Chocolaterie Wanders offers you the world's finest handmade gourmet chocolates.

Just as a little reminder:

Tomorrow we will be at Cork and Fork in Gainesville, VA to give a complimentary chocolate & wine tasting.  In addition, the Virginia Gateway community will be celebrating a “Midsummer’s Night of Music” with performances by New Day Rising and The Josh Burgess Band.

Our class on Saturday is completely sold out and we already got some requests for more As we are preparing the folders for our students and outline the different processes for the groups, the idea of having all-day classes becomes more realistic and we might just do more in the future That would most likely not happen before the ‘big’ season though, because we will just be too busy - any helpers out there?

Snapshot from earlier this week as follow-up on the last post …

… it was yesterday. We were out and about at The Winery at La Grange and gave a tasting of our Wine Pate de Fruit and the Libertysquares. Everybody enjoyed them and we actually stayed longer than planned - not only because of all the hungry mouths to fill, but also to get some goat cheese, crackers and wine and to sit outside in the shade, on the grass and just relax for a little bit. Now this is how I like working

Today we made more Pate de Fruit, because we were completely out. We will probably be at both wineries again on July the 4th to celebrate and enjoy Independence Day. Melanie and I will split up, but only for 3-4 hours or so, then re-unite to enjoy the fireworks in Manassas. Step by and have some wine and chocolate, or see if you can spot us in Oldtown Manassas.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

We will be tasting our chocolate confections and Wine Pate de Fruit tomorrow from Noon until 5pm at our friends over at Pearmund Cellars. Pearmund Cellars is celebrating their 4th year after the grand opening of the winery and if you haven’t anything planned yet, why not relax and enjoy the weekend with a good glass of wine and some of our confections?

We introduced our wine pate de fruit two weeks ago and they are a hit. We will also be sampling all four flavors made with wine from Pearmund Cellars. The wine content is about 15-20% and other than that we only use fruit puree, sugar, glycose and pectin to make our pate de fruit. These are the fruit / wine pairings:

Green Apple / Chardonnay,

Pink Grapefruit / Viognier,

Red Raspberry / Ameritage and

Cassis / Lisa’s Merlot

See you tomorrow!

Ah, legendary chocolates. I had high expectations for these delights … I love the chocolate they produce, but never had any of their chocolate confections, so on our trip to NYC we had to step by and check out their store, which is a little hard to find, but once you made it, it looks really nice, dark and welcoming …. “home-y” I would say, the bar is a nice touch too!

The staff was very nice and friendly - they didn’t have any problems with me taking pictures of the place and were informing us about their selections.

We should have taken notes on what is what …. we did not get any identification sheet or sth. similar and I couldn’t find anything online either, many were self-explanatory though, let’s get started:

The dark chocolate in the background was the Creme Brulee (?) one. It had a suttle caramel flavor to it (could have been more burned) and tasted very rich, buttery and a little sweet. Vanilla bean visible in there too and the dark chocolate on the outside was delicious. The milk chocolate enrobed chocolate was marzipan, orange flavored with a caramel layer inside. The marzipan was pretty dry and flavored with orange liquor (grand marnier?), the caramel layer was more caramel-ly than in the creme brulee one, too bad the marzipan was so dry though … That one was our favorite - by far - of this selection. Very intense Armagnac flavor with dried plums - what a combination! We will attempt to make a chocolate confection with these very ingredients later this year - I will get dried plums this week and put ‘em in some Armagnac jars …. The one big difference of ours will be, that we will not use a mold like Cluizel, but rather hand-cut this confection as well. It will be challenging to get this intense flavor in the ganache, because I can not make it too liquid. I am sure we’ll manage to perfect it though Who wants to be the taste-tester? A light lemon ganach, just flavored with lemon zest, reminded us on a lemon-pepper we made once. The ganache was slightly whipped maybe? A gentle chocolate, nice for the summer, although some people might like it more refreshing … A cork of a wine bottle - no wait, you can actually eat it I think it was supposed to be “Bordeaux” in there - we were kind of disappointed though. The ganache seemed dry and maybe a little old, the mold was quite irregularly filled and flavor wasn’t distinct. Pistachio marzipan is a little dry and the pstachio flvor is not very strong - but you can definetly tell what it is. Coffee Gianduja comes to mind - that’s pretty much all there is to say. Very strong and bold coffee flavor - very similar to our “Espresso, instead of hazelnut paste (like ours) it probably has Hazelnut Gianduja in it. Yummy (yeah, I like coffee) Too bad I don’t know the name of it anymore, but this was delicious as well! Milk chocolate on the outside (some hazelnut crunchies mixed in), then a layer of marzipan and a very soft ganache center with Rum. Fantastic combination of textures and flavors, classic but oh so good. On the image you see the last bite, it probably was 2-3 inches long. The ganache on the inside must have been chilled and then rolled into the marzipan - we actually did a “Bouche” like this at TasteDC in one of our workshops in Georgetown …. A good product for the colder month as well, I personally like it, because there is so much labor involved and it makes it so much more valueable and appreciated.

I love Cluizel’s chocolate and chocolate confections. Traditional and well balanced. I think it is hard to maintain such a high level of quality on the other side of the big pond though, without being there yourself. We have yet to see the store in Paris, which is owned by his daughter, but my parents were there and said it looked absolutely fabulous. Next time I am in Paris I’ll have to check it out ….

again: La Maison du Chocolat. These are the last items we have though

Interesting dessert chocolates we had tonight. The triangular one was coconut and had a very light and not too intense consistency. It was too bland for being butter and not too fatty/greasy on your tongue. It had to be coconut oil/fat ….. now, I have never worked with this, but it looks and tastes promising. I would try to intensify the flavor though, either with adding sugar (it wasn’t too sweet at all) or butter.

The second confection was delicious. A little firm maybe, containing raisins, walnuts/hazelnuts and orangeat …. tasted almost a little bit like christmas. And there was also some hazelnutty goodness in there, probably Mandel-Bitter-Nougat (like a dark almond gianduja).

Overall very satisfying - not too overwhelming considering the size. It gave me a good idea of envisioning dessert chocolates and what size they should be as well as how “filling” they should be.

Well, we didn’t just eat chocolate all day though …. tomorrow we will be at a tasting at Unwined in Alexandria, Virginia, where we introduce our Liberty Squares and Wine Pate de Fruit to the locals in Alexandria.

Melanie will be on her own tomorrow as I have an old friend of mine visit me here in Manassas. He is from a completely different metier, but masters that well and is quite successful.

We had some chocolate craving yesterday afternoon and decided to check out some of the chocolate confections we brought back from our NY trip earlier this week. The four pralines from La Maison du Chocolat look a little beaten up, but this is just because of the warm weather and not perfect transportation from NY to DC …. when we were entering the store on Madison Avenue in New York, all chocolates in the showcase looked absolutely flawless. I am not going over the top here - I inspected the pralines very closely and really - they almost look like molded pieces or made out of plastic. Here and there you could see an uneven edge, but the coating was very shiny and flawless. I think they get a special mix of couverture from Valrhona and I would love to know the cocoa butter content on that ….. uh well.

We took four pralines with us home and also two larger dessert chocolates. Those we haven’t tried yet, but they are a whopping 76g and 54g and that’s quite an impressive weight - I am very eager to try them out and compare them with our creations we did a few weeks ago for a local restaurant …

Figaro Noir

“Hazelnut and almond praline wrapped in dark chocolate” says the description. It has a very dark and almost bitter flavor to it - I loved it. Very smooth - it reminded me of a “Haselnuss Bitter Nougat” in Germany …. intense and long lasting flavor. Right now the only praline of ours similar in texture is the Pistachio Almond, bu it is much sweeter. Although many people like the sweetness in it, I love the bitter nutty tastes. I can see a similar praline in our future

Othello

“Ganache infused with honey” …. Delicious also. Very flowery, we get lavender from it - did they use lavender honey? A tiny bit grainy, probably a creamy honey though, that would explain the grainy-ness - would make it easier to make the ganache though. Also a little firm …. we have not made a dedicated honey praline yet, but it is a great idea and I can’t wait to try it out ……. if there is enough time this summer, but that’s somehow always the problem: time ….

Anastasia

“Gianduja praline” … again not as sweet as our gianduja, very buttery and it also has some tiny crunchies. The crunchies I like bigger myself, we put in some caramelized chopped almonds to give it some crunch. I did like the buttery mouthfeel though.

Bacchus

“Ganache with raisins flambeed in rum” ….. Yeah, that sounds good and it tastes delicious. This fall we will have a rum raisin praline - it will be a little different than this one though - more on that when the time is right

This praline tastes great though - the rum flavor reminded me of the rum raisins of my dad …. he always has this big tub of rum raisins in his cabinet above his working table in his pastry shop … in the mornings, when he makes fresh “Rum-Sahne-Torte” he whips up some cream and throws in some rum raisins - voila, there is your cream cake …. delicious!

We sat down in La Maison du Chocolat for a little bit to have a hot chocolate “Carraccas” whis was very intense, although not as rich as for example Burdick’s hot chocolate (which is done with cream milk) - I would guess LMDC uses water for the chocolate and serves it with a side of whipped cream. I like this approach much better for two reasons. 1) I grew up knowing hot chocolate being cocoa powder/milk powder/sugar made with water and whipped cream on top from my parents cafe - this is how it is served in Germany. 2) Although Burdick’s hot chocolate is delicious and rich, it is a little overwhelming and you got to have a good appetite to be able to finish a cup.

The staff was friendly, the store bright in brown tones - not as home-y as Michel Cluizel, but still nice. I would definetly recommend visiting La Maison du Chocolat, even just to take a look at the confections.

We finally got to taste the Gilli chocolates we brought from Firenze and we had high hopes, because of the unusual flavor combinations. Here are our notes and some pictures:

  You can find more information about the oldest cafe in Firenze here.

This was the tabacco confection. We wondered if they were made similar to the tea ganaches, were you steep the tea leaves in the cream or similar, maybe giving it an herby or green flavor. Instead we were surprised by a very smoky and in the end peppery/spicy flavor. It actually tasted like a smoked cigarette. And I am not kidding! I smoked cigarettes for about nine years, roughly a pack a day and I was very familiar with the taste

We were kind of disappointed by this. Who wants to taste this I wonder …. I know that there are still many smokers in Italy (much more than here, a little less than in Germany right now), but this still came surprising. One day we might experiment with tabacco leaves, but it will be a bright flavor and nothing that smoky or dark like at Gilli’s.

Balsamico. We had high hopes for this one too. And the flavor was surprising, although not as devastating as the tobacco one. The first similar flavor coming to mind was cheesecake. Mmmmmmh cheesecake I wonder if this is what you get when you pair Balsamico with white couverture and cream. I was surprised that there were so many ganaches made with white chocolate. For the Balsamic I would have maybe used a darker milk or a dark chocolate - maybe dark chocolate is too overpowering? I know that one day I will try the same thing, with a nice old Balsamico and see how it turns out - maybe I use it in savory dishes first, together with chocolate?

Tartufo. We hoped it had savory truffle in it - and it might have, but the flavor wasn’t that distinct. It had a very firm texture, and enrobed very thin. The design wasn’t perfect, but I always like to see little imperfections, as it shows you it was made by hand, by a person.

Rose. Yeah, definitely the rose! Not a favorite of mine, I always think it tastes like soap - Melanie seemed to like it though. It was a very clear, almost too powerful flavor - only almost though. Why the milk chocolate shell in between - I don’t know, maybe they had to use them - maybe they wanted the optics ….

Pear pate de fruit. Very delicious, a hint of green apple in there too. Used were two molds for the shape and a little plastic thingy acting as a stem (I know these from Germany in marzipan fruits). Very coarse sugar on the outside and much bigger than our pate de fruit. I like the idea of representing the fruit in its shape, but I don’t like the idea of using molds, so personally I stick with my square shape for now.

All in all we enjoyed the tasting. It is always exciting to taste other flavors and regions and people’s work and with a history like the one from Gilli’s comes a lot of respect on my end.

What a heat. Well, not really heat, but standing outside with this nice weather in a black chef coat does make you a little warmer. We had a great time though while debuting our Wine Pate de Fruit - everyone loved them (even before they had tasted any wine!). The festival was well attended and all in all we can call it a success. Here is what our little table looked like:

Now we’ll have to pack our bags, tomorrow we will be in NYC and see what prize we win at the Golden Scoop Awards …. cross your fingers

First close up picture of the pate de fruit:

The recipes are figured out and the only one needing a little tweaking is the Cassis/Lisa’s Merlot one. Right now it just melts on your tongue - and if you are not careful enough it also melts while handling it

We also prepped for our newest product next week, which is still ‘top secret’ …. all the lights are go though and it should be a big success

Tomorrow we’ll be having a tasting at Massimo’s Il Vino in Fairfax, come swing by and have some fun with us - maybe pick some nice italian red for dad together with a box of chocolates? If you can’t make it to Fairfax, see us on Sunday for the Wine & Jazz Festival in Manassas, it will be our first appearance and I am sure everyone will have a blast - I know I will, since there is wine involved!

We teamed up with Pearmund Cellars and the Winery at LaGrange to produce Pate de Fruit with their wines. We are using two whites and two reds with cassis, raspberry, pink grapefruit and green apple puree. The result is delicious and refreshing and well worth a try I think. We’ll be giving a tasting of all of the flavors and also our regular chocolate assortment upcoming Sunday on the Manassas Wine & Jazz Festival.

We are really excited and the weather plays well too it seems - hope to see you on Sunday!