By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Sometimes when we need a sweets fix, a plain old candy bar from the corner market just won’t do. That’s why our team of tasters decided to sample the best of what’s out there, all in the name of, ahem, science to ensure that you get the sweetest and most delicious treats available. Let’s start with the most important sweet of all: Chocolate.
I’ve never taken a bite of chocolate to cleanse the palate between courses, but that was the purity of the 100 percent cacao chocolate from Claudio Corallo. It couldn’t be simpler. Managing partner Marie-Françoise Barnhart cracked open a bean, crumbled up its innards, and served.
But those nibs were just the beginning.
This is not chocolate for the faint of heart, nor is it chocolate you’ll find at the corner bodega.
It’s “very expensive, very artisanal, like a late harvest wine where you hand pick every single piece of grape,” says Barnhart. “Every single bean is hand selected.”
It’s also got antioxidant properties, particularly in chocolate as unprocessed as Corallo’s.
All Claudio Corallo chocolate comes from one source: Two small equatorial islands about 150 miles off the coast of western Africa. Corallo’s plantations use heirloom-variety cacao — no hybrids here, says Barnhart — with the entire chocolate-making process taking place on the larger of the two islands, Sao Tomé.
But after that, well, we’ve got options. There are the flavorful orange and ginger bars; the mind-blowing crystallized ginger spheres, dipped in 100 percent cacao; the macaron (not to be confused with that Passover favorite, the macaroon), two flourless cakes that sandwich a 75-percent cacao ganache and cream center.
“I’d say they are the equivalent of French cupcakes,” Barnhart said.
Corallo’s macarons are made by pastry chef Neil Roberts of the nearby Mistral restaurant. They are worth the trip.
Visit their North American distribution center and showroom at 2122 Westlake Ave. in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood to taste for yourself, or find them online at www.claudiocorallochocolate.com.
While we’re on the subject of chocolate’s healthy properties, you’d think we were in the world of Willy Wonka if anyone suggested eating chocolate in place of your vitamin regimen. But that’s exactly the idea behind Xoçai, your daily dose in the form of dark chocolate squares and nuggets, among other products, which makes use of the antioxidants native to chocolate that hasn’t been overly processed. We tried several of Xoçai’s squares —XoBiotic probiotic; Omega, with high levels of antioxidant flavonoids; XPower, a simpler version of the Omega; and the nugget, with similar properties to the XPower square. They made us feel, well, energized. Plus the chocolate was quite good — and it’s all kosher! Find out more at www.richandhealthychocolate.com. E-mail info@richandhealthychocolate.com for availability.
If you want chocolate not for its antioxidant properties, but for its luxuriant, creamy, dessert-like (or just because you need it) qualities, you could do a lot worse than what we have to offer in this region.
Chocolopolis, at 1527 Queen Anne Ave. N in Seattle, celebrated its second anniversary this summer, and they’re going strong — strong enough to have just opened up a second shop at The Bravern in Bellevue for the holiday season. Proprietor Lauren Adler tempted us with two selections made by her in-house staff of chocolatiers: The first was their Fruit and Nut Bar, a 72-percent cacao Valhrona chocolate from Venezuela, topped with dried cherry and blueberry and hazelnuts, with sea salt sprinkled onto the top.
“Heavenly!” Stacy said.
“The chocolate on its own is okay,” Lillian said. “Once you get to the salt and the fruit and the nuts — totally awesome!”
Lillian had even more enthusiasm for Chocolopolis’ 60-percent dark chocolate-covered fig, injected with an anise ganache.
“I would eat these forever,” she said.
Offering a more traditional mix of sweets and truffles is Oh! Chocolate, with locations on Mercer Island and in Bellevue and Madison Park. With dozens of different types of truffles and treats, we can’t describe every single one — though we did taste them, because we’re nothing if not professionals — but we’ll give you a few of the highlights.
Both Susan and I thought the ginger caramel was the best. The smoothness of the caramel cut the sharp bite of the sweetened ginger, straight to the point of perfection.
Kelly found the coconut rum truffle to be “amazing,” while Lynn loved the white chocolate raspberry truffle.
“Yum, you can taste the raspberry,” she said.
The tiger butter white chocolate with peanut butter is named for its beautifully striking look — a flat square of tiger stripes across a light-colored top. But its beauty went more than skin deep.
“Ooh, I like that,” Stacy said. “This like a Butterfinger, but richer.”
The Ben Hur was the creation of Gertie Krautheim, the first of the three generations of Oh! Chocolate proprietors, and it’s a comfort food. The chocolate, poured over a marzipan center with a big pecan on top, took Stacy back a few years.
“Oh my God,” she said, “it totally reminds me of my grandma.”
I found it had just the right amount of sweetness, with the pecan giving it an extra edge of delicious complexity. Visit www.ohchocolate.com for locations to taste the rest.
That does it for chocolates, but not for sweets. For what sweet tooth with any connection to the Middle East doesn’t love baklava? The biggest problem with this honey-drenched delectable is that oftentimes too much honey tends to overpower the flavor of the phyllo dough and the nuts. That’s what makes
Philo&Honey’s offering so out of the ordinary. The Armenian recipe from the mom-and-daughter team of Lisa and Tamara Stedman of Bothell spares the sweetness, which lets you taste everything — and it tastes good.
“I like it because it’s not saturated in honey,” Stacy said.
Karen thought the packaging, simple cellophane with a tag-shaped tag and a raffia wrap, was great.
“Perfect for a gift basket,” she said.
Order online at www.philoandhoney.com or call 425-395-4720.
And then there were the cupcakes. We tried cupcakes galore. And then a few more. We’ll give you the best of the best, starting east at Bellevue’s Crossroads shopping center, where New York Cupcakes serves ‘em up with frosting piled high.
Feeling just right for the season was the pumpkin, with a spiced cake and light creamy frosting. And, on the very top, one of those cute pumpkins that tastes like a candy corn. I got to eat that.
“Oh, that’s amazing,” Stacy said. Lynn agreed.
“The pumpkin is really pumpkin-y,” she said.
The Cookie Dough Delight is a chocolate cake with chocolate chip cookie dough baked inside (how do they keep it from becoming a cookie? Trade secret, I suspect) and more chunks of cookie dough sprinkled on the top. Susan and Eric both liked that one quite a bit. See the rest of their flavors at www.newyorkcupcake.com, or call them up for catering orders at 425-283-5445.
Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co., located at 4th and Blanchard in Belltown, has been churning out tasty cupcakes for the past year and a half, and they were indeed a treat.
“I didn’t know that Boston Cream could be so creamy,” Eric said, licking his fingers.
Yellow Leaf’s cupcakes look good, too.
“The chocolate is lovely,” Lynn said, but also had kind words for the basic vanilla with white chocolate frosting. “Very simple, uncomplicated.”
Simplicity is not the first thing that came to mind when we walked into our office the other morning to find the boxes of cupcakes from Trophy (at University Village, Wallingford Center and The Bravern). What can we say about the Stroop Waffle, piled practically to the ceiling with caramel buttercream and drizzled with caramel?
“This is like a homemade biscuit,” Karen said, noting the caramel. “This is really delicious.”
It was by far the best I tasted as well. The slightly sour and dense texture of the buttermilk cake mixed with the not-too-sweet sweetness of that frosting did me in right then and there.
The chocolate hazelnut got similar kudos. It tasted like Nutella because it’s got Nutella! The Valhrona chocolate cake had the popular chocolate-hazelnut spread in the buttercream frosting, ringed with hazelnuts around the crown of the cupcake.
“Mmmm…” said Lynn.
And really, there’s not much more we can say. Except pass the milk.