is a little heavy on the cream for my taste and sweeter than I’d like with the milk chocolate shell, but the fluidity is just right – runny enough to deliver the salt and caramel flavour quickly, but not enough to feel messy. The flavour is very clean and correct and works just right.

Passion fruit caramel – light full flavoured caramel with a crisp thin shell, a good delicate balance of flavours, though my taste would have been for a dark shell and punchier fruit.

Pine nut – pine nuts are one of my favourite foods, but I’ve only seen moderate success with them when used with chocolate. Chris’s approach is a soft marzipan ganache, similarly creamy to his pistachio. Just smelling the bonbon after cutting, you get a lovely delicate roast pine nut aroma, which bodes well. The filling delivers on its promise, the only possible complaint being that it is a little fatty, but then pine nuts are. I could eat quite a few of these.

Hazelnuts – very, very, good hazelnuts, quite roughly ground. A filling with a crunch rather than a soft gianduja. The shell is milk, but a little salt makes the effect not too sweet. In the length, the nuts dominate, with delicate rose and lavender, you only get that from really good nuts.

Caramel apple – the most interesting of the caramels, with more zing and zest than the passion fruit version, sliding into milky toffee at the end.

Peanut butter and jelly – in general I hate jelly, as some of my chocolatier friends will confirm. The top layer of this glittery dark red heart shape bonbon though is very soft and fluid, complimenting the fine, sweet, peanut butter below. Most US chocolatiers seem to have a go at this American classis, Chris’s is one of the more enjoyable.

Overall Chris’s range does very well, the only criticism would be a strong leaning to milk over dark chocolate and hence a sweeter flavour range than most. The chocolates are more in a Belgian than French style, but made with high class ingredients and Amedei chocolate. Given that, the flavour balance can’t be faulted, even if not to my exact taste. I had no trouble finishing the box though. Well worth checking out if you are resident in the Berkeley area or merely passing through.

Info

Chocolatier Blue
1964 University Ave.
Berkeley
CA
94709

Tel: (001) 510 705-8800
Web: www.chocolatierblue.com (not running at time of posting)

'Team' photo at the Academy of Chocolate 2009 Awards ceremony

Well, that’s it. The 2009 Awards are finally over. Almost. I know the Academy still owes some entrants feedback. Logistical problems and a desire to do things properly have made that really overdue. Sorry to all those waiting, we will get back to you. Apart from some temps we hired to help with data entry, running the Awards is a purely voluntary effort, though it has at times felt more like a full time job.

When you have an idea or start a project, it’s always hard to be realistic about the amount of work involved. Often the hours required will double or triple from your first estimates. The Awards have certainly sucked up a huge amount of  hours from all of us involved. Sometimes, it’s felt like a thankless task. I guess it’s a sign of success to have critics – if the Awards didn’t matter, they would probably be ignored.

The three chocolate makers - Mott Green of Grenada Chocolate Company, Art Pollard of Amano and Cecilia Tessieri of Amedei

At times we may have wondered if it’s all worthwhile, but events like the Awards party last week remind us of the value of bringing together and celebrating the work of the UK and World fine chocolate communities.

On the hottest night of the year so far in the UK – not ideal conditions for a chocolate party – chocolatiers, bean to bar chocolate makers, cacao exporters, food writers, radio broadcasters, international judges and Academy members came together to support and celebrate the big prize winners as well as all the entrants in the 2009 Awards.

As usual at these events, it was hard to find enough time to talk with everyone and to catch up with all the old and new friends present, and to try all of the winning entries on hand. We did our best though!

The winners

Cecilia Tessieri receives the 2009 'Golden Bean' from Simon Parkes

This year saw Amedei and William Curley continue their previous successes, but not without the presence of upcoming challengers.

In the Bean to Bar category, Utah based newcomer Amano gave Amedei a close run for their money, taking one Gold, two Silvers and one Bronze in the premier category of the Awards.

Fine chocolate is what the Academy is all about, so the awards for a chocolate company making directly from the bean are the most important of the whole line up.

Valrhona managed only one Gold this year, not helped by the abscence of their vintage range, which wasn’t submitted due to an error. (Their error I might add).

In a similar vein, Amedei’s Chuao wasn’t entered, this time by choice, possibly because Amedei no longer have exclusivity for beans from the famous valley. This left the door open for their ‘9′, which took the coveted ‘Golden Bean’, for which we just about had a shiney new logo ready for presentation on the night.

Special awards

Art Pollard of Amano receives a special award for 'Most promising new bean to bar chocolate maker' from Sara Jayne Stanes

For the second year running, the Academy made some additional awards at the ceremony to recognise particular achievement or contributions in the chocolate world.

The first of these was presented right at the start of the night. The Special Award for 2009 went to Graig Sams and Jo Fairley for creating the Green & Black’s brand and ‘Changing the way people think about chocolate’.

Green & Black’s may be just an industrial product now and an extension of the Cadbury range, but 25 years ago the products were something quite revolutionary. One of the first 70% bars available in the UK and with Maya Gold, the first Fair Trade product in the world.

In an additional discretionary award, the Academy recognised the huge acheivement of US chocolate maker Amano in creating bean to bar chocolate good enough to stand up to the best in the world, despite having been in production for less than three years.

In my opinion, Amano have really shown that the secret weapon in chocolate making is taste, and if you are prepared to aim high and be self-critical, you really can go all the way. It’s going to be really interesting how the company develops over the next few years and whether any other new chocolate makers – in the US or otherwise – can match their results.

For full details of all the winners and all the chocolatiers I’ve neglected to mention, see the Academy of Chocolate site, where I suspect there will be a full photo feature up soon.

The final announcement of the night was the news that the Academy won’t hold Awards next year – we’d long planned to have a break and take a year off given the marathon we’ve been running for the last few years. Instead the Academy is planning an international conference about fine chocolate and cacao, to be held early spring 2010. We’re only just formulating the details, but look out for more news in the forthcoming months.

It’s a relief to have the Awards done and dusted for two years. I feel a whole other bunch of work for the conference coming on though. The things we do for chocolate …