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The Super Bowl is less than three weeks away, so you’d better start making plans. These strawberry treats are hardcore football fan food. Jackie Dodd of Domestic Fits provides a simple recipe at the link.
Link -via Tasteologie
I’m not entirely sure because the website is in Japanese, but it appears that a chocolatier called L’éclat offers chocolate versions of the planets of our solar system. Sadly, they’re not to scale, or else I’d call dibs on Jupiter!
Link (Google Translate) -via Nerdcore
If a s’more cocktail isn’t, by itself, a sufficiently serious chocolate delivery system, then Spabettie has a recipe for you! She used a shot glass mold to make chocolate cups, filled them with chocolate-flavored vodka and then topped them off with rice whip.
Link -via Tasteologie
There’ll be no shortage of players at your next tabletop role-playing game campaign! New rule: if you roll the highest value, you get to eat the die. Ariel Segall built a custom mold to bake chocolate dice. At the link, you can find her step-by-step instructions for the project.
Link -via Geek Dad | Photo: Ariel Segall
Hakan Martensson knows his away around the sweet stuff, and his chocolate sculptures of fantastic beasts and pop culture icons are so detailed it would be a shame to eat such a beautiful work of art! Be sure to check out Hakan’s website for more fabulous sculpts by the master chocolatier.
Ktarian Chocolate Puffs were described in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation as having 17 different kinds of chocolate in them. The blogger bananamondaes took that as a challenge (or possibly an excuse to buy many kinds of chocolate), and created a recipe that actually uses that many in a cream puff. It doesn’t look easy, but we are assured that the results are worth it! Link -via @johncfarrier
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Designer Elsa Lambinet created this brilliant idea for chocolate flavoring mix and match sessions. You can put whatever you want in the middle and then put anything in the little center hole and experiment with all the flavor combinations you can possibly handle. I don’t know about you guys, but I’d love to go to a tasting party for these things.
Link Via Laughing Squid
It’s like Mad Max 2 was produced by the Food Network! Cindy Fabre, Miss France in 2005, wore this costume made out of chocolate for the chocolate industry’s recent trade fair in Aix en Provence:
They used more than 300 pieces of chocolate including chocolate truffles, chocolate hearts and caramel filled chocolate bites to make the outfit, and even covered the Fabre’s shoes with the confectionary.
The model accessorised with a huge chocolate bangle and some brown feathers in her hair.
You can view more and larger pictures at the link.
Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Photo: Rex Features
Excerpted from the book Food Journeys of a Lifetime, NatGeo Traveler’s new food section brings us a list of the best places in the world to find chocolate -or should that be the places in the world to find the best chocolate? Either way, it’s mouth-watering time. For example, you should know where to get chocolate at 4AM in Madrid.
Few institutions offer better evidence of Madrid’s insomnia than its perennially popular chocolaterías (also known as churrerías), typically abuzz with late-night revelers from 4 a.m. to breakfast time. Their trademark dish is the churro, a long waffle-like stick of savory fried dough, eaten dunked into very thick bittersweet hot chocolate. Stop in at the venerable Chocolatería San Ginés, an 1894 throwback. Expect entertainingly brusque service, bright lights, and a frenzied atmosphere.
Planning: Chocolatería San Ginés is downtown on Pasadizo San Ginés. It’s open all night.
And that’s just number eight on the list. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
(Image credit: Miguel Pereira)
If you like chocolate, berries and booze, then you’ll love these amazing strawberry shot glasses seen on Sweet Tooth. Instructions can be found at the link if you want to make your own delicious treats.
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In this case, chocolate isn’t just the name of the color, but the name of the frosting flavor. That’s right, it’s a delicious chocolate-covered couch made by Leandro Erlich.
Bakerella cooked peanut butter and chocolate chip chocolate pudding and poured it into completely edible chocolate bowls. To make the bowls, she dipped balloons in chocolate and refrigerated them. Once they solidified, she just popped the balloons and removed the rubber. Link -via Craft
Most people have trouble not stuffing their face and gaining a few extra pounds on chocolate. But have you ever heard of a fish with the same problem? Apparently the fish outgrew its tank, getting fed a daily diet of Kit Kat bars.
Aquarium staff were baffled when the 8.8lb giant gourami called Gary rejected normal food after being donated to them.
Then the previous owners of the exotic Asian freshwater fish admitted feeding it only with the chocolate-covered wafers.
Experts at the Sea Life London Aquarium had to put crushed Kit Kat pieces inside grapes and banana slices to tempt the 15.7in-long fish on to a normal diet.
Gary’s handler Rebecca Carter said: “I’ve never heard of a fish being fed chocolate, let alone brought up entirely on the stuff.”
Ben Milne, a baker in Fife, UK, is a big fan of the band Found. So to mark the release of its newest single, he decided to make a record of the song out of chocolate. After several failed attempts, Milne used a copy of the mold used to make a vinyl record and pressed it into a sheet of chocolate. The result, as you can see at the video at the link, is both functional as a musical recording and a dessert.
Link (warning: auto-sound) -via Geekosystem | Band Website | Photo: STV
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Sagres Preta Chocolate from diografic on Vimeo.
We’ve featured a lot of things made of chocolate here on Neatorama – boats, infographics, iPads. An entire website, though – that’s a first. To promote a chocolate stout made by Portuguese brewer Sagres, famous chocolatier Victor Nunes was hired to painstakingly create every little piece of the website in rich, cocoa-y goodness. Pictures were taken of each component and used on the real website. Sagres even let people eat the website pieces after they were photographed.
You’re still using a chocolate iPad? Pfft. That’s so old-fashioned. The new thing is the chocolate iPad 2, which is so much more Apple than the chocolate iPad. Get with the times! Instructables user stevequag tells you how to make one.
There are some minor differences between the activities of the Easter Bunny and the Easter Cthulhu, but both make the holiday memorable for children. Jason McKittrick made these chocolate Cthulhu figurines to mark the occasion.
Link via Boing Boing
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What a brilliant idea! The preparation appears to be fairly straightforward, but you’ll need an ice cream scoop to cover the oreos in chocolate chip cookie batter. Or your fingers.
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Picky Palate
Chef Alain Roby stands in front of a replica he made of his kitchen, built entirely out of chocolate and sugar, in Geneva. (Keri Wiginton, Chicago Tribune / March 2, 2011)
Geneva chef Alain Roby once built a 20 foot high chocolate skyscraper. He has now constructed a life-sized chocolate replica of his own kitchen made from more than 2,000 pounds of donated chocolate and sugar to raise awareness and money to combat heart disease. His young son, Jonathan, was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and this led Roby to become involved with the Saving Tiny Hearts Society.
Roby said that after he is finished with his all-chocolate kitchen project, he is sure he’ll have another extreme chocolate challenge to tackle.
“It’s in my blood,” he said. “I don’t have blood. I have chocolate running through my veins.”
Link – Via My Rusty Sieve
This article is taken from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History.
Among the ancients, it was revered as “the elixir of the gods.”
Today, it is the one sweet temptation that most of us find impossible to resist. Yet, for most of its 3,500-year history, it was not eaten but rather consumed as a beverage -and a cold one at that. Although its form and flavor have taken many twists and turns through the millennia, its appeal, once discovered, has been universal. So, why not treat yourself to a tour through the rich history of chocolate.
THE OLD GRIND
1500 B.C.: The Olmec civilization of Guatemala, the Chiapas and the Yucatan regions of Central America cultivate the cacao tree and make use of its products by grinding the beans and then mixing with water.
MONEY GROWS ON TREES
A.D. 200: The Olmecs have been overthrown by the Mayan civilization. The vast cacao plantations are used as a source of currency, with the little black beans being traded for goods or services. The bean is only consumed by the ruling classes. By now the process of mixing the drink has become more sophisticated -the beans are roasted and then ground with water before spices such as chili are added. The resulting mixture is shaken until it develops a frothy top, at which point it is ready to be enjoyed.
A HEAVENLY DRINK
A.D. 1200: The Mayans have been supplanted by the Aztecs who heartily embrace the product of the cacao tree, even incorporating it into their mythology. Their god Quetzalcoatl is said to have pilfered a cacao tree from the heavenly realms and deposited it on the Central American plains ready to be converted into a health elixir and power aphrodisiac. Famed Emperor Montezuma enjoys the drink so much that he reputedly downs 50 goblets full every day (the amount of time he spends on the royal lavatory as a result of such liquid overload is not recorded).
WRONG CURRENCY
1502: Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage to the New World, takes possession of a Mayan trading vessel containing what he takes to be almonds and which functions as a means of monetary exchange for the Native Americans. He thereby become the first European to encounter the cacao bean, though he scarcely gives it any attention and certainly never tastes it.
JUST A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR
1519-1544: Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes leads an expedition into the heart of Mexico in search of gold and silver. He is welcomed by the Aztecs and served their greatest delicacy -a cold, bitter drink they call “cacahuatl.” Cortes introduces this strange new brew to the Spanish court. It becomes an instant hit, even more so when sweetened with sugar. The Spanish would keep the secret of chocolate to themselves for the next 75 years.
ENGLISH COOKING
1579: The English let the chocolate opportunity slip through their fingers when they seize a Spanish cargo ship on the high seas. The British Buccaneers are surprised to find the ship holds a cargo of what they take to be sheep droppings and set it on fire. Eight years later they got a second chance when another Spanish ship carrying cacao beans is seized. Again, however, they destroy the cargo, declaring it to be useless.
GOES A COURTING
1609-1643: The secret is out. Chocolate makes it way across Europe, causing a sensation among the royal courts who are first introduced to it. France’s Sun King, Louis XIV is so taken with the delicacy that he appoints a representative to manufacture and sell it. The first book entirely devoted to chocolate is printed in Mexico. Throughout the French nobility, the aphrodisiac properties of the drink are highly regarded. Both Casanova and the Marquis de Sade are said to be prolific consumers.
FAST FOOD
1662: The Church of Rome declares that the consumption of chocolate, although highly nutritious and filling, is not considered to be food and can therefore be safely taken in its liquid form during periods of religious fasting.
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED
1765: Chocolate, by now highly regarded as a liquid delicacy and a medicinal remedy in Europe, makes its way to the United States where Dr. James Baker of Massachusetts begins a chocolate manufacturing plant. Cacao beans are ground into chocolate liquid and pressed into cakes that can be dissolved in water or milk to make drinking chocolate. At the same time, James Watt invents the steam engine in Europe, which will soon be applied to the mechanized manufacture of chocolate.
WARRANT FOR HIS ASCENT
1824: James Cadbury opens a grocery in Birmingham, England, selling roasted cacao beans on the side. Very soon he is concentrating solely on the cacao beans and, in 1854, receives a Royal Warrant to be the sole provider of chocolate to Queen Victoria. A century later Cadbury is the largest food company in the world.
BAR KING
1847: The modern chocolate bar is born when British manufacturer Joseph Fry mixes melted cacao butter into a paste that is them pressed into a mold and sold as a solid bar. Soon the public has been educated to eat, rather than drink their chocolate.
1893: Milton Snavely Hershey enters the chocolate business. The world is introduced to the milk chocolate Hershey bar, followed by Hershey’s kisses. His operations grow at such a rate that he takes over the entire town of Derry Church, Pennsylvania, renames it Hershey, and turns it into the chocolate capital of the world.
1900 to present: The creation of chocolate delicacies becomes an art form. In 1908, the Swiss Toblerone bar is offered, in 1922 the European Chocolate Kiss, chocolate-covered cherries in 1929, and that old favorite -the chunky bar filled with nuts and raisins in the mid 1930s. During World War II, chocolate bars become standard issue for the U.S. military. When man conquers Mt. Everest in 1953 and heads into space in the 1960s, the chocolate bar goes along. By the end of the 20th century, science acknowledges what the Aztecs knew all along -that chocolate is a powerful fighter against fatigue, giving the eater added strength and energy. But, the scientists found, that energy comes at a price- a one-and-a-half ounce chocolate bar contains 220 calories!
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!
When Autumn of Geek6 challenged her friend Malaki to create Battlestar Galactica out of chocolate, he rose to the occasion. Color me impressed, here’s Battlestar Choclactica: Link – via Make
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This sweet runway show where fashion design meets chocolate dessert is a chocoholic’s dream! The 16th annual Salon du Chocolat in Paris highlighted accessories and clothing made from real chocolate that looked good enough to eat. Don’t despair if you missed the Paris show; there are chocolate salons scheduled in cities around the world in 2011.
Image via Salon du Chocolat
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A French-led research team has sequenced the DNA of Theobroma cacao, a tree used in making chocolate. Specifically, they ascertained the genetic code of one type that is used to make gourmet chocolate. This development may allow scientists to genetically engineer these chocolate-producing trees to resist diseases and parasites, thus increasing the availability of top quality chocolate:
Currently, most cacao farmers earn about $2 per day, but producers of fine cacao earn more. Increasing the productivity and ease of growing cacao can help to develop a sustainable cacao economy. The trees are now also seen as an environmentally beneficial crop because they grow best under forest shade, allowing for land rehabilitation and enriched biodiversity.
The team’s work identified a variety of gene families that may have future impact on improving cacao trees and fruit either by enhancing their attributes or providing protection from fungal diseases and insects that effect cacao trees.
Link via Fast Company | Photo via Flickr user Peter Pearson used under Creative Commons license
Comments Off The following is an article from the History’s Lists book from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.
Some familiar candy brands have been in production for more than a century, while some others reach back even further. How did these sweet treats get their start? We’ve got their sugar-coated beginnings right here.
1. NECCO WAFERS
The oldest mass-produced candy brand in the United States, NECCO wafers got their start in 1847 when Oliver Chase, a candy-making English immigrant, went into business selling the wafers with his brother Silas. (Chase also invented the machine the wafers were stamped out on.) Their company became the basis for the New England Confectionery Company, which rebranded the candy as NECCO Wafers around 1910 or 1912.
2. SQUIRREL NUT CHEWS
Adults today might be more familiar with Squirrel Nut Zippers as an eclectic rock band active in the 1990s, but the candies the band took their name from reach back a full century earlier to 1890, when the first of the excessively chewy taffy candies known as Squirrel Nut Chews rolled off the line of the Austin T. Merrill Company in Massachusetts. The “zippers” candy arrived in the 1920s. Since 2004, the candies have been made by NECCO.
3. HERSHEY’S CHOCOLATE BAR
The quintessential American chocolate bar got its start in 1900 when Milton Hershey perfected a formula to mass-produce milk chocolate, which until that time had been a confection limited primarily to the upper classes. The bar’s widespread success helped Hershey to found what is now the Milton Hershey School, in 1909, which provides education for disadvantaged children.
4. TOBLERONE
The famously triang
ular bar of Swiss chocolate with nougat, almonds, and honey got its shape and name (a combination of the last name of inventor Theodor Tobler and torrone, the Italian word for “nougat”) in 1908. Given the image of the Matterhorn on its wrapper, you may be forgiven for thinking the triangular shape is a tribute to the Alps, but the company website maintains the shape was actually inspired by “a red and cream-frilled line of dancers at the Folies Bergeres in Paris, forming a shapely pyramid at the end of a show.”
5. GOOGOO CLUSTERS
A regional favorite from Nashville, Tennessee, where it was invented in 1912, this circular candy bar’s claim to fame is that it was the first “combination” candy bar -that is, the first made with more than one type of candy (in this case, marshmallow, caramel, and roasted peanuts), all covered in milk chocolate. In the 1930s, the Standard Candy Company advertised the GooGoo Cluster as “a nourishing lunch for a nickel!” -a claim they’d be unlikely to get away with today.
6. MARY JANE
These pocket-sized taffies made from molasses and peanut butter were named for the aunt of Charles N. Miller, who invented the candy in 1914 and inherited the candy company his father had founded in a house originally belonging to Paul Revere. Mary Janes eventually became so popular that the Miller Company stopped making other candies to focus on that brand alone. At the moment, however, the candy is being made by NECCO.
7. CLARK BAR
The crispy, peanuty chocolate bar was the signature bar of the D.L. Clark candy company, named for Irish immigrant David Clark, and founded in what is now the north side of Pittsburgh in the early 1900s. The Clark Bar came into existence in time to become a favorite for U.S. soldiers fighting World War I, and its popularity carried over after the boys came home. Like so many early candy favorites, this one is also currently produced by NECCO.
8. BABY RUTH
A popular misco
nception about this chocolate-covered bar of caramel and peanuts, created in 1920, is that it was named for baseball player Babe Ruth. While disputed, it has never been proven false. But Baby Ruth candy maker Curtiss Candy Company sued another candy maker who put out a “Babe Ruth Home Run Bar”, on grounds that the candy names were too similar. The official line from Curtiss Candy, echoed to this day from contemporary producer Nestle, is that the bar is named after Ruth Cleveland, daughter of U.S. president Grover Cleveland. Some sources allege that Curtiss Company made up the Ruth Cleveland story in order to win the lawsuit and that it was actually named for the baseball player. Skeptics note that “Baby Ruth” died in 1904 -16 years before the creation of the candy bar.
9. MOUNDS
The Mounds Bar was created in 1920 by the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company and was originally a single bar of chocolate-covered coconut instead of the current two smaller bars. Although the Peter Paul Company would later produce a number of coconut-based treats (including Almond Joy), during World War II the company faced severe coconut shortages. Rather than ration its top product, the company temporarily discontinued several other candy brands to ensure that Mounds would stay in production.
10. MILKY WAY
Mars Inc., one of the largest privately-held companies in America, got its start with this candy bar in 1923, when the candy maker Forrest Mars developed the candy to approximate the taste of a malted milk drink in chocolate bar form. In 1926, the bar was offered in chocolate and vanilla flavors, with the vanilla version becoming the Forever Yours bar for over fifty years before becoming the Milky Way Dark bar (now the Milky Way Midnight).
BEST-SELLING CANDY BY COUNTRY
1. United States: M&Ms
2. Australia and the United Kingdom: Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar
3. Germany: Milka milk chocolate bar
4. Brazil: Trident chewing gum
5. Japan: Meiji chocolate bar
6. France: Hollywood chewing gum
7. Russia: Orbit chewing gum
8. Mexico: Trident chewing gum
9. Thailand: Hall’s cough drops
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader History’s Lists.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader is having their annual Holiday Sale, in which you can save 30% on your purchase! Get free shipping on orders of $35 or more by using the code HOL10SHIP. And check out the BRI’s newest volume, Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
To settle a bet, chocolatier Georges Larnicol built and launched a boat made from chocolate. The 3.5 meter craft managed to stay afloat with three people inside for an hour and a half.
It wasn’t the 55-year-old’s first attempt to set sail in a chocolate boat.
In August his plans were scuppered when his Chocolate boat Mark I broke into pieces.
But Mark II, which took more than 400 hours to construct, met with more success and pleased with the outcome, Larnicol is promising to build a bigger 12-metre boat complete with chocolate mask for 2012.
Link via The Presurfer
Chocolate Bar Yummy Pockets – $4.95
Psst, chocolate lovers! Here’s the perfect way to organize your stationery and other knick knacks: the Chocolate Bar Yummy Pockets from the NeatoShop. Guaranteed not to melt: Link | More Fun and Unusual Wallets and Coin Purses
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Love chocolate? You better stock up – the price of chocolate could skyrocket as a British financier has cornered the world’s supply of cocoa bean:
The cocoa beans, which are sitting in warehouses either in The Netherlands, Hamburg, or closer to home in London, Liverpool or Humberside is equivalent to the entire supply of the commodity in Europe, and would fill more than five Titanics. They are worth £658 million.
Analysts said it was very unlikely that a chocolate company, such as Nestle or Kraft, or even their suppliers, would buy such a huge order in one go and that is was probable that one or a number of speculators, possibly hedge funds, had attempted to corner the market. By doing this, they would have control of the entire supply in Europe, forcing the price yet higher.
Eugen Weinberg, an analyst with Commerzbank, said: “For one buyer it would likely be a little bit too large. It would be a crazy number. That said, if you’re cornering the market …”
Let’s just call it a "convenience fee" – found at Ray Soldano
Attention Twilight fans! After Robert Pattinson, the actor who played Edward Cullen was voted world’s tastiest movie star, LOVEFiLM commissioned food artist Prudence Staite to re-create his bust in chocolate.
Best yet, you can take home the chocolate head and "bite" it: Link
Food artist Jojo Krang of the blog Eye Candy provides step-by-step instructions on how to paint a picture with chocolate. First you create a reverse image, then apply dark tones, midtones, and light tones, in that order, and then flip the product over.
Link via DudeCraft | Photo: Jojo Krang | Previously on Neatorama: Too Cute to Eat
