kind words indeed....

we have had some glowing reviews of late from the brilliantly informative chocablog.

after one of the reviewers, simon, had visited the factory and shared the enjoyment of the products on the blog, i sent him a few more samples for him to cast his well travelled chocolate loving taste buds over. what i love about the blog is the honesty with which the reviews are written. these are people who appreciate chocolate and seek it out far and wide, if they like something they let you know about it, and if they don't they are not shy about saying so! it means that the opinion they are giving is an honest one....

check out the reviews of the cocoa bean bars and the summer collection of discs. and it is worth a glance at the reviews of the skellig chocolate award winning baby fig and rum and brandy plums. i think it is fair to say the chocolates i sent are going down fairly well so far! i can't actually remember what else i sent but i am completely addicted to the blog anyway now whether or not it features our chocolates!

temple bar chocolate festival

we are very excited about the up and coming chocolate festival in dublin's temple bar. billed as 'a celebration of tasting, making and discovering chocolate!' who can fail to get excited. if you are around dublin between the 25th and 27th of july be sure to pop down to the temple bar area for get a taste of all things chocolate. there will be varied programme of events including films, talks and tastings, check out http://www.templebar.ie/ for more information.

the chocolate fair on the sunday afternoon (12pm-4pm, meeting house square)is bound to be the highlight though because cocoa bean chocolate co and skelligs chocolate co will be there with a whole lot of tasters and products to get your hands on!

we will also be running a competition at the festival to come up with a fabulous new flavour for the cocoa bean bar range. the winning flavour will be produced in a limited edition range for sale on the cocoa bean/ skelligs website with all profits going to the winner's chosen charity. so get your thinking caps on and my taste buds tingling.....

do come down to temple bar if you get a chance; it will be a chocoholics dream.

in search of hot chocolate gossip

i've spent today getting together a list of shop owners and managers that i miss. it's quite long! when i used to have more time, after esme started school and while i was still pregnant with elsie, i loved ringing around our shops to chat to customers of cocoa bean who had become more like friends over the years.

since having elsie, i often only find time to email in the evening which is useful but functional: i send price lists, statements, forward food or chocolate news and press releases but i'm missing the real hot chocolate gossip!

today i discovered that helen falvey, a veteran cocoa bean chocolatier, is working in sheridans cheesemongers in galway. hooray! i think this will be a brilliant place to start on my mission to reconnect with the food obsessives of ireland. then i'd love a proper chat with grainne in chocolat, ennis and anne in butterslip, kilkenny.

so, here's to elsie settling for her lunchtime sleep, to a tall mug of chilli chocolate (alright, so it's not only for breakfast) and some good old fashioned gossip...

pregnant cravings

i'm delighted to let all pregnant chocolate lovers know that chilli hot chocolate for breakfast is my most recent craving and i seem to be thriving on it. i sometimes eat fruit too...

milk chocolate chip shortbread with orange zest and cardamom

the rain was so incessent this morning that i decided that instead of bemoaning the wintery weather in the middle of july i would embrace it and spend the day in the kitchen cooking warming, hearty fayre.

it was in the middle of preparing a lamb curry that a watery sun came out, but by that point the fragrance of the cardamoms had already seduced me and i had my heart set experimenting with a milk chocolate chip shortbread with cardamom and orange zest.


shortbread was the obvious choice, as this recipe contains 8oz of butter and i am attempting to lose a bit of weight (you will probably notice over the following posts, as i record the food i love to cook and eat, how regular and always half hearted these attempts are; it really takes only the slightest craving or excuse to throw me off course).

this recipe, as i suspected it would be, was perfect for this afternoon's baking fest. it filled the entire house with a lovely smell of spice and orange, maybe not the types of smell you'd hope to find tempting in the middle of summer but truly comforting for this type of day. and it is certainly one i will file away for christmas time too.

recipe

8oz butter
4oz sugar + a bit extra for sprinkling
1oz cornflour
11oz plain flour
zest of one orange
1/2tsp crushed cardamom seeds
2-3 drops of vanilla extract
3 1/2oz milk chocolate drops
(feel free to substitute for dark chocolate)

method

1. preheat the oven to gas mark 3, 160C or 140C with a fan.
2. gently melt the butter either in a microwave or in a pan.
3. add the orange zest, vanilla extract and the crushed cardamom into the melted butter;stir to make sure they are well mixed.
4. add the cornflour, sugar and flour and mix well until they are all combined.
5. mix in the chocolate drops and make sure they are evenly distributed through the mix otherwise it is just unfair.


6. spread the mixture evenly into a swiss roll tin and sprinkle lightly with sugar.
7. bake for 40-45 minutes and check the shortbread is cooked, it should be firm and going golden at the edges.
8. cut, and then leave to cool. when cool turn out.
   

the results

these are a lovely, crumbly shortbread with a lovely sweetness from the chocolate and the orange and a delicious, subtle spicy undertone.

we enjoyed ours with a hot chocolate (made with cocoa bean's milk hot chocolate mix, of course!). i am taking them into work tomorrow to share round, so as not to eat them all myself; here's to actually hoping it is not a balmy summer's day....

the lamb curry, in case you were wondering, was mildly disappointing.

welcome!

welcome to our new blog!

we are me (emily) and sarah (my sister). we have decided we need somewhere to share all the experiences we encounter both in terms of running our chocolate company (www.cocoabeanchocolates.com) and all the other chocolatey off shoots of our lives!

so this blog is to be a record of our chocoholic frolics, our recipes, our musings, our mess ups, our triumphs and our chocolatey adventures.

enjoy!