Ever wondered what it is like
to be a chocolatier? Our Plain
Chocolate Blog aims to show our day to day life behind the scenes
in this sweet industry, our joys, pet hates, discoveries and
interests.
Will write for
chocolate
I knew
from a young age that 2 of my passions would be chocolate and books
(reading and trying to write). For me they both bring a
welcome solitude, evasion and
pleasure.
Recently i discovered that many famous authors and book
lovers are also fond of chocolate. Chocolate was Ernest
Hemingway favourite drink and he used to smuggle chocolate to
soldiers. One of my favourite crimer writers, James Patterson,
lists chocolate, especially home made chocolate chip
cookies, and visiting book stores amongst his greatest
interests. I could not agree
more.
Any
other chocoholic bookworm out
there?
Neighbourhood
celebration
Come and
browse Soane exquisite furniture whilst enjoying a hot chocolate
and admiring the chocolate and flowers Easter decorations. Soane
and Artisan du chocolat share the same dedication to craftmanship.
"Old fashioned pride in their workmanship is a quality shared
by all our craftsmen. Every piece requires a variety of traditional
skills which combine to make that piece a superb example of
furniture which will endure in its classic design, its function and
its exceptional quality".
Weird or
wonderful?
Whilst browsing
the enormous halls of ISM, i discovered a new patent pending
product which allows to coat centres in a conventional pan with a
layer of chewing gum. I could not resist trying samples of their
chocolate drops covered in chewing gum and frankly not sure what to
make it it. Certainly a technical innovation but would anyone want
to eat chocolate chewing gum combo? Let us
know!
Oops they did it
again
We were recently incognito visiting
a competitor posh chocolate shop in London and overheard the
following conversation between 2 staff members of that shop.
Clearly one of them was in charge and training the other and
thought they could not be heard as I had earphones
on.
Trainee:
"How long do we leave the
chocolates on the plates for
sale?"
Manager: "As long as possible, until
you see
molds".
I left in a hurry with no
appetite!
Morality: never assume that people can not
hear you or understand
you.
A couple of years ago, two French ladies came into
our Chelsea shop and whilst admiring the chocolates, proceeded to
graphically discuss their sex life in French. I am Irish but i
trained in France so my French is ok. They kept the conversation
going between them, bought some chocolates and as they were about
to leave the store, i said a polite "Merci beaucoup". They stopped
dead in their tracks, shifted back to me before turning the most
intense
red.
British chocolate wrappers almost
ready
To celebrate
the fact that we are one of the new makers of British chocolate
(i.e. processing ground beans in the UK and using British sugar and
dried milk), we are preparing a limited edition fine British milk
chocolate bar with an iconic
wrapper.
Like
it?
What makes
chocolate British?
As the British institution Cadbury is about to be
taken over, we ask: what makes chocolate
British? Chocolate (singular versus chocolates) can be
called British it it is processed in the UK. Processing steps
include cleaning, roasting, grinding, conching, refining the beans,
adding sugar and dried milk, ideally sourced in the UK. Almost
all chocolatiers don't process chocolate, they buy in Belgian or
French chocolate and remelt it to create chocolates. We are
proud to be part of a new generation creating British chocolate on
a small scale. At the moment we only know of 2 other chocolatiers
producing British chocolate: Willie Hacourt Cooze and Sir Hans
Sloane. If you are processing chocolate in the UK, we'd love to
hear from you and to create the first British Chocolate
Singular Collective.
Is Valentine too
cheesy?
Valentine has never been my
favourite chocolate season. May be i am not romantic or may be
i think that attentions should be for the whole year, not just
for Feb 14th. Or may be i just get sick of the sea of fake velvet
hearts invading all chocolate shops. Creating stylish products for
Valentine is not easy. Every year i troll catalogues from box
suppliers with the hope that we will find something different,
thoughtful, fun and pretty instead of the damned velvet red
hearts. So far no luck. So this year, we decided to get our own
heart shape boxes hand made and deisgned a pattern that we loved,
inspired by Love Grows. As a collection it celebrates enduring
love. We hope that you will like our new Love Grows
collection and that it will rise above the general
cheesy-ness of the occasion.
Is there a cure for Xmas
high?
Another Xmas almost
finished and after months of very intense production without any
time off, i am not sure what to do with myself. As
runners get a buzz from long and intense runs, we certainly got
adrenaline pumping for months of deadlines after deadlines to meet.
Now we are slowly deflating (nothing to do with sprouts) and
wondering: is there a cure for Xmas high?
Love grows
Just received the
first pics of our Valentine boxes and we are really pleased with
them! what do you think?
Tweet us
your cocktail recipes
Long time without
posting due to combined effect of Xmas preparation and mild
addiction to Twitter. We are also working on new chocolate
cocktails for the winter. So tweet us a recipe for boozy hot
chocolate before Nov 25th and the best one (best tasting and most
original) will receive one of our fab totally grown up advent
calendars.
Where are
you taking our chocolates this summer?
We don't have much
time to take holidays so we would like to dream a bit about where
you may be taking our chocolates on holidays this summer. We know
many of you buy them as gifts for travelling back to familly or
hosts or as a essential self indulgence but where do
the chocolates end up? All metled on an Australian beach?
Hidden in luggage? Making the end of a romantic meal in Paris?
Shared after a fiesta? Let us know by sending us your holiday pics
featuring our chocolates (not just any choc) to win one of 6 £150
hampers. We are looking for all sorts of pictures: exotic, cute,
quirky - something to make us dream and smile.
We can't wait to receive
them!
Are French
chocolate shops (apart from a few) overrated?
We were in the South
West of France for a few days and of course paid a visit to the
local chocolate shops. All of them a great disapointment selling
same things as 10 years ago (mostly pralines)and regional or house
specialties bought in from Francois Doucet (potatoes, quail eggs,
chocolate in shape of beans, olives- also a staple of Rococo
offering in the UK).
Most French
chocolatiers used Barry Callebaut which did not help. Quality
of the bonbons was poor and marshmallows were like bike tyres.
Makes me wonder if French chocolates (apart from a few- Roger,
hevin, maison, etc) are not terribly overrated?
What do you think?
More controversy
on Academy of chocolate awards
We made our views clear about the lack of
professionalism in the organisation of these awards months ago- we
were the first ones to do so in public forum, attracting the wrath
of the organisers. The contoversy is still raging with several
posts on the chocolate life.
You can read them
here. In the meanwhile, the Academy remains
silent...
No Academy
of chocolate awards 2010
We were happy to hear that
there will be no Academy of chocolate awards in 2010. May be
the Academy finally realised the need to put a bit more
thought and work in the professional organisation of these
events. One can only hope even though the Academy never
felt the need in the pasy to respond to any criticism or
comment and indeed has not really spoken to us since we made our
concerns public.
Taste of
Dublin
We
were a bit unsure about doing Taste of Dublin this year as everyone
was fearing the depth of the credit crunch in Ireland. So far it's
been a great success, already outselling last year, and will be out
of stock by end of the weekend. It's so nice
to see customer appreciating the quality of our chocolates for the
second year. Pics to follow soon
Chocking production for the
apprentice
The apprentice final has
been aired and Jasmina won. Yiha!When Gerard was asked to
participate, He was told the tasks were about candidates,
not about chocolate. He was asked not influence the
candidates with what he likes/makes as this was a mass market
taste. He was there to produce what they had decided.
So Gerard produced in 2
hours some chocolates with very cheap ingredients for Jasmina
geared towards mass marked. Normally product development would take
5-6 weeks. Still many people like Jasmina's chocolates especially
Margaret who was emptying the stock on the tables after the
presentation. Editing made it look like the chocolates were
shockingly bad. This was not the case, only the basil and
strawberry in white chocolate was horrid.
Paul however converted the
other team to fine chocolates which costed Kate dearly. Alan Sugar
is not at all about specialist high price products. Moreover, those
hand made chocolates with Cluizel couverture would never be
retailed at £13. Truly the retail price would have been closer to
£20 but no costings were made during the tasks, The chocolates
were pretty much the same as Paul's own which retail at £100 per
kg. So you do the maths.
Overall the filming was fun
but extremely disorganised. Producers seem to think that the
average BBC1 viewer is a little dim and kept on reducing the choice
for the candidates from a "mass market assorted chocolates product"
to a specific "box with 18 chocolates" which did not leave much for
creativity.
The producers said costing
on the chocolates was "not required" so the 7p per chocolate and
£13 per box were completetly plucked out of thin air. There
was absolutely no calculation behind these numbers at all for
packaging, ingredients and labour. And it is on these
numbers that the decision for the winner was made.
In a nutshell, that says it
all about the quality of the production for the
Apprentice.
Please bring back the
Apprentice next year with a competent, creative production team and
a more aspirational leader like Richard Branson. What do you
think?
Apprentice
final
Long time and no blog due
to opening of our chocolateria at Westbourne Grove. With all of
that, we almost forgot that it is the final of the apprentice
tonight. Talkback Thames, the producers, contacted Gerard in
October to ask if he could help on of the teams on the final task
for a mass market chocolate box product
development.
As it is one if his
favourite shows, he gladly accepted. Filming was pretty hectic and chaotic, especially
very close to Xmas. To have 2 days of Gerard off production for 3
seconds in the final program is probably not the best use of time
but it was a fun distraction before the Xmas
rush.
If you watch it tonight,
please bear in mind the products developed were mass market and not
the types we would do!
The stars of the
apprentice are without doubt Nick and Margaret. As for Sir Alan, he
is as short and grumpy in real life as he appears on TV which made
Gerard wondered why would anyone want to work for him.The show format is a bit past its best before now
and tasks are not changing enough. What we would really like to see is a new format in
2010 with new tasks and a new boss with a completely
different profile. Richard Branson would be top
our our list. Email us your suggestions!
Progress update on Westbourne
Grove
It's all hands on
deck at Westbourne Grove to finish the fittings for the opening
date planned on June 5th. Still looks like a building site to us
but our architect and fitters seem confident. Tons for us to do still from ordering plates to
getting menus printed, finalising recipes etc etc. We have a mega
master list of all otherwise we would not sleep. We are practising
our skills making the chocolate cocktails too. There never are
enough hours in the day.
Very exciting and
frightening at the same time!
---------------------------------------
Short trip to
Paris
The first time we have 2
days off since Christmas so we celebrated by not sleeping on Friday
evening and driving to Paris instead. We reached Rungis in the
early morning and picked up some exotic decoration pieces for our
new shop in Notting Hill. In the middle of the cut flowers market
is a gem of a company selling exotic flowers, roots and decorative
objects. We saw the biggest bird of paradise flowers ever, about
1.5m. Simpy amazing.
Being in Paris, we could
not resist a visit to the new chocolate shops. First the new shop
from Marcolini rue Scribe, on the old site of Nespresso (also owned
by Nestle). Very posh shop, friendly staff but a bit sad and
austere. Bought a box of the new revised main collection (now made
by cold press rather than one shot) and were not
impressed.
Then we went off to Pierre
Herme shop, bright with candy colors. Could not resist a
violet and cranberry croissant, a cannele and a box of
chocolates. All our admiration goes to Pierre Herme and his
team for managing such a wide range of products that are all very
very good.
Finally we met a friend at
the new Salon de The of Mr Genin. Hidden in an upcoming arty area
of Paris, his place is airy and welcoming. We briefly saw the
famous French actress Carole Bouquet looking for a place to lunch.
Sadly it does not seem that she eats "gateaux". The range of
chocolates at Jacques Genin is small but faultless. And the man
himself with whom we chatted for a while is at the image of his
products, fine, honest and passionate.
------------------------------------------
Work on Notting
Hill store is
starting
Finally, finally, finally.
With the authorisations required from the council, the
neighbours and more finally in hand, we can
start to work on our new store in Notting hill. The
first couple of weeks will be gutting of the shop and basement
and bringing the floor down. We are so excited. Notting Hill
here we come!
------------------------------------------
The making of the bunny
girl
As part of our Object
of Design collection, we have made a Bunnygirl outfit from top
of ears to shoes in chocolate, only using white chocolate,
dark chocolate, sugar and some coconut for the fluffy
tail that can not be seen on this picture. It took us several
days but was great fun. We got up at 4am on Saturday morning to
drive her in one piece to Selfridges, hoping that nothing would
break in transit. Luckily she arrived safely and we hope she'll raise a smile on the face of people
walking by out store at Selfridges. So, who's your bunny this
Easter?
----------------------------------------------
16.02.2009 Our humorous guide to win
chocolate awards
For those planning to enter the awards 2010, here's
our guide to winning:
1. Enter all your products, every single one of
them, in all possible categories.
2. Enter any product that has previously won award
every year. Why quit when you are winning?
3. Make special batch with the most expensive
couverture and the shortest shelf life; you don't actually need to
sell these exact products. No one will
know.
4. Use Amedei
5. Become a member of the Academy and make sure
your PR attends the judging
6. If this fails, a special award can always
be created for you, not based on any
scores
7. If all fails, form your own chocolate
critic group with your friends and suppliers and create
your own awards to give to each other!
This is of course a joke. Doubt the Academy will
see the funny side though.
12.02.2009 Academy of Chocolate awards results are
out with no surprise
This year results are
so similar to last year that we doubt any progress has been made to
address the issues we raised. And we are not the only ones to think
so as chocolatiers all over the world are blogging to try to force
change at the Academy. So far there is no response from the
Academy. Have a look at the posts
directly on www.seventypercent.com and www.thechocolatelife.com.
Posted
by Devil in an Apron on February 15, 2009 at
1:40am on The
Chocolate life
For full
disclosure sake, we did enter this year and we did not win
anything. However, we did not expect to win anything and my only
desire was non-American feedback from people who don’t know
me. (I only sent them my aesthetically imperfects as we don’t
need feedback on looks and saw no reason to waste good product).
Devil in an Apron is a nonprofit organization, yes we do offer a
few products, for cost, that demonstrate new concepts in chocolate
and confection: fat based marshmallows, the use of UV-C instead of
boiling to sterilize, using ultrasound to form emulsions and
control crystalization, and generally deconstructing items as
physio-chemical systems to rebuild them in new wasy. Some of these
are novelties and some are technological advancements in the
field.
Now that you know who I am, on to what is wrong with the Academy of
Chocolate
Nepotism and Judgment
There was a recent post on the ethics of publishing reviews of your
competition, which raised some interesting points. What about the
ethics of reviewing yourself and your friends? Although it is
claimed that entrants, who are academy members are not allowed to
judge on their own products, the judging process is highly flawed.
Secret ballot using a contained point system is ideal, using an
open table system might be the worst possible. Guess which the
Academy of Chocolate uses? It is very, very easy, even if
unintentionally to drive the table when a product you know is up.
Think, Ouija board, where an individual is capable of subverting an
entire group through unspoken communication.Even the most casual
glance at the list of winners, special awards, and members reveals
that judgment is not on the level.
Sponsorship
The Academy of Chocolate is run by members of the Academy of
Culinary Arts. The Academy of Chocolate, does not list sponsors,
the Academy of Culinary Arts does. Yes, Amedei is listed right at
the top. I’m sure that had no bearing on their winning of the
Golden Bean eachand every year for a different product.
Oh yeah, let us not forget that William Curley uses Amedei and they
even produce a special blend just for him.
Attitude of the Entrants
William Curley… assuming that your awards are legit, why do
you keep entering the same products? Is this all you make? Is
winning so important to you that you only submit previous winners?
How boring would the Oscars be if the same winning movies were
entered year after year? I’m not going to comment on the
deservedness of the awards; just seeing the same products, year
after year is hardly sportsmanlike.
Unofficial/Irregular Communication
Several judges wrote me directly with comments about my entry
before the results were made official. Each gave high praise and
then wanted to know if the product was available retail in the UK
(must products be available for retail in the UK to be valid
entires?). The really bizarre thing about this was that each judge
contacted me well after the judging was supposed to be completed,
and informed me that they had just had my product (“I tried
your product yesterday/a few hours ago/earlier today”). How
could it be that several judges liked the product enough to go out
of their way to contact me about it without even placing a bronze?
I would like to say that I really appreciated these judges
contacting me directly and offering their feedback but, it seems
like the quality of judges might be in question when so much
variance occurs. Are they voting on quality or their personal
taste? Why were these judges trying my product after judging was
completed?
No Feedback
The final kicker, I have not received official feedback! Not even,
“why did you throw all the products together into a bag
without individually wrapping them for overseas shipment?”
Nothing. This part pisses me off as I made it very clear to
everyone I spoke to that I was only seeking feedback, you’d
think they might have mentioned that they don’t provide
feedback.
Ultimately, I feel that non-sponsoring, non-academy members merely
pay for a bunch of friends to get together and enjoy lots of free
chocolate. Am I bitter? Yeah, I thought I was buying expert
feedback and instead I merely contributed to artificially boosting
the delicate egos of William Curley and Amedei.
Cheers,
DiaA
--------------------------------
- Posted
by Samantha Madell on The Chocolate
life blog on
why the Academy of chocolate is garbage
- From my reading of
this debate (both here and over at seventypercent.com), it seems
that the main defense being offered on behalf of the Academy of
Chocolate is that running an awards event of this type is difficult
and expensive, and the Academy is under-resourced for the job.
Therefore, we chocophiles should shut up and tolerate the conflicts
of interest and other problems that result from the Academy being
under-resourced.
I don't buy that defense at all.
If the Academy of Chocolate doesn't have adequate resources (both
human and financial) to run such an awards event properly and
without bias, then they shouldn't attempt to run it at all.
Furthermore, for Academy members to respond to serious and
legitimate criticism by shutting down discussion on
seventypercent.com is unprofessional, to say the very least.
Also, for the Academy of Chocolate members to insist that their
Awards results are unbiased is laughable.
To give one example: Sara Jayne Stanes is the Chairman of the
Academy of Chocolate. She is also a member of the judging panel of
the Academy of Chocolate Awards, and the author of the book
"Chocolate: the Definitive Guide".
On page 84 of her book, Sara Jayne Stanes names a number of
chocolate bars as her "personal favourites".
Sara Jayne Stanes's "personal favourites" include:
Amedei's Toscano 63% (winner of Academy of Chocolate's best bean to
bar award 2008)
Amedei's Chuao (winner of Academy of Chocolate's best bean to bar
award 2007*)
Amedei's Porcelana (winner of Academy of Chocolate's best bean to
bar award 2007*)
Amedei's Toscano 70% (winner of Academy of Chocolate's best bean to
bar award 2007*)
Amedei's Chuao (winner of Academy of Chocolate's Best Dark
Chocolate Bar 2006)
* Note: the three award listings for 2007 are not typos. To be
perfectly clear: Amedei won three "best bean to bar" gold
medals in 2007.
To summarise the situation: the AoC Chairman's "personal
favourites" have won the AoC's best bean to bar award five
times in three years.
Sara Jayne Stanes may honestly believe that she is not biased ...
just like 98% of drivers honestly believe that their driving skills
are above average.
Unfortunately, honestly believing something doesn't have the power
to make it true.
Finally, although I often disagree with the folks at Artisan du
Chocolat, I sincerely commend the stand they're taking on this
issue.
--------------------------
Posted
by Samantha Madell on The Chocolate life blog on
why the Academy of chocolate is
garbage
I share your concerns about the Academy of
Chocolate. In fact, I
posted a
commentalong these lines in December. At the time of
my post, I had no idea that Amedei had financial ties with this
event.
For what it's worth, here's what I wrote in my post:
"I took a look
at the Academy of Chocolate website, and was a bit disturbed to see
that the previous awards seem to have been dominated by Academy
committee members and their friends (plus Amedei).
From what I can gather, Amedei has taken out the award for best bar
on all three occasions that the awards have happened (twice for the
Chuao bar, and once for the Toscano 63%). Those awards may be
well-deserved, but the outcome seems to be getting a bit
predictable and boring.
And perusing the list of other winners, I see an awful lot of
awards going to Academy committee members such as Chantal Coady (of
Rococo), Paul A Young, and William Curley. And there are commercial
relationships between other committee members and winners (for
example, between founding member Chloe Doutre-Roussel and multiple
award winner L’artisan du Chocolat)
This all seems a bit too ... cosy, or nepotistic, or
something.
From looking at the past results, I personally wouldn't bother
entering this competition, because it looks like the outcome is
pre-determined.
I expect that the Academy would vehemently deny that this is the
case ... but that's how it looks to me, from the
outside."
------------------
Comment by Devil in an Apronon February 5, 2009 at 5:23am
on The Chocolate life blog on
Academy of chocolate awards
controversy
Devil in an
Apron
Gerard, you make some excellent points in your
post. We decided to enter this year, primarily just because we
wanted unbiased feedback.
I think the AoC has the potential of being an excellent consumer
and vendor tool, but the organization does not give the appearance
of impariatiality (despite the fact that everyone I've spoken to
there has been very, very friendly to me). Awards events in the US
are much more sneaky, that is you must do considerable digging to
discover that specific vendors are behind the event and judging
(with the AoC you can quickly and easily tell that Amedei is a
sponsor of the AoCA and that all the major award winners are
members).
A applaud your decision to not enter and more so to vocalize why. I
hope the AoC at least considers your statements... all of them, not
just those related to conflicts of interest, very carefully.
Personally, instead of a medal system, I'd love to see a point
system with a narrative, like one might find in a wine guide or
seventypercent.com. This would correct the issue of too many
awards.
Anyhow, I applaud you. (How would I go about getting my hands on
one of your Tonka bars here in the US?)
Diana Short
info@lickthespoon.co.uk
Bravo! Good for you. I just
wanted to add my support to your decision to encourage a fairer
process in the Academy Awards by not participating this year. I am
a very small producer myself, and although I aspire to reach the
level of perfection needed to compete with your good selves and
others who participate in the awards, I do believe that
being outside of London and not being an Academy member is a
disadvantage. I too feel that the UK should stand alone and
celebrate the talent that is emerging here without the need to seek
approval from the rest of the world! Artisan du Chocolat are, in
any case, beyond needing the kudos of a dodgy Academy award...I
will continue to enjoy your inspirational style and your delicious
products. kind regards. Diana
-------------------------------------------
01.02.2009.Artisan out of
the Chocolate Academy Awards
2009
This year we are not participating to the annual
Chocolate Academy Awards. This may be an unpopular decision and a
mildly commercially suicidal one but we make chocolates,
not politics. And politics has come in the way of celebrating
fine chocolate. The Academy has done much to raise the profile of
fine chocolate in the UK but needs now to seriously
address several issues if it is to represent this growing
industry professionally.
The Academy membership should be open and enlarged
in order to remain impartial and to limit the potential conflicts
of interest.
We would like to call for an independent body with
no commercial interest in chocolate to be formed and oversee
the organisation of the awards.In recent years, most of the award
winners were also members of the Academy. This could raise question
of personal preferment and partiality. While we hope this is
not the case, it is important that the Academy substantiates its
position by putting in place the right people and
processes to ensure that the Awards are truly
representative of the industry as a whole and are truly
impartial. For example, is it acceptable that one of the
key organisers of the awards is also be the PR
person of some of the brands
participating?
Clarity and transparency need to be achieved in all
stages of the awards from sample collection (to avoid "special"
batches being created only for the awards), to aggregating scores
into awards, to deciding for awards not based on scores and
creating new awards.
In addition we think fewer awards would be
beneficial to avoid dilution of their impact and confusion. Last
year more than 100 awards were given.How many do you
remember? There should be fewer awards categories, fewer
awards given in each category and a smaller geographic spread of
the participants. Wouldn't it be better to judge UK
products perfectly rather than take on the
world?
Finally, we encourage the Academy in continuing to
enforce clear guidelines as how the awards should be referred to by
the winning brands. Should we mention some overjoyed winners
in the past who extended their awards to "World awards"
or did not to mention what their awards was
for?
Overall we cannot continue to participate
until the Academy addresses the above issues professionally. We
know there are several other chocolatiers who share our point
of view but prefer to remain silent for commercial reasons. We
prefer to say exactly what we think regardless of commercial and
political caution. That's what this plain chocolate blog is
about.
----------------------------------------
22.01.2009. Salon du chocolat at
Isetan
