Chocolate shopping

I have been such a die-hard chocoholic for so many years, my husband has gotten used to my frequent trips to the mall for my chocolate fix, that is, until recently. I love chocolates and I do chocolate reviews but I am by no means a chocolate snob, as in, I do not turn my nose up over cheap chocolates or standard supermarket quality chocolate.

However, recently, just for the sake of my chocolate website, I started bypassing the waxy, sweet, cheap chocolates and went for imported, Swiss and Belgium chocolates. My hubby of course was taken aback. My chocolate stock is now with percentages and of ‘fine’ quality and not in the least cheap!

So, how do I search out these chocolates? Other than dropping by the chocolate-specialty shops (which is very rare where I come from), I get it from large grocery stores. Often these stores are well stocked and they have a section especially for imported, expensive and fine chocolates (at least at where I come from, which is a tiny Asian country out of nowhere). Then I look through the selection. I look out for ‘Made in Sweden’ or ‘Manufactured in Belgium’ which is often printed in small tiny prints before buying.

The types that I buy often are dark chocolate, white chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate and chocolate covered nuts and raisins. The chocolates are in a variety of forms from bars to truffles to even wafers. Now, I have loads of chocolates to taste and review and though I constantly snack on chocolates, I am deferring the expensive ones. Just tearing the wrappers makes me cringe. I just do not want to eat it and then, that’s it. I won’t have it anymore. You know, the classic ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too’ dilemma.

I will be working up my courage to really bite into one of it soon as I really need to add new pages to my website real soon. To those who have been visiting the site or have visited the site or are planning to visit the site, please be patient. I am working on the chocolate recipes now and hopefully I can put it in within the next few days.

See you then.

Chocolate Percentage

There is nothing I love more than shopping for chocolates whenever we go to the grocery store. It is like being transported into pure chocolate heaven, especially if it is a particularly well-stocked grocery store with an aisle of wonderfully heavenly scrumptious, saliva-inducing chocolates. You know what I mean…row after row of absolutely delicious chocolates of all brands, types and percentage.

Yep, you read right. Percentage. It seems like it is a new fad or something that chocolates now comes with numbers proudly emblazoned over its front. You will see 75% or 90% or 99%. So, what are these percentages for? Well, there is no great mystery to it. The reason for it is to clearly state out the percentage of cocoa contained in the bar of chocolate.

Due to recent research over how healthy chocolate could be especially the ones with higher cocoa content,  I guess many manufacturers are finding it more profitable to tell consumers how much cocoa is contained within their products. I can’t conclusively say that the ones with 99% cocoa are healthier or better (since I am not a scientist or doctor) but I sure can comment on the taste!

The ones with about 90% cocoa content are often more bitter (and we all know how I can’t stand bitter stuff) and richer in the sense that you get a thicker cocoa taste which leaves a sort of buttery after taste on your tongue after consumption. I sometimes eat these together with hot cocoa and marshmallows…to take away the after-taste and also the bitterness.

Those in the 60% and 90% range are pretty much like regular dark chocolate except that for 60% it is sweeter and as the percentage increases, the sweetness reduces and bitterness increases. If you are a dark chocolate type of person (like me!), you will have no qualms picking these up but do try the range of different percentages until you get the ones that you really like.

Happy shopping and let’s go lose ourselves in the wonderful aisle full of chocolates….