Yesterday my mom and Julie and I went to the Great Lakes Science Center to see Chocolate: The Exhibition before it left Cleveland. Mostly the exhibit was about chocolate, and its history and the process of making it. There wasn't a whole lot of tasting involved, sadly. There was a gift shop at the end, and of course I had to get something. They had t-shirts, cookbooks, postcard, pencils, chocolate pasta, puzzles and games, notecards, candles, and of course chocolate itself.
Well, of course I couldn't go to an exhibit like this one and not get anything. So I spent the majority of my time in the gift shop trying to decide which cookbook to buy. There were so many. I finally decided upon Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate, by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg.
This cookbook seemed like the most comprehensive of all of them, but it's also neat in that it's not just recipes, but every other chapter is informational about chocolate. It will definitely be worth its weight (and it's pretty heavy).I also picked up some chocolate bars to try. Of course everything was super expensive, and each of these little bars cost $3.99! Ouch! But they were about the cheapest ones in the gift shop, and also sounded unique and yummy.
The Pistachio Toffee has turned out to be my favorite so far. The Carmelized Almond isn't too bad, although its dark chocolate is really dark. The Crunchy Fire is a little odd. It's got toasted pecans and chiles in it. Now, I like Mexican chocolate, but this was REALLY spicy even for me. It needed cinnamon to balance it out, or it needed to be milk chocolate instead of dark. Overall, it was too hot and bitter...some sweetness would have helped out. But it was still worth it. They're all good.
1 comment:
The picture on the front of that cookbook makes my mouth water. Promise that you will have us over sometime and make those cakes covered in chocolate!
Now get it together with those pictures, we want to see more of baby Julie!
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