Review - ZenBunni Chocolate

 

Well, this chocolate was certainly an learning adventure. I hope you're ready for something you've never heard of before, because this is about as original as it gets. Here in Los Angeles there's a trendy little street called Abbot Kinney. Lots of artsy places, stores carrying handcrafted products, and a coffee shop or two. And, happily, a little cubby hole of a chocolate shop called ZenBunni.

ZenBunni is a biodynamic chocolate company in Venice, CA, established in 2007. This was the first time I've ever come across the word biodynamic in relation to chocolate. Reading their website about how they source all their ingredients, I learned that biodynamic farming involves spraying the soil with crystal-infused water and takes into account the "influences and the rhythms of the sun, moon, and planets". The name ZenBunni comes directly from the two founders, Bunni and Zen. Everything they use is organic, raw, vegan, gluten free, and free of any refined sugars. Yep, I said raw. Meaning they do not roast their cocoa beans. And when they grind them, they do it slower, so the temperature doesn't get as high as it does with typical cacao processing. Heck, they even use omnidegradable packaging with vegetable ink!

The packages also have little descriptions on them of symptoms or issues that each chocolate should help with. For example, Mocha Mucha says it helps with fat burning, brain activating, cardiovascular protection, and increasing energy. I'm not sure if a tiny chocolate bar can really help with these types of things, but hey, who am I to judge.



I picked up a few bars during my first visit. Mucha Mocha, which includes biodynamic and organic hand-ground espresso, maple crystals, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery (and seems to now be called Mystic Mocha). Kathmandu Chai has biodynamic and organic ashwaganda, tulsi, vanilla, zenbunni chai spices, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery. Lavender Lamuria, which contains biodynamic and organic lavender flowers, salt, lavender labyrinth oil, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery.

So you can see there's a lot of unconventional ingredients in there. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. It's kind of neat and fun. The flavors are definitely original and the chocolate itself has a nice, not too sweet flavor. While all the ones I picked up were 70% chocolate, they taste like they could be 75%. Hopefully you also noticed in those ingredient lists above, instead of sugar, they are sweetened with cane jaggery. Basically, it's the boiled and reduced juice from sugar cane. Same raw materials as regular sugar, just not refined as much.

The bars are tiny, which makes them a bit expensive for their size, since they are $3 a bar.









I'm using two bars of their Original Topanga to make a drinking chocolate. While making the drink, it created an excellent froth, even though I used 2% milk. I tend to think a good froth is a result of using real chocolate, because the cocoa butter is still in there, which is the fat of the cacao bean. I have no idea if that's correct, it just seems to be what I've discovered. If I use cocoa powder as the main chocolate ingredient in a drink, it never froths. If I use whole chocolate, it usually will.

The drink is delicious! It's not very sweet and has a slight nuttiness, with just the slightest notes of almond. It also has a very creamy flavor, typical of drinks where I add some heavy cream to the milk. It's very pleasant to drink, and would make a wonderful midday or after dinner drinking chocolate.

And at this point, I was actually going to publish this post. Then, before I could, at my wife's workplace Christmas dinner, her coworker Angela surprised us with gifts of ZenBunni's actual packaged drinking chocolate! When I had visited, they hadn't yet been making this product. We left with the Kathmandu Chai Coco. I've enjoyed chai-infused drinking chocolates here on the blog before, and once I opened this package, like the other ones, I was blown away! The aroma of that chocolate mixed with the complexity of the chai spices is just magical. 

The packaging is extraordinary! Amazing artwork on the front, while the back has a bit of a Harry Potter feel, complete with a magical tale of creating the drink in a stupa high in the mountains overlooking Kathmandu.

In the instructions, they mention adding in a touch of grass fed butter or ghee. I made it as recommended, and even added that spoonful of butter made from the milk of grass fed cows.

Wow, creamy and amazing! Putting the butter in, I was a bit skeptical that I would be able to notice it, but in the time since my first mug of the drink, I've made it without the butter, and I really think it made it much creamier. It's really a wonderful drink, very relaxing and aromatic, and definitely out of the range of ordinary hot chocolates. They also have a Shiva Rose Coco, and I can't wait to have a sip of that! 

This drinking chocolate is definitely recommended, and if you order, be sure and mention you heard about them here on Melting Mug. And if you try it, please come back and let me know what you thought of it. 

Recipe - Toffee Hot Chocolate

Besides writing my own blog, naturally I follow a few other chocolate blogs. Cortney over at The Chocolate Tourist is doing all kinds of fun things regarding chocolate. Equal parts chocolate reviews, recipes, book reviews, travel blogging, and informational posts, I contacted her a few weeks ago to ask if I could link to her blog from mine. She surprised me by not only agreeing, but asking me to join her for an interview and to present a recipe on her Monday Mug series!

Of course I agreed! What fun! After a little back and forth on what to do, we finally decided on a recipe for toffee hot chocolate. She wanted to post in honor of Father's Day, and her father loves Heath bars.

You can see her post by clicking HERE to head over to The Chocolate Tourist, or you can watch the video right here.

We had a great time hanging out and talking about chocolate. It's great to chat with someone who has the same passion for all of the amazing varieties of chocolate out there in the world.

In the video, I mention a place in Amsterdam that had wonderful hot chocolate, served in the perfect fashion. I couldn't remember the name of the place while we were doing the interview, but the name of the place is Bagels & Beans.

I think it's a small chain of shops there in Amsterdam, and it was definitely one of the best hot chocolates I had while I was there. One of these days I'll have to do a post on every place I visited. There is certainly no shortage of amazing hot chocolate in Amsterdam!

Let's get back to that toffee hot chocolate. In case the video went too fast for you, here's what you'll need:

1 cup of milk (whole or 2%)
2 tbsp toffee
2 tsp cocoa powder

Pretty simple set of ingredients. Heat the milk, add in the toffee, and stir until it's incorporated. It's going to take a few minutes for that toffee to melt, and it's going to stick to whatever you're stirring with. It gets pretty gooey. Just keep going, eventually it will all dissolve. Then add the cocoa powder, top with whipped cream and a crushed up Heath bar (or toffee pieces), and enjoy.

You can absolutely use toffee you buy at the store. If it comes coated in chocolate, maybe add a little more than listed above. However, if you want to really do it right, you can make your own toffee. I spent a week working out how to make some great easy toffee, and it's delicious.

Toffee Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter
1¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp corn syrup

Mix everything together in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the sugar is dissolved, stop stirring. Using a kitchen brush dipped in water, wash all the undissolved sugar from the inside walls of the saucepan. Those crystals will gunk up the toffee later on if you don't wipe them away. Once the sides are clean, put a candy thermometer into the mixture and let it boil until it reaches about 280 degrees.

While you're waiting for it to reach 280, take a small pan and line it with aluminum foil. Dip a paper towel in some butter and grease the aluminum foil with it. Toffee sticks to everything pretty good, this will help separate it later.

When it reaches 280, it should be a slight golden brownish color. Take it off the heat and immediately, very carefully, pour it out onto the greased pan. It is extremely hot, so be careful not to splash it or touch it in any way. Tap the pan on the counter a few times so it spreads out a bit, then let it cool for 30-45 minutes or until its ok to touch.

Because I was using mine as an ingredient in hot chocolate (and as a topping), I broke it into large pieces, put those pieces into ziplock baggies, and smashed it up as small as I could get it.

So try it out, let me know what you think! And check out The Chocolate Tourist. It's definitely a blog worth following!

Recipe - Maple Hot Chocolate

Truer words were never spoken.

This time, we're adding some maple into the cup with that chocolate we love so much. This is a great variation on a normal, milder hot chocolate. When I first stumbled upon some recipes, I thought it would be way too sweet to be any good. Boy, was I wrong! The chocolate is light, the maple isn't overpowering, and this cup is just plain delicious. It's the kind of hot chocolate that I think of as a breakfast hot chocolate rather than a dessert hot chocolate. In fact, it's one of the few I've made that my girlfriend asked for more of!

Let's get it on!

Here's what we need:

1 cup milk (2% or whole)
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp REAL maple syrup (no corn syrup!)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract










Crazy ingredients list, huh? I know you're wondering "Butter?!" Yep, butter. And I'm serious about the real maple syrup. If it's not 100% real, it's just flavored corn syrup. If you're gonna use that, you may as well just make your hot chocolate from a paper packet.

Real maple syrup not only tastes better, it's better for you. Of course, like any sweetener, you should use it in moderation, but seriously, if you're at the store and you're buying syrup that tastes like the sap of a tree, why not buy the real sap? Save the corn syrup for marshmallows!

And what's that weird box in the ingredients picture? Let me show you!

Polish cocoa powder! I've been coming across many cocoa powders from different countries in the international markets around town, and I've been snapping them up as more interesting options than just the standard American cocoa powders (mainly Hershey's, which I'm betting is what everyone has in their house).

Wawel is Polish chocolate maker, and that artwork on their box is just awesome! Did they put chunks of chocolate on it, or cacao pods? No! They put ancient warships battling on it! Actually, I have no idea if those are warships, or if they're battling, but it's awesome nonetheless.

Add the tablespoon of water into the milk and heat it up. While that's warming, measure out the remaining ingredients. Keep the maple syrup separate from the others - we'll add it last. Once the milk is nice and hot, but not boiling, go ahead and add the brown sugar, cocoa, butter, and vanilla. Whisk it together until there are no clumps of cocoa powder and the butter is completely melted. Then finally, turn off the heat and mix in the maple syrup. Once that's in, you're good to go!

I recently got a few retro hot cocoa branded mugs from ebay, so you'll be seeing them pop up on here, regardless of what hot chocolate I'm pouring into them. This Carnation one is filled with maritime battle-worthy cocoa powder and the blood of trees! Try it out, let me know what you think!