Dark

In a more affluent year than 2009 my brother and sister in law gave me chocolates from fran’s, in Seattle. (They live in Seattle, too.)

I had heard of fran’s years ago (but what’s with the lowercase name? In elegant wedding-announcement type script, yet?)

frans caramels, photo from frans

There were only 6 chocolates in the box. I ate them all, and forced myself to limit it to one a day, to savor them.

But here’s that name thing again:  Gray and Smoked Salt Caramels. Hmm.  I know salted candy, chocolate covered pretzels, etc,  have been hot for a few years. Salt and sugar is always a rush.

But why would you call something that’s a deep rich brown, “gray”? I don’t want to eat anything that’s gray. What food is gray? And the smoked is reminiscent of smoked salmon. Do you think it’s the Seattle/harbor/fish thing there? Here, have a gray, smoked caramel. Ugh. So this is a bad name for a real treat!

This was a delicious and distinctive candy. I thought the grays were best. Wish I could remember why, but they disappeared too quickly, and it’s been 2 years.

It looks like it was available on Amazon at one point – Fran’s Chocolates Smoked Salt Milk Caramel Gift Box – 20 Pieces, but not now. 8chocolate.com has a longer review about this candy, and says the Obamas ate this candy on the campaign trail! I’m a political cartoonist, however, and let’s just say…maybe. In any case, definitely try these.

I have a bad carbon footprint for making toast.

On the other hand, I switched from white bread to grainy or dark bread years ago, so that part is good. For me, that is. (I like bagels and English muffins  and crumpets to be grainy, too!)

I like bread hot and cooked, but I don’t like toasters. Too slow.

Or toaster ovens. (What is the point of them again? I think I’m going to toss mine.)

Microwave is fast, but where’s the slightly burnt/toasted edges?

That leaves my big electric stove. That’s right,  just to make toast, I turn it all the way up to broil, slice the bread and put it down on a piece of tin foil, wait 30 sec, turn it over and put some butter on so it melts just right, and Bob’s your uncle!

Honey is optional, along with the guilt. Trader Joe’s had some EXCELLENT honey, with honeycomb, called Honey with Comb, until a month ago. That’s right, right when I needed to get more, they’ve tossed it. Typical TJ, who are really not reliable if you like food.

And I thought Buster Brown only made shoes! Buster Brown Breadphoto through Flickr Creative Commons Photographs by Derek Farr (Detroit Derek). Thanks Derek!

It comes in hunks. Slabs. It smells up the whole bag you carry it in, and you want to keep sniffing it.

Baking chocolate is when quality really counts. But unless you bake two similar items, at the same time, using different chocolates – and I’m not a scientist – it’s a little hard to compare them.

is this how you cut up baking chocolate?

I can’t remember the details, but I bought a 10 pounder at Trader Joes a couple of years ago and it was okay, not great. Great price, but TJ is always great on price, just mediocre on desserts.

I was given a big bar of baking chocolate at the Western Foodservice Convention one year (unfortunately not this year – I don’t think they even had a booth this year ) and that was one of my favorite freebies that year! I hated to start cutting it up – I felt richer just having it in my cupboard! I didn’t have a blog then, so I can’t remember the name, but I’m pretty sure it began with S. Scharffen Berger? I just don’t remember, but it made extraordinary icings and brownies. Amazon has some rave reviews for their cocoa: Scharffen Berger (Scharffenberger) Natural Cocoa Powder in a cute tin. Next time I’ll take notes.

The movie, Fatal Attraction, is kind of old now, but passion isn’t.

And an ice pick is the only way I know how to cut up baking chocolate. Is there another way? I rarely find chocolate chunk cookies store bought that taste right, but I’m still looking.

and you’ve got my full attention. At the California Restaurant Association Show here recently, I picked up a Ghirardelli Milk and Caramel bar. It has a very glammed up but attractive photo on the gold box. Nicely designed. The milk chocolate is a little sweeter than usual, but works well with the  tangier taste of the caramel. The caramel’s a nice texture, too, all fluid and melty. Thumbs up.

ghirardelli caramel - eat me

Of course, you can find Ghirardelli at any grocery store or drugstore. I’ve bought these cute little squares in Staples – on sale! And weird – now Amazon sells it.  Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Milk Chocolate with Caramel Filling, 5.32-Ounce Packages (Pack of 6) In case you have 6 different occasions for it, I suppose.

They have some reviews on Amazon, too. I liked this one:

I have always been partial to a chocolate combo with caramel.
Ghirardelli makes a good product and the individual wee bars are nice. I put mine in the fridge at this time of the year. Great price today (when I bought)

Cadbury has a bar called Caramilk. The chocolate is excellent but the caramel not my favourite.

Update

Real Simple just did a taste test and rated this the best chocolate-caramel bar. I didn’t read all of the chocolate categories. You can make a category for anything, I guess, but that doesn’t sound very simple to me.

Absolute no for Trader Joe‘s Chocolate Chunk Cookies. The cookies are dry and the chocolate is not satisfying and tastes cheap. I’m Yankee thrifty, but I’m tempted to throw the rest of them out! Ingredients look fine (ie, no corn syrup, which I won’t eat anymore), and there’s a bit of honey, which will usually raise the rating, but not this time.

Perhaps not the most appetizing photo of Kim & Scotts prezels, which is on their site.

Part of my bitterness is because several years ago they used to make a chocolate chunk cookie that was totally great. It was dense, hard, but not too hard, somewhat grainy, with good quality chocolate. (may have been Guittard’s.) All you needed was a couple of them to make the starving (or sad) feeling in your gut go away. ( I met a guy standing in line behind me once, holding a bag of these cookies, and he told me he would eat the whole bag in one sitting. Ah, men, and their lucky, lucky metabolism.) A bag in the cupboard always made me feel happy. Grrr at TJ for always always dropping good food. I wrote a lyrical poem about Trader Joe’s in my other blog, here. It’s not very nice.

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Also: Kim and Scott’s Gourmet Chocolate Crumb Pretzels are ok, but not good enough. I love most soft pretzels, as a Philly girl might be expected to (although the street pretzels are still WAY the best). I found these on sale at Gelson’s. It is okay if you pretend it’s a chocolate cookie, and it has a fun melty filling that stays liquid when you take it out from the microwave, so the overall texture is fine. But the chocolate flavor isn’t good enough, sort of chalky. And it’s not a pretzel at ALL. (Note: salt does not enhance a cookie. Someone better at baking than I might know why.)

These are okay if you’re hungry for just something sweet. But they cost $6, so not a good deal, and doesn’t satisfy the soft pretzel urge. They have other interesting-sounding varieties, and the Grilled Cheese or the Pizza Pretzel might be worth a try. But they’re not chocolate, are they.