Tag Archives: San Francisco chocolate

Love Birds and The Chemistry of Love

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The Love Birds box.
The Love Birds box.

I doubt if anyone ever needs an excuse to indulge in Recchiuti chocolates. But with Valentine’s Day coming up, you indeed have the perfect reason to treat yourself or someone you love to some of the finest artisan chocolate confections around.

For more than two decades, Michael Recchiuti has been making exquisite chocolates by hand with flavoring ingredients sourced seasonally from Bay Area farmers markets.

You can find the confections at the Recchiuti storefront at the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the retail shop, Recchiuti at the Lab, in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. Or you can shop on its own web store.

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I was lucky enough to receive samples to try of two holiday offerings.

The Love Birds Truffle Box ($48) is a collection of 16 pieces, an assortment of the most popular flavors, including Tarragon Grapefruit, Pearl Mint Tea, and Piedmont Hazelnut.

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Chocolate and Tequila For Valentine’s Day

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It's like two treats in one.

It’s like two treats in one.

 

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, TCHO, Berkeley’s bean-to-bar chocolate maker, has injected a little boozy fun and deliciousness into its artisan bars.

It has teamed with Jose Cuervo to add that renowned spirits maker’s reserve tequila, Reserva de la Familia, into TCHO’s distinctive tile chocolates.

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Forget Black Friday; Make It A Brown One (As In Chocolate) Instead

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Yes, this is pretty much how I ate this fantastic spread.

Yes, this is pretty much how I ate this fantastic spread.

 

See that hazelnut spread above?

I’d like to tell you that I came up with all sorts of inventive ways to use it in baking. But the truth is that I ate that entire jar of Nuubia Hazelnut Spread simply by the languid spoonful, day after day, until it was emptied.

I’m not ashamed. Because it was that irresistible.

So forget braving the malls today. Just do yourself a favor and go Nuubia’s online site to order a jar instead — for yourself or your chocoholic friends. Or take a trip to the Nuubia store/cafe, which just opened this year in the lobby of the Twitter building in San Francisco, or to its Pleasanton headquarters that has an artisan kitchen.

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San Francisco Landmarks Rendered in Chocolate

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The San Francisco Landmarks Box.

The San Francisco Landmarks Box.

You may have eaten your way around San Francisco. But have you eaten San Francisco?

Recchiuti Confections actually makes that possible in the most decadent way.

Its new San Francisco Landmarks Box is the perfect souvenir for locals or visitors. Inside are eight signature Burndt Caramel Caramel Truffles, depicting four San Francisco landmarks: Coit Tower, Sutro Tower, a trolley, and the Golden Gate Conservatory.

The new chocolate box is in partnership with Creativity Explored, a Mission District non-profit that supports artists with developmental disabilities to help them create, sell and display their art. Two dollars from the sale of each $21 box goes to that organization.

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‘Tis the Season for Chocolate

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TCHO Drinking Chocolate makes for an exquisite cup of chocolate goodness.

TCHO Drinking Chocolate makes for an exquisite cup of chocolate goodness.

 

Really, what would the holiday season be without some fine chocolate?

Not nearly as sweetly satisfying, that’s for sure.

Here are some recent samples that I’ve enjoyed trying that would make ideal stocking-stuffers for the chocoholics in your life.

TCHO Drinking Chocolate Crumbles

They look like little dusty pebbles of chocolate, but what’s in this canister of TCHO Drinking Chocolate Crumbles holds the key to one of the most luxurious tasting cocoas around.

Made by San Francisco’s TCHO chocolate company, this product is made from cocoa beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, lecithin and vanilla bean. Just add a couple of tablespoons to an espresso cup of hot water, and stir. The result is an incredibly rich, deeply chocolatey drink that will make you swoon.

You can enjoy the drinking chocolate either hot or cold. You can even use it to make a chocolate sauce to top your favorite ice cream.

A 250g canister is $11.95.

Brazilian Brigadeiros

Brigadeiros are almost like the chocolate truffles of Brazil. No wedding, birthday party, convention or holiday in that country is complete without them.

Brigadeiro.me has brought that traditional sweet to San Francisco. The company makes them with butter, condensed milk and Belgian chocolate. Choose from an assortment of flavors including lemon zest, pistachio, vanilla cookies and coconut.

A beloved Brazilian sweet comes to San Francisco.

A beloved Brazilian sweet comes to San Francisco.

They are quite soft and creamy. Less dense than fudge, the texture is almost like that of a very thick mousse.

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