Tweet Sweet

CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!

Originally uploaded by lesliebyk.

So in a previous post, I mentioned Jean Phillippe Patisserie in Las Vegas as a great place to get hot chocolate (From a USA Today review, ring a bell?). That’s all well, and great… but what I didn’t mention was that it is also the home of the world’s largest chocolate fountain. Yes, yes, I know, it’s always the little details that I forget.

Bellagio webpage described the Patisserie as “A mesmerizing fountain of cascading liquid chocolate awaits you at the Jean-Philippe Patisserie. Delight the imagination as well as the appetite, with an incredible selection of sweet and savory items including chocolates, cookies, cakes, crepes, salads, sandwiches and much more.”

Can you say TOTALLY Las Vegas? Designed by award-winning Executive Pastry Chef Jean-Philippe Maury and Norwood and Antonia Oliver Design Associates, Inc., the fountain took a year and a half in planning and design. The result is a genius work of kinetic sculpture and a daring feat of engineering. Standing 27-feet tall, the masterpiece circulates nearly two tons of melted dark, milk and white chocolate at a rate of 120 quarts per minute. (Did I say TWO TONS? Yes, I did.) Now if that isn’t a draw for a small little chocolate shop like Tweet Sweet, I don’t think anything would get people in the door.

To read more about the fountain, visit the Press Release on the Bellagio’s website. For more photos, head on over to this link on the eGullet Society’s message board.

chocolate + beets

Originally uploaded by antimega.

Now here’s an interesting dessert combination - the picture looked lovely, but how did it taste? Well I suppose if it made this flickr poster “giggle like a little girl” it had to be pretty good, don’t you think?

Experimenting with interesting conversation food is a sure way to spread the news about Tweet Sweet.

Chocolate Boyfriend

Originally uploaded by GreenThorns.

Here’s something interesting for you ladies. Your own chocolate boyfriend. This was a great picture that I ran across on Flickr and had to blog about it.

The packaging reads “My boyfriend really makes me drool. He’s a hotty! Super cool! But if he changes his mind and splits, I’ll chew him into little bits.

Eat him up just the way he is! All natural solid Belgian milk chocolate. If he gets any hotter, he’ll melt.”

And guys you’re not left out either… you can get a chocolate girlfriend as well. Find them both online at Le Gourmet Chef.

So I don’t know if anyone senses the irony that the first two test locations of “Showcolate” franchises from Brazilian company Showcolate Fondue Express are funded by Gary Findley, the former president of Curves International. (A diet and fitness business which has 10,000 locations nationwide) Perhaps he, better than most, knows the power of chocolate.

Findley has opened two franchises in Texas - the Lakeshore Times reports - to test the model claiming that “this is the next Dipping dots, pretzels or yogurt. This is something you may not just see at malls, but in airports, them parks and possibly in some grocery stores.”

Showcolate’s home page touts its franchises that operate from state-of-the-art kiosks and are designed for retail malls at prime locations. Kiosks feature showcolate’s famous chocolate-spinning wheels and serve up products consisting of selected fresh fruits and fine chocolates.

And if this paragraph from their home page doesn’t have you plunking over the $100K to reserve your franchise, nothing will: “Imagine a cascade of chocolate pouring over fresh fruit - the appealing aroma of refined chocolate fondue filling the air and enticing your senses. This dream is now a reality with Showcolate, a franchise business now available for the U.S. market that will have chocolate lovers asking for more!”

After my experience at The Melting Pot, I’m all over this fondue-thing. In a mall kiosk? I’m not so sure of… but I can only image that smell of chocolate permiating the mall and drawing people from every corner. I bet it’ll be a sure winner.

Here’s a YouTube movie I found that displays showcolate’s famous chocolate-spinning wheels:

“Our chocolate should be savored with all senses. Listen to the most romantic music, watch it like a child’s fantasy that turns into reality, smell it like the rarest of perfumes, dip your fingers into it and lick it slowly and passionately. Make love to it. Enjoy to the Max.” Reads the back half of the “sweets” menu for Max Brenner’s new chocolate bar off New York’s Union Square called Chocolate By The Bald Man.

Apparently the “Bald” theme is carried by the waiters (who are bald according to a blog I found about their Manila location) and their primary drinking mug that looks like a bald head (called the “hug mug” because your hands hug around it).

So my first notice of this shop was an article talking about it in Yahoo news. I always check the most popular news on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis to see what news people are looking at the most. Apparently the new glitzy new Union Square location is part retail sweetshop, part café, and 100% all slickly packaged cocoa- scented theme park.

Since I haven’t been there, I don’t have much to say - other than the Max Brenner website was a fun visit (There is no “Max Brenner” by-the-way - it’s more of a Wonka-like persona created by the combination of it’s founders names - Max Fichtman and Oded Brenner), so I’ll leave you to the review in the New Yorker who didn’t seem to like the place, but gave a good explanation of it’s ambiance. Stephen Weiss in New York City gave the place less of a lashing in his review, and described the ambiance and included photos. While the New Yorker may have not liked it (nose in air) any search in Yahoo or Google will turn up rave reviews from nearly everyone else who’s been there, including this one from Kimbie in Melbourne, Aus, or Amanda in Sydney, Aus, or even “Mrs. Bee” in NYC. (Hey, that rhymed.)

This one is a SURE visit on my next trip to New York.

Chocolate by the Bald Man (Max Brenner)
- 841 Broadway New York, NY 10003 (now open)
- 141 2nd Avenue New York, NY 10003- 8315 (opening soon)

Sounds like this concept is sweeping the world… (oh, and their colors are the colors I planned for Tweet Sweet! Hmmm.) Looks like a fun place!

The Oregonian reports that the Red Fox Bakery in McMinnville, Oregon produces whopping chocolate studded pumpkin seed cookies under the rationale that the pumpkin seeds are wholesome and nutritious. But with nearly each cookie containing an ounce of Bernard Callebaut bittersweet chocolate, this cookie loses its status as health food. The pumpkin seeds are actually mixed in to lend an unusual texture that contrasts with the silky chocolate.

It sounds like an excellent cookie, and an especially good one to release around Halloween time when we’re all gutting helpless pumpkins. (I bake the seeds myself - I love em!)

Red Fox Bakery
328 NE Third Street
McMinnville, OR 97128
Phone: 503-434-5098
Contact: Laurie Furch, Owner

So I was reading the site for the Bloomer Chocolate Company, and ran across a link on their contact us page that sent me to the National Cocoa Shell’s website.

Cocoa shell mulch, also called cocoa mulch, cocoa bean mulch, cocoa bean shell mulch, or cocoa bean hull mulch is made from the shells that come off the bean during the roasting process. The shells are separated from the beans by strong air action and bagged by the National Cocoa Shell company for mulching gardens.

The mulch lasts longer, smells better, gets darker with age, and provides various nutrients beneficial to plants and the soil. It retains moisture better than regular mulch and is an excellent insulator for root systems in winter and summer. The only down-side? The sweet chocolate aroma only lasts 2-3 weeks.

I remember seeing this in an Asian-themed garden at my local garden center (Wasatch Shadows) when I went to view some plants for my landscaping project earlier this summer. It has quite a unique look, and a nice dark brown color. Check your local nursery for it… perhaps your garden might like a little chocolate as well.

I ran across a rather comical article in Yahoo news:

Kenneth Affolter admitted to managing marijuana crops with the intention of manufacturing and distributing a range of joke candy and soft-drinks spiked with marijuana that parodied well-known brands. US Federal Agents raided warehouses registered to a company known as ‘Beyond Bomb’, and seized items with labels including ‘Munchy Way’, ‘Pot Tarts’, ‘Puffsi’ ‘Buddahfingers’, ‘Rasta Reece’s’, ‘Puff-a-Mint Pattie’ and ‘Toka-Cola.’

Medical marijuana advocates say the treats are legal under state law and are designed for sick patients who rely on cannabis to ease their symptoms. DEA officials operate under federal law, which deems marijuana in any form to be illegal.

You gotta give it to them on the creative side though, it makes one wonder how close the parodied candies were to the original? Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent in Charge Javier Pena had this to say about it - “While real candy may give you cavities, these individuals know that marijuana candy can get you jail time.”

So I ran across and article written by Deborah Markus (BellaOnline’s “Chocolate Editor”… what a job!) on drinking chocolate when doing a search on Yahoo. So how does Drinking Chocolate vary from Hot Cocoa? Deborah explains that Hot Cocoa is and instant powder that produces a “sickly over-sweet” drink by adding either hot water or hot milk as required. But “drinking chocolate” is “thick, slow, and luscious, and it must be made from solid chocolate.”

Want a more technical explantion of the difference? Check out this tidbit from 101cookbooks.com: “Some are confused about the difference between hot cocoa and drinking chocolates. One of my Seattle-based readers kindly offered up this well articulated explanation for the difference between cocoa and drinking chocolates:”Cocoa is derived from chocolate liquor - the professional term for unsweetened baking chocolate. Cocoa powder is chocolate liquor that has been pressed to remove half to three-quarters of its fat and then pulverized. A hydraulic press, designed by the Dutchman C. J. Van Houten in the 19th century, removes fat while leaving solids behind. Cocoa has a strong chocolate flavor and is easy to incorporate into other ingredients.” Cocoa will give you difference texture, taste, and mouth feel.” Check out the whole article entitled Drinkable Chocolate List. The writer, Heidi Swanson rates 18 drinkable chocolate brands, and votes Couverture the best overall. (“No doubt about it.” she says.)

Markus ran across an old recipe in an old cookbook: “Break a one-ounce square of unsweetened chocolate in half. Put half of it away; break up the other half with a butter knife and put the fragments into a small, heavy-bottomed pot (or the top of a double boiler, if you’re nervous). Add two tablespoons hot water; cook and stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture is smooth.

Stir in a generous tablespoon of sugar; continue cooking until this is completely dissolved. Lower the heat, then slowly add one measuring cup of hot milk, stirring constantly. When this is smooth, add a quarter to a half teaspoon of real vanilla. Let this cook about five minutes over the lowest possible heat, stirring frequently.”

Here’s another recipe from Drinksmixer.com that uses a vanilla bean and cinnamon in cream: Drinking Chocolate First cold day that comes along, I’ll report what I think. Yum!

So if you’ve never been over to Engrish.com, you don’t know what kind of laughs that you’re missing. “Engrish” (yes, spelled with an “R”) is the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design. Since most of the English included on packaging is not an attempt to communicate, but more for its “modern” look and feel, it’s not always checked for grammatical accuracy.

When I visited China last year I saw my fair share of “Engrish” located on signs, packaging and various menus and such around town. Engrish.com includes several halarious sections including those that include “Sweets”:

Engrish Candy Packaging
Engrish Chocolate Packaging
Engrish Gum