a day of chocolate (s)

Today is Valentine's Day, for those of you who don't know, it's a little different in Japan, which I've written about here.

Here's what I gave Satoshi...

A box of baseball shaped milk chocolates...

Here are some other chocolate items we've enjoyed...this Choco-chofu.

A chocolate mochi covered with a chocolate crepe. Satoshi brought this back from one of his business trips to Okayama.

To enjoy this you need to "nuke" it for several seconds, if you nuke it for too long, it gets too oozy and turns into a blob.

Blobby or not, it was delicious, chocolatey but not too sweet.

Belgian Cafe-Tasse's lait & speculoos, milk chocolate filled with a cinnamon ganache.

Cafe-Tasse's noir & speculoos, dark chocolate (54%) with a cinnamon ganache.

Either one is delicious. The ganache is more like a cream with speculoos (spice cookies) bits in it.

Italian Vestri's Vellutata, 30 grams of creamy chocolate hazelnut goodness.

This was delicious on toasted baguette.

Not sure what "vellutata" means, but it sounds like "velvety".

From my host-sister, an assortment of ice creams by Jean-Paul Hévin. There were 5 different ice creams in the assortment, Satoshi and I ate half of each on separate occasions.

One with vanilla & salted caramel bits, one caramel ice cream, 2 dark chocolate and 1 milk chocolate.

All were rich and delicious. (Thank you!)

Lastly, France's Bernachon's 3rd generation, Phillipe, has a line called "B de Lyon", I tried their Gingembre (ginger) tablette.

Dark chocolate (maybe 65%) with ginger gelatin-like sticks...the chocolate and ginger match perfectly though Satoshi said he would nix the ginger.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

oh my!

Yesterday, we woke up to snow. A little dusting on the rooftops. Woot! The weather is still flip-flopping and some days Spring isn't in sight.

I've been thinking about chocolate lately...I know lots of people love Nutella and I used to too, but the truth is it has additives, maybe even some preservatives.

In fact, when I opened a bottle awhile back, there was actually mold on top...eww! I was sad because I had to throw out the whole thing.

Then I tasted the dark chocolate hazelnut spread from Barbero, like Nutella but made with dark chocolate and no preservatives or additives...yum.

I remembered I had saved a small bag of hazelnuts in my freezer and decided to try David Lebovitz's recipe.

I didn't have the exact amounts of the ingredients he listed. So I ad-libbed.

Here are the proportions I used which made a cup and a little

1/4 cup milk
58 grams hazelnuts
85 grams 70% Lindt (65 grams) & 60% Ghiradelli chocolate (20 grams), measured then melted
24 grams almonds, unsalted
15 grams cacao nibs

Roast the hazelnuts in a 150C (300F) oven for 20 minutes then rub the skins with a dish towel.
Whiz the nuts and nib in the food processor, to as fine as it can whiz
After melting the chocolate, add the warm milk to it and mix well.
Add chocolate mixture to food processor and whiz.
Put into bottle and lick the spatula.
Enjoy!

NOTES: this wasn't as creamy as his version, but it was delicious. Next time I'm in the gourmet supermarket, I'm gonna see if they have hazelnuts so I can make this again.

It is Friday here, hope you have a great weekend!

UPDATE: I re-melted everything and added 1/2 a cup more of milk because the consistency was too hard after I refrigerated the spread. This seems to be a nicer consistency.

ritter sport

Found this Ritter Sport at Jupiter, an import market in Kyoto recently...milk chocolate, hazelnuts & nougat cream.

Delicious, lots of hazelnuts.

While I really enjoy dark chocolate, sometimes you just need something sweet.

Apparently this just came out for Winter and is only on their German site.

torrone

I think I told you that I like nougat. So, when I ran into this box made by Luigi D'Amico at the gourmet supermarket, I had to get it. I couldn't read the label, it was in Italian, but could pick out the words for nougat, chocolate and what I thought said nuts. So, I knew the combination had to be a winner.

And I was right. A thick chocolate nougat filled with whole hazelnuts! Rich enough to make you think you are eating fudge, but chewier. A thin wafer on the side so that you can grab it without getting your fingers messy. Soft enough but not sticky as to stick to your teeth.

If it weren't so expensive, I think I'd buy all the other flavors they had.

it's autumn, right?

The days surely don't feel like autumn, I'm talking low 80's (26C) during the daytime. Oh well, I shouldn't grumble, at least there is no humidity.

Since there isn't much happening in my kitchen, I thought I'd share with you some new things I came upon.

Haagen Dazs came out with 2 limited edition flavors--Bitter Caramel and Noisette Chocolat. The Bitter caramel was smooth and creamy, not sure why they called it bitter because it wasn't. The other flavor was Noisette Chocolat, a hazelnut ice cream swirled with dark chocolate ice cream. Both were delicious.

In the beer department, Kirin came out with a stout. It wasn't smokey in taste, but it was very dark and easy to drink.

And to round everything out, there was Koshu grapes. These were a let down--not sweet at all. Plus the skins were tough and bitter and there were tons of seeds.

Oh, well, 3 out of 4 isn't so bad. Hope your week is going well.

nu daifuku

If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I've been kind of crazed with making mochi (rice cakes). Last week, I made ichigodaifuku, and yomogi mochi.

Well, the western style mochi that I wanted to try is nutella daifuku or nu (new) daifuku (get it?).

Anyway, it was my first time to open a bottle of nutella (what?!) and to try it. Talk about heavenly stuff! (Why haven't I bought this before?) It is so creamy!

Only problem was trying to stuff mochi with it. It is a bit too runny. In the past, I've put peanut butter into these mochi (you HAVE to try this version also!) and also a peanut butter chocolate spread (remember Jif's chocolate silk?) both are, as Rachel Ray would say, "yum-o"!

So, the oozy nutella wouldn't stay in the mochi...it still tasted great!

One question I have though, the bottle says "do not refrigerate", the weather here is getting warm, will it be alright for it to stay out?

ritter sport

Today was another rainy day. Just a slight drizzle--but still a dreary day.

I first came across this brand while honeymooning in Europe.

Ritter Sport is a German candy maker. I saw this same version on the Candy Blog and found it at an import gourmet supermarket.

The dark chocolate with hazelnuts is great! If you love dark chocolate and love hazelnuts, this one is for you. Packed with lots of whole hazelnuts and rich dark chocolate!

A very nice way to brighten a dreary day.