Review - Diane Krön Drinking Chocolate

Wandering in Beverly Hills with a friend of mine, we stumbled across a tiny chocolate shop tucked away in the corner of a retail building on Santa Monica Blvd. I had never heard of them before. The sign was a little mysterious - "K Chocolatier".

I have since learned that K Chocolatier is owned by Diane Krön, who, over the years, has had clients such as Jackie Kennedy, Estee Lauder, Gregory Peck and Andy Warhol, to name a few. While in the store, we sampled some truffles they had at the counter, which were great. Browsing the shelves, I picked up a bag of their drinking chocolate.

I tried to do a little research and learn where their chocolate comes from - if it comes from a supplier, such as Varlhona, or if they create chocolate bean-to-bar. I couldn't find any information on this, and as of this writing, they haven't responded to my email inquiry. But I did learn that one of the things they do try to do is use less sugar than most commercial chocolatiers. That's always good news!

It came in a simple bag with an instruction card stapled to the top of it.

The mix itself is definitely more of a crumbled, ground chocolate rather than a powder. It clumps together and smells wonderful. Don't worry about the clumps, they melt easily and quickly.

I made mine with 2% milk, and it was magnificent. Creamy and good, a delicious dark chocolate flavor, not overly fruity like some of the expensive artisan chocolates. Just solid, clean dark chocolate flavor. They have a shop in Malibu, as well, and if you happen to be near either store, I'd advise picking some up. I know I'll be grabbing some more!

Review - Ticket Kitchen Hot Chocolate on a Stick

If you can eat it, someone has put it on stick. I suppose that goes for things you can drink, too. Which brings us to this - hot chocolate on a stick!

Hot chocolate on a stick has been turning up all over the place lately, especially on Etsy. It's a great, creative way to give something different and delicious as a gift. Of course, commercial chocolatiers have gotten in on the fun, and this is the first one I tried. It's a five pack from the Ticket Kitchen in San Francisco.

They're doing some very interesting things with their hot chocolates there at Ticket! Check out some of their flavors. If you don't see one you like, go ahead and suggest one! They also sell all their hot chocolates in whatever serving sizes you may need, whether you're just hanging out by yourself or hosting a party.

The pack I bought has two flavors, French Truffle and Three Chili. I tried the French Truffle for this review. As is becoming standard with gourmet hot chocolates, they give you two different sets of instructions for making it, American style and European style. I tend to like the European. It's thick, using half the liquid that American style uses, and it uses water instead of milk, which really lets the flavor of the chocolate come through undiluted.

I used my melting mug for this one, since it is perfectly sized for smaller European style portions. Quickly boiled some water and set this little square of perfection right down into the mug.

The melting was interesting. It took a little longer than it would have taken on the stove, which of course was to be expected since I removed the water from the heat and put it in the mug.

I waited patiently until it was completely smooth to taste even the tiniest bit. Wow, what a great hot chocolate! The French Truffle flavor is great, it tastes like a rich, vanilla bon bon melted into a liquid. Absolutely delicious and worth ordering!

If you do go and order some, and they happen to have one of those "how did you hear of us" sections on their order form, be sure to tell them the Melting Mug sent you! And if you try a different flavor than I did, please let me know what you thought of it. I'm very curious about their other amazing selections.

Recipe - Double Spiced Hot Chocolate

This recipe, in my opinion, is the ultimate relaxing hot chocolate.

The "double spices" in the name are cinnamon and cloves. I was originally introduced to this recipe in Michael Turback's book "Hot Chocolate". There's a ton of great recipes in this book, and I'll be going over a lot of them. I've made a couple tiny changes to my version of this recipe from what he has in the book, but for the most part, they're close to the same.

When I was growing up, every Christmas, my mother would push cloves into lemons and leave them in bowls around the house. It smelled so good! This hot chocolate captures a bit of that, along with the comfort of being indoors, nice and warm, on a cold night.

Put some slippers on and get out your whisk. Here's what we need to make this:

1 cup milk (2% or whole)
3 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate (60%-77%)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp powdered sugar

 I'm using Scharffen Berger 70% bittersweet chocolate. This is my favorite chocolate to chop and use for hot chocolate recipes, both their 70% and their 62%. Where I live, I can usually find the bars in the baking section of some grocery stores. If they're not available in any stores by you, they are worth ordering online. For now, though, use whatever dark chocolate you have.

I also made a whipped cream to top this with, since I've run out of homemade marshmallows. Just 1/2 a cup of heavy cream, and about halfway through whipping it I added 1 tsp of vanilla and just under 1 tbsp of powdered sugar. That's a tasty, basic whipped cream. Just whip it until it becomes fluffy. Usually I use my electric beaters and it goes pretty quickly. This time I tried it with a whisk. Ugh. Never again! Electricity is awesome.

Heat up the milk, as usual, to just below boiling. While it's warming, I measure out the rest of the ingredients. The chocolate first, then I just drop the spices right into the measuring cup with the chocolate. Once the milk is ready to go, pour it all in slowly while whisking.

That clove and cinnamon is going to smell strong and delicious! If it's too strong and thick for your tastes, try 2 oz of chocolate instead of 3 oz.

I garnished it with the whipped cream, a little chopped chocolate, and a stick of cinnamon (which fell into the cup as the whipped cream melted). Served with some shortbread cookies, this is the most amazing thing when sitting down in the evening to read a good book or watch a favorite movie.

Review - MarieBelle Aztec Hot Chocolate

I'm not only going to post recipes and experiments, I'm also going to review hot chocolate mixes that I find. Anything different or gourmet, or just anything I've not seen or tried before. I'll always give my honest opinion, of course, but as a disclaimer, I should mention that most reviews are probably going to be relatively positive. I just love this stuff so much, even the bad ones aren't really that bad!

The first one I want to review is one of the first really high quality hot chocolates I tasted, MarieBelle Aztec Hot Chocolate. Drinking this was when I realized that by drinking packet mix for all those years, I was doing it all wrong. 

I got this when my girlfriend and I visited the Winchester Mystery House in December. (She is also responsible for all the great photos on this blog.) There was a huge MarieBelle display in their gift shop, and I’d never heard of them before. It looked very fancy and Parisian, so I took a chance and bought the big 20oz tin of hot chocolate.

It turns out that MarieBelle is a chocolate shop in New York (and Kyoto, Japan) founded by chocolate maker Maribel Lieberman. They make delicate little chocolates and confections, and the store in New York has a Cacao Bar and Tea Salon. That Cacao Bar sounds amazing, and you can bet I'll be there when I next visit New York! 

You can see the mix isn't really a powder mix at all, but chopped chocolate. It's single origin 60% Colombian chocolate. Single origin means that the cacao beans that made this chocolate all come from the same region, or in some cases, the same farm. I'm guessing the "Aztec" in the name pertains to the fact that Colombia was maybe once a home of the Aztec people? I thought Aztecs were mainly in Mexico, in which case, I have no idea why this is called "Aztec". The other ingredients are what you'd expect - sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, etc... However, it also has potato starch listed. Perhaps to reduce binding, or for a smooth texture? If you know why potato starch would be used, please let me know.

 

On the side of the tin are instructions for making the drink in a European style and an American style. Comparing them, the only difference is that the American version uses about 50% less of the chocolate. Naturally, I went for the European. I'm all for as much chocolate as possible! It uses water, like the last recipe I posted, which allows the full strength of the chocolate flavor to come through.
 

This hot chocolate is just amazing! So rich, so delicious, and it's thick, like cream soup, so bring a spoon. It's really smooth, even though I could see it didn't melt completely. Tiny particles of soft chocolate clung to the sides of the mug as I drank it. Maybe I should have whisked it a bit more. It certainly wasn't unpleasant, though. Just the opposite! It's amazing and rich, just a very concentrated, perfect flavor. If hot chocolate this strong isn't your thing, make the MarieBelle Aztec using the American instructions.

I've had a lot of hot chocolates before deciding to start this blog, and this is an exceptional one and a definite favorite. When I have a tin of it in my pantry, I treasure it and save it for the most relaxing of weekend evenings.

You can order it from their website or sometimes at Amazon. And you should do that. Right now.

MarieBelle
https://www.mariebelle.com/ 

Also, the Winchester Mystery House is bizarre and amazing, go check it out if you're in the San Jose area.