Springtime is here!

I often get requests for chocolate bunnies, but aside from the cuteness and the thrill of biting off ears, I didn't know how to make them cool enough for LUCA. But, the creativity must be flowing because this year, I give you...Bunny Bark!



Studded with dried fruit, nuts, and toffee, these bun-buns give you something to nibble on besides chocolate. Try dark chocolate with apricots and almonds or milk chocolate with figs and pistachios. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, get a mixed bar - half milk, half dark with pumpkin seed toffee.

Also new for spring, Rhubarb Honey Caramels, Lemon Buttercreams, Pistachio Creams and Agave-Pecan Nougat. The Agave-Pecan Nougat blends toasted, ground pecans with an extra kick of agave nectar, 1800 Reposado tequila (just a touch), and the barest mention of smoked sea salt. The Pistachio Cream has the rich, buttery flavor of freshly roasted pistachios with sweet, homemade fondant. The Rhubarb Honey Caramel is springtime in a caramel - tart pink rhubarb is slowly cooked with honey and finished with butter and cream. And the Lemon Buttercream is pure, lemon meringue pie heaven. I took just-squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest and decadent creamery butter and put it all in a dark chocolate shell.


You know what to do! Order early and often for the answer to your springtime cravings!

The Long Vacation is back!

Actually, it's back with a twist. This year, I've added a mango-chile truffle to the mix. Here's the rundown of the flavors:

Key Lime Cream: tart limes, sweet, creamy buttercream, all in a dark chocolate shell, what more could you want?

Coconut Cream: like a tiny slice of coconut cream pie, tropical toasted coconut and just a hint of extra butter in the buttercream, also in dark chocolate

Mango Chile Truffle: the new arrival for the summer, I've combined exotic mangoes with a spicy Japanese chiles in a white chocolate ganache, complemented by the richness of dark chocolate

Sea Salt Caramel: even long vacations benefit from a little taste of the familiar - this is the classic, sweet, smooth caramel enrobed in dark chocolate with a touch of Celtic grey sea salt on top

You'll notice that all the summer flavors feature dark chocolate. In addition to being the most "good for you" kind of chocolate, I also think the complex flavors and slight (very slight) edge of bitterness are a great complement to the sweet, tropical flavors of summer. If you absolutely have to have your key lime cream in milk chocolate (or white) just send me an email or make a note in the special instructions box on the order form, and I'll be happy to accommodate.

Order Here

Bacon and Chocolate, Part 2

I've discussed the pairing of breakfast meats and candy before Bacon and Chocolate, June 12, 2007. One might assume that I'd said all I had to say about it. One would be wrong...

A couple of weeks ago, I was flipping through one of my favorite blogs and came across this.. Find me that chocolate covered bacon. As an enterprising chocolatier, I couldn't let an opportunity to make somebody's food dream come true. So I wrote to the author, offering my services.

He emailed me back a week later, and I got to work. I didn't want to just send him a box full of bacon covered in chocolate, I'm too creative for that. So I put together a box with chocolate covered bacon, bacon covered caramel, and a couple of my favorite non-bacon creations. I think the results were well received...Chocolate covered bacon video. Not only did he like the chocolates, but I have the honor of being part of the very first Modern Materialist Video post!


What do you think? Should I add chocolate covered bacon to the Luca Chocolate stable of products? Let me know what you think!

Flashy!

If you visit the website today, and you should, you'll find that everything's different. I've spent the last few days re-vamping the whole darn thing. I think you'll find this version is a little easier to navigate, a little prettier, and chock full of pictures (which is one request I hear quite often). There are still a few kinks - some of the words run off the page in places, but they'll be fixed soon enough.

The shopping experience hasn't changed, you'll still find the familiar checkout and have the option of PayPal or Google Checkout. Chocolate of the Month has changed - it's now a subscription service instead of a big purchase. So, for $19.95/month, you can have a new and exciting box of chocolate delivered every month, for as long as you like!

If you find anything that needs adjusting, or if you're missing something from the old site that didn't find its way over, send me an email or leave it as a comment.

You'll also find a new flavor - just for Valentine's - Strawberries and Champagne. It's a milk chocolate ganache studded with strawberries and spiked with champagne, in a dark chocolate shell with a little popping surprise inside. (don't worry, they're just Pop Rocks).

New Winter Shipping Rates

From now until probably mid-March, the shipping for US Priority Mail has been reduced! Because the insulated mailers aren't really a necessity during the winter, LØVE Chocolate packages weigh less, and cost less to ship. So go out there and shop with abandon, your shipping's half price!


Also, don't forget to throw a LØVE Chocolate coffee mug or apron into the gift box. Come on, you know it's a great logo, go on and wear it.

The easy way to give chocolate.

So maybe you've got this friend. And maybe this friend loves chocolate, but only certain kinds. Maybe you'd like to give them some chocolate this year for Christmas/Chanukah/Birthday/Bad Day at Work/Good Day at Work/New Years. But maybe you don't know which certain kinds of chocolate your friend likes.

See where I'm going here? Get them a gift certificate!

You can either go through this button, or the buttons located on the store page or the products page.. The gift certificates are through PayPal, so your recipient will have to register to use it, but it's a quick and painless process, and the reward is chocolate. How could that ever be wrong?

It's the gift that keeps on givin'

My family is more than a little obsessed with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We watch it every Christmas, and some quote from the movie comes up in our conversation often. Part of it is that we have family members who are eerily similar to Clark's relatives. So it seemed a natural fit to come up with my own "jams and jellies of the month club".

Of course it's not jams and jellies, it's chocolate! That's right, you too can have a Nearly Never-ending Supply of Chocolate!

I'd toyed with the idea before, but after a failed attempt to pick up the new Harry Potter book - we'd pre-ordered, but they were making everyone go through the same checkout line and only using two registers. Bad planning people, bad bad planning. The line literally snaked through the entire perimeter of the big bookstore and out into the mall. I'm not saying I was terribly surprised (although this is a small town, and half of it thinks that fictional books about wizards will still lead you straight to hell). But still, I didn't stay to wait it out in the line.

Back home, bookless and awake, I started thinking about chocolate. What sort of flavors would I include? After about five minutes of brainstorming, I said - wake up, silly - why not just get going on this right now? That's how I found myself writing code at 2 am, adding a new page to the website and coming up with an excellent list of flavors.

The lesson I learned from the whole night was - don't wait. If you have a good idea, write it down at the very least, and do more than that if you can. If not, some of the best ideas you have will slip away and be lost among all the little mundane things your brain must think about.

Even More New Stuff!

I've been a busy chocolatier. Thanks to the good people at cafépress, you are now able to purchase LØVE logo-ed mugs, magnets, t-shirts and more. You can check it out by going to my website and clicking on store. There's a link at the bottom of the page (that would be after you go and vote for a new flavor!). Or, you can just click here.

There are more designs to come, ones with witty phrases and clever little smears of chocolate, so keep checking. Also in the categories of more designs, I'm working on a tea-flavored line of chocolates. There's a little tearoom in the town where I live, and I'm hoping to do a little marketing with them. Cross your fingers, and I'll let you know when they're available for ordering on the website.

New Retail Location

I'm very excited to tell you that you can now find LØVE Chocolates at the Randolph Arts Guild. If you're from Asheboro or just passing through, I hope you'll stop by and pick up a box!

the doctor is in.

Don't you just love it when science proves something you've known all along? Anybody who has ever taken a bite of rich, dark chocolate and felt that little rush knows that chocolate is essential for well being. The way it slides around in your mouth, the way it fills your nose with that divine smell, how could that ever be wrong?

In the spirit of good health and happiness, I've added a box of chocolate squares to the collection. They're created using an antique circus-themed mold - so each square has a different circus character molded into the face ( like high-class animal crackers!) - and they're about 5 grams each, the approximate size of the daily dose recommended in the study.

Why are you still here? :) Go order some now!

Gettin' Hitched

No, not me. Haha. Right. In that instance, the idea seems to be, "always the caterer, never the bride". But it's something I think about a lot. Again, not exactly what you might be thinking - I'm actually one of those rare ladies that has never imagined her wedding, or picked out her dress - although I have found the ring (but I plan on buying it for myself if things don't go in that direction).

I'm talking about the wedding industry. There's been a lot of talk lately about the high price of weddings and the tendency of people to capitalize on the willingness of brides and parents to pay for it all. There's even a counter culture of brides who , "trash their dress" - but really, isn't this just another way to sell more photography time? I'm not really bashing it - I think it's just a logical extension of a wedding day - every girl wants to be a princess on her special day, and she'd also like to be a fashion model, pouting and preening in a fountain or a dingy alley. So where does it end? At what point do you stop feeling like you're providing a legitimate service, and start feeling like you're fueling a raging fire of emotions and fleecing little Susie out of one more dime she could have spent on her mortgage?

It's a question I struggle with, because I am aiming at the wedding market. In the slow months after Valentine's and before the holiday season starts up, wedding season is the respite of the struggling chocolatier. Who doesn't want a perfect little box of truffles with their new initial waiting at the table for their guests? And what makes a better thank you to all the friends and family that have put up with your antics for the past months than a big, indulgent box of chocolates? (and maybe a thank you note) But will I become part of the greedy masses, trumping up the idea of perfection to a starry-eyed consumer?

I'd like to think that I won't. I think most people who know me would agree - I'm a decent sort, and I'm not out to fleece anyone. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that everyone in this industry is - I know there are lots of people who really are interested in making someone else's day special, and they're not interested in gouging simply because it's a wedding. But one can't ignore the fact that there are some services that may be the same (i.e. a limousine) that cost extra when the intended recipient is a bride.

So now that I've had my say, why don't you order some truffles for your wedding?

New Flavors

We've been having storms almost every afternoon, which has put me in the mood for comfort flavors. One of my favorite candies from school was a chocolate carrè. Carrè means square in French, and these are little chocolate squares with a filling of chocolate and praline paste and feuilletine (little flaky crispy bits). Because I like peanut butter better than praline paste, I've recreated the carrès with peanut butter. If I don't eat them all, they're now for sale on the website alone and in combination with two other new flavors I made today, Banana Cream Pie, and Cafè au Lait.

Two years ago, I was in NYC, sitting on a rooftop bar with a date, trying my very first mojito. In the spirit of rememberance, and just because they're so tasty, I've created the Mint Mojito Cream - minty buttercream with a dash of lime and a "kick". It won't get you tipsy, but it will certainly refresh you on one of these ridiculously hot days.

Bacon and Chocolate

I was sifting through some blogs yesterday, and came across this story, Chocolate and... Bacon? , about a new chocolate bar by Vosges Haut-Chocolat with bacon. I have to say, this is not my first encounter with chocolate covered bacon. When I was a baby pastry chef at the FCI, my chef-instructor made little chocolate covered bacon candies as well as a red wine truffle. The truffle was not particularly good, but the bacon, was fantastic. It was a thick slice of bacon, cut into 1 cm pieces and cooked slowly until it was crisp-chewy. After the pieces were cooled, they were enrobed in dark chocolate. You couldn't eat more than one piece, it was pretty rich, but man, it was tasty.

Revisiting the bacon-chocolate issue made me think about my own weird flavors. In my line, I have several unusual combinations. In fact, I've made it part of my philosophy to find those good, unexpected combinations and make them. I started with salt and chocolate (the Sea Salt Caramel) and added pepper and chocolate (Pink Peppercorn Caramel) to balance the combination. It took many attempts to get it right, but I'm pretty pleased with the final result.

For me, chocolate is about a moment. I'd rather have one amazing piece of chocolate than a whole box full of something mediocre. With my candies, I hope I can re-create that for someone else. I'm trying to find that balance between unique flavor combinations and classic ones. I don't want them to be overpoweringly rich, but I'd like to find that a person savors each piece, instead of eating them quickly.

So, if you're reading, please, tell me, what are your favorite weird flavor combinations? (ideally they'd include chocolate, but all submissions are interesting!)