Help us find the ultimate Mother’s chocolate gift!

Please let us know who do you think has the edge this year – which chocolate gift would you buy for your own mum? Voting is really simple – there are three ways you can nominate your product of choice (make sure to let us know which brand made it too!):

1. Leave a comment at the bottom of this page

2. Tweet about it and CC us @TheChocFestival (#BestMothersGift)

3. Leave a comment on our Facebook page The Chocolate Festival

One of you will win a chocolate gift from one of the nominated brands. All you have to do is get nominating! And since we know there is more than just one great brand – you can nominate up to three brands and triple your chances of winning! (The winner will be chosen at random out of all the entries).

How did this come about?

Last year we launched Britain’s Best Drinking Chocolate Award where we asked you to nominate your favourite brand.

hundred’s of you voted and eventually Mortimer Chocolate Company was nominated as your ultimate winner.

It was so popular that we decided to do the same with Mother’s Day gifts!

The award winner

The winner of Britain’s Best Mother’s Day gift will be announced during The Chocolate Festival this March.

P.S. If you are a brand

If you produce and sell your own Mother’s Day gift and think it should win – why not ask your followers to nominate and vote for you? Some of our favourite brands are already scoring high by doing just that!

Voting for this award will close on 18th March 2012.

Following the announcement that Mortimer Chocolate Company is your winner of Britain’s Best Drinking Chocolate Award 2011, we have randomly chosen Gar y Millard – one of the voters – to receive a year’s supply of drinking chocolate, courtesy of the winning brand. Gary emailed us as soon as he received the prize and said:

‘I know it’s said often, but Christmas actually did come early in our house this weekend with a tasty delivery of drinking chocolate and goodies from Mortimer Chocolate Company! We all celebrated with a festive hot chocolate (I added a bit of seasonal spice) and then the children got stuck in to some sliced pears dipped in gooey ‘Melt & Dip’ for pudding! Big thanks to The Chocolate Festival and of course Mortimer Chocolate Company for the early seasonal cheer!’

Thank you Gary, we hope you enjoy many more of hot chocolate cups this Christmas and in the New Year!

Britain’s Best Drinking Chocolate 2011 is announced

Following weeks of voting, YOU have decided that the winner of Britain’s Best Drinking Chocolate Award 2011 is….. Mortimer Chocolate Company!

The Award winning producer’s West African chocolate delighted consumers, with its soothing, mellowness with sultana and raisin top-notes.

Adrian Smith, owner of Mortimer Chocolate said:

“We’re a small family business, making our own chocolate here in the UK, using cocoa mass from different origins to make delicious chocolate drinks, using a unique, secret process to make the chocolate into a powder so that it dissolves easily and none of the fantastic flavour is lost.

My 3 daughters love our chocolate and were the driving force behind us entering the competition, encouraging both their friends on Facebook; and our customers through email and social media, to vote for us.

The response and people’s comments has been fantastic and that, along with the award, means an awful lot to us!”

Festival Director, Yael Rose said:

“I’m thrilled that Mortimer Chocolate has been voted for so overwhelmingly. Britain is certainly a nation of chocolate lovers judging by the huge response we’ve had for this competition.”

• The West African Drinking Chocolate is available online, at Waitrose, John Lewis Food Halls, select independent and also online. Nationwide delivery is available from HERE. Prices start from £3.80 for 220g.

We are proud to announce our new partnership with Food Network.

Food Network is one of the fastest growing lifestyle and entertainment channels in the UK and is not your typical ‘how to’ cooking channel. It delivers a fresh approach to food programming and celebrates everything that is bold, fun and entertaining about food.

You will be able to find out more and meet Food Network representatives at the Cheese & Wine Festival this October.

If you can’t wait that long (we won’t blame you!) you can watch the channel on Freeview 49, Sky 262 or Freesat 405, or visit the website www.foodnetwork.co.uk

Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

‘I recently relived a childhood moment when I popped into my favourite bakery. As I walked in through the door, an incredible aroma wafted into my nostrils and something familiar flashed in the back of my brain...’

Isn’t it amazing how certain smells and tastes stick in our minds? I was instantly reminded of my mother’s kitchen. As I moseyed up to the bakery counter inquisitively, I met a bountiful tray of warm chocolate chip cookies. Without any hesitation, I bought one and within seconds of taking the first bite, I was emotionally transported back to my carefree, sweet childhood memories and for a second I left like a kid again. I left the bakery with a huge grin and a box full of choc chip cookies. There is nothing quite like a chocolate trip down memory lane.

My mother loved and still loves to bake. Oh, how I just loved licking out the chocolate cake batter bowl, followed by the wooden spoons, spatulas and possibly the hand beater too… The biscuit tins were kept quite out of reach in our kitchen, owing to the fact that the neighbourhood kids always took great pleasure in stuffing their pockets full of my mother’s baked confections.

Thinking back to when I was a little girl, just about everything that I tasted, smelt and touched influenced my sense memory and forms the basis of my decision making process today. Chocolate éclairs and gold chocolate coins, chocolate birthday cakes and chocolate donuts (what a treat!), icing laden chocolate cupcakes and foil wrapped Easter Bunnies – they all conjure up happy memories that make me smile really wide and salivate profusely while writing this. But I think my fondest memory of all time was getting caught up in the exciting adventures of one Charlie Bucket. What I would have given to sample some of the delectable wonders in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, the chocolate river of course would have been at the top of my list of pleasures.

Then of course there are the memories associated with special occasions, such as receiving my pocket money! Such an exciting prospect, I would spend hours before “pay day” deliberating over how I would spend my sweet allowance at the local shop. When I was much younger, it was all about quantity and not quality. (My, how times have changed!) A slab of Milky Bar took high priority all those years ago and I would delicately savour every little square over several days until alas, the wrapper was empty. Today, white chocolate still remains one of my favourites.

Chocolate is cherished the world over – but is it for its sense of indulgence, or pure sweet nostalgia? I have an innate love affair with chocolate, and all its pleasurable experiences from my past play a significant and powerful role in my life today.

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.” Willy Wonka

Sorry voting has now closed

We are looking for your favourite drinking chocolate!

It’s really simple – there are three ways you can nominate your brand of choice:

1. Leave a comment at the bottom of this page

2. Tweet about it and CC us @TheChocFestival ** (#bestdrinkingchoc)

3. Leave a comment on our Facebook page The Chocolate Festival

Win drinking chocolate supply for a whole year!

One of you will win a year’s supply of drinking chocolate from some of the nominated brands. All you have to do is get nominating! And since we know there is more than just one great brand – you can nominate up to three brands and triple your chances of winning! (The winner will be chosen at random out of all the entries).

How did this come about?

There’s never a time when my kitchen cupboard doesn’t contain at least three or four different drinking chocolate varieties. As I don’t drink much coffee I NEED hot chocolate to function and get me through my busy days. I am always on the hunt for the best of this magical powder.

So you can imagine my enthusiasm when Tatiana, our Club-Chocolate E-zine and website editor, suggested we hold this award.

We thought long and hard who should be the judge and finally realized there’s no one better to ask then you guys!!!

The award winner

The winner of Britain’s Best Drinking Chocolate will be announced during The Chocolate Festival this December.

P.S. If you are a brand

If you produce and sell your own drinking chocolate – why not ask your followers to nominate and vote for you? Some of our favourite brands are already scoring high by doing just that!

Slowly I have started shifting the warm layers from the back of my cupboard and at the same time, there has been another noticeable shift in my life – my chocolate addiction has shifted in the direction of chocolate puddings! When the cold weather tightens its grip, I crave serious comfort food, and there is nothing more cosy and consoling than indulging in a splendid chocolate pudding.

I must confess, ever since I was a little girl, I have had a deep seated love for chocolate pudding. Recently, I have been on a serious mission to find the “ultimate” chocolate pudding. If the proof really is in the pudding, then I want every marvellous morsel to be powerful, yet decadent and light (it should not be heavy enough to sink a small sailing boat!)

I had come pretty close to tasting perfection but “the one” that I was after had been eluding my tastebuds. Until last night, that is, when my tastebuds were driven straight to heaven by an eyebrow raising chocolate soufflé. This majestic offering arrived on my placemat straight out of the oven and had effortlessly risen to the occasion! As my spoon cut into the warm airy chocolate, I spied with my little eye, secretly tucked away in the centre, a Lindor chocolate ball that was melting seductively, gently oozing its special filling into the fluffy soufflé. As I savoured the first mouthful, I knew that I had at last found “the one”. Luscious, sensuous, silky, dreamy – who knows just how long this pudding had me in a trance. As I gazed around the dinner table, I realised I wasn’t the only one enamoured by this pudding – it certainly stole the show!

Whilst in pursuit of perfection, I have come to the conclusion that chocolate pudding is not the answer to solving life’s problems. Emotional eating is so wrong (according to my conscience, but I usually just to ignore it!) When you’re tucking into a rich, moist and sticky chocolate pudding, one gets so caught up in the moment, you are transported (quite powerfully I might add) to a snug place where all your troubles are forgotten, even if it’s just for a split second, and the intensity of the moment brings sheer comfort and of course, sustenance!

He who hesitates is lost… She who leaps straight into the molten gooey centre of a chocolate pudding will be found, with traces of chocolate smeared across her chin…

Chocolate: Here today… Gone today!

 Shrouded in Mystery

No one will ever know how the cacao tree, born in the rainforests of the Upper Amazon Basin, spread across equatorial ‘Mesoamerica’. Probably animals, maybe humans, cracked the hard pods to suck on the delicious pulp, spitting out the bitter seeds.

Perhaps someone crunched on a seed and found it was stimulating, if bitter. They may have tossed it into a fire and been captivated by the roasted aroma. We do know early Olmecs started cultivating trees and experimenting with bean grinding, at least 2000 years BC.

The Maya who came after them regarded cacao as sacred. They used both beans and cacao drinks, hot, cold, scented, sweetened or thickened with maize, in ritual and religious ceremony.

By 600 AD cacao beans were also used as currency. After the Maya came the Toltecs with their legendary leader Quetzalcoatl, the resplendent ‘god’ credited with bringing a cacao tree down from Paradise, along with the secret to preparing xoco-atl, or ‘bitter water’.

Emperor Montezuma II

God or no, Quetzalcoatl failed to save the Toltecs from the Aztecs, who duly adopted the deity along with the cocoa plantations. Cacao shared a platform with blood and gold in Aztec culture.

Aztec priests and warriors preferred their cacuatl cold, sometimes coloured blood-red with achiote, a fitting offering to their insatiable gods.

Money Growing on Trees

Cacao proved one of Christopher Columbus’ blind spots. Landing on the island of Guanaja in 1502, he scorned the native gift of cacao beans, his eyes fixated on gold.

Just a few years later, the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés saw things a little differently, on account no doubt of landing on the coast of present day Mexico, near the fabled city of Tenochtitlan and its exotic ruler Montezuma II. Greeted by the Aztecs as a reincarnation of Quetzalcoatl, Cortés esteemed cacao every bit as highly as gold.

One year after sacking Tenochtitlan and conquering the Aztecs, Cortés established a cacao plantation in the name of Spain, pronouncing of his renewable resource that “henceforth ‘money’ will be cultivated”.

Cacao conquers Europe

The strange brown beans Cortés most likely presented to Charles V of Spain in 1528 failed to make much impact. A Mayan delegation had more success with the future King Philip II in 1544, thanks partly to new concoctions created with chillies, cinnamon, vanilla and crucially sugar.

The Spanish in Mexico had meanwhile improved on the centuries’ old system of pouring the liquid from a great height to froth it (and help separate out the fatty cocoa butter) by inventing the molinillo or grooved swizzle stick – now everything was in place to ensure rapid acceptance of the new indulgence.

For half a century, however, Spain kept the secret to itself. In a rather gruesome echo of Mayan and Aztec ritual, visitors to the court witnessed the exclusive drink served to both Inquisitors and victims of the Spanish Inquisition during the public auto-da-fés.

Battle between Aztec and Spanish troups

While the Spanish settlers in Mexico were sipping sweet hot chocolate in chocolaterias, accompanied by breadsticks specially created for dipping, a fashion for taking chocolate gradually spread across Europe. Flanders – then under Spanish rule – was first in 1589, followed, thanks to royal intermarriages, by Italy in 1606, France in 1615 and Austria in 1640.

In contrast with Mexican habits – where of course cacao was abundant – drinking such a rare substance in Europe was a courtly privilege. In 1657, an enterprising Frenchman broke the mould by opening London’s first Chocolate House and making the drink accessible to a broader audience.

It was advertised: “In Bishopsgate Street, in Queen’s Head Alley, at a Frenchman’s house, is an excellent West Indian drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates.”

From Drink to Bar

It was British vision and innovation that helped create chocolate as we know it. In 1687, a young physician by the name of Sir Hans Sloane, travelled to Jamaica as physician to the new Governor, The 2nd Duke of Albermarle. There he was introduced to cocoa as a drink favoured by the local people.

Sloane discovered that the addition of milk made the drink less ‘nauseous’. He brought his now famous ‘Milk Chocolate Recipe’ back to England where it was manufactured and initially sold by apothecaries as a medicine. This first known chocolate recipe was published in an English food dictionary a couple of years later.

Men manufacturing chocolate bars

In 1766, Joseph Fry created the first crude tablet of eating chocolate and started selling solid sticks a few years later – still a long way from palatable bars.

In 1790, Fry’s son hit upon the idea of using Watt’s steam engines to power his cocoa bean grinding machines.

Factory techniques entered the cocoa business. And while it was the French who developed the separation of cocoa butter from solids, and a Dutchman (Van Houten) who alkalized cocoa powder, it was once again the Fry family, in 1847, who invented a way of blending cocoa butter, cocoa solids and sugar to produce the world’s first proper chocolate bars.

Enter the Swiss who contributed a couple of crucial inventions. In 1875, Daniel Peter used condensed milk from his friend Henri Nestlé to put the first solid milk chocolate on the market.

Five years later, Rudolphe Lindt invented ‘conching’ after one of his employees forgot to turn off the grinding machinery overnight, resulting in a wonderfully smooth mixture; for yet more smoothness he hit upon adding extra cocoa butter. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk launched in 1905.

Fair trade

From the time of the Spanish settlers, chocolate had relied heavily on slave labour, first in cacao then sugar production. As Europe established cacao plantations throughout its colonies – notably in Africa – exploitation increased. It was as late as 1909 that the Quaker company of Cadbury’s vetoed cacao beans from Portuguese West Africa.

Whilst slavery is officially abolished, iniquitous working conditions in cacao plantations still exist, which is why Fairtrade producers and chocolatiers who work directly with plantations deserve our particular support.

No Substitute?

The two World Wars wreaked havoc on chocolate as on many other things. British and European manufacturers responded to import and export problems in the First World War by developing the first cocoa butter substitute, based on vegetable fats.

Harking back to the Aztec notion that a man could march for a day sustained only by cacao, the American company Hershey’s were commissioned during the Second World War to produce a chocolate bar that would survive in the Tropics – vegetable fats with a higher melting point than cocoa butter came into their own.

Most British chocolate is still permitted to contain up to 5% vegetable fats ‘compatible’ with cocoa butter – extending shelf life is a prime consideration, as are cost savings generally.

Rise of the Artisan

Of course the first cacao concocters were artisans, producing small batches by hand. And there are venerable chocolate companies who never succumbed to the excesses and ‘bottom line’ of commodity trading and industrial mass production.

What is so exciting right now is that growing public awareness of what constitutes really good chocolate, and the infinite variety of flavours to be discovered, has allowed the rise of master craftsmen, often operating at a tiny scale.

Devoted to quality above all, they are excited by discoveries still to be made and by the wealth of flavours to be coaxed out of cacao beans, whether via single origin bars or astonishing flavour combinations. There is huge scope for individual interpretation, which translates as a promise of exciting experiences ahead for each of us chocolate lovers.

We try to make The Chocolate Festival website as informative and accurate as possible, but we’re human and mistakes do happen. Just drop us a line to let us know and we’ll try to put things right. Pronto.

Chocolate making is a wonderfully messy yet creative craft that little ones love. If you can’t face a nuclear scale clean-up operation at home – and who blames you – try one of the many kids chocolate workshops running over the summer.

William Curley

Miniature Master Chocolatiers should head to William Curley’s Belgravia branch on
13 August. His kids’ masterclass (11am for 5-10 year olds; 2pm 11-15 year olds)
includes an introduction to chocolate, a chance to taste chocolate from around
the world, make your own milk chocolate truffles and lollipops. School has
never been so much fun!

William Curley Belgravia, 198 Ebury Street, Belgravia,London, SW1W 8UN, 0208 538 9650 www.williamcurley.co.uk/engine/shop/index.html

Melt

Louise Nason, founder of Melt and mother of four, runs regular mini masterclasses
every Wednesday and Saturday at her shop in Notting Hill. These pre-bookable
classes are not only great fun, but give kids a real understanding of how fine
chocolate differs from tuck shop toot. Children get to handle cocoa pods, paint
moulds with chocolate and make chocolate lollipops.

Melt, 59 Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, London, W11 2AA, Tel: 0207 727 5030,  www.meltchocolates.com

The Melting Pot

Based in Hertfordshire, The Melting Pot also comes highly recommended by kids.
“This was yumminess and coolness and awesomeness all in one. Loved it,” gushes
Francesca. Pupils get to try their hand at chocolate dipping, chocolate
lollipops and fairy cake decorating, but also learn how cocoa beans are
transformed into chocolate bars. They can handle cocoa beans and nibs and fine
tune their chocolate tasting skills.

The Melting Pot, The Summerhouse, 16 Hampden Road, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, Tel: 07966 365515, www.makechocolates.co.uk

Chococo

Award-winning
chocolate makers Chococo’s much loved childrens’ workshops run
throughout August. They cost just £10 per head and are suitable for 7-12 year
olds. The sessions include decorating lollies and bars, dipping honeycomb
chunks in chocolate and moulding chocolate shapes. But hurry places go fast.

Chococo Cocoa Central, Commercial Road, Swanage, Dorset, BH19 1DF, Tel: 01929 421777, www.chococo.co.uk

Grand Candy Confectionery Company created the world’s largest bar of chocolate in Armenia in September 2010. It took three days to make and measured 5.6m in length.

The world’s most expensive chocolate is made by the Italian Chocolatier, Amedei, and called Porcelana. It is currently priced at about £7.50 per 50g bar or £10.50 for a 55g box of twelve 70% dark chocolate Neapolitans. This prized chocolate is made from a single variety of genetically pure ‘criollo’ cocoa beans grown in Venezuela that are known as ‘porcelana’, due to their distinctive translucent white colour. Amedei produces only 20,000 packs annually and each box carries its own identity number!

On 22 July 2010, Americans Pat Bertoletti and Joey Chestnut clinched the world-record for eating the most chocolate bars in one minute at Tin Fish Restaurant in San Diego, California, USA.

The world’s largest chocolate sculpture is a white chocolate replica of the Dome of Milan made by Italian Chocolatier Mirco Della Vecchia in April 2010.

The largest cup of hot chocolate contained 2,400 litres and was made by Nestlé in Coyoacán, Mexico on 14 November 2010.

The world’s largest chocolate rabbit weighed 3,010 kg (6,635 lb 91 oz) and was made by artist Harry Johnson in Sandton City, South Africa on 20 March 2010.

The largest collection of chocolate bars belongs to the American Bob Brown and boasts 770 different chocolate bars. They were displayed at the Castleton Square Mall in Indianapolis on 29 October 2010.

The longest chocolate bar measured 11.57m long and 1.1m wide. It was made by A. Giordano Laboratorio Di Cioccolato and was presented at an event organized by Teorema d’Immagine at Rivarolo Urban Center in Rivarolo, Turin, Italy on 14 March 2010.

A lethal dosage of chocolate for a human being is about 22lb (or 40 bars of Dairy Milk).

Monkeys were the first to find the cacao plant delectable, not man. The monkeys would eat the pulp and spit out the beans.

In 1945 American scientist Percy Spencer was walking past a magnetron, the power tube that drives a radar set, when he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket suddenly melted. He thus accidentally discovered what is now called a ‘microwave’ and its ability to cook food.

A two-ounce piece of chocolate can be fatal to dogs because they can’t digest a compound in chocolate called theobromine. So please be careful not to give chocolate to your four legged friend, no matter how much he begs!

Research found that familiar, branded chocolate bars are a significant morale boost to British troops. Hence, many ration packs include a Yorkie bar.

Chocolate ‘space sticks’ were eaten by US astronauts in 1972 onboard Skylab 3. They are still marketed to modern-day Australian children as an energy food.

Chocolate coins were first developed for Queen Marie Antoinette to ease her distaste for taking medicines. To solve this problem and since chocolate was considered a medicine at the time, the royal family chemist, Sulpice Debauve, developed chocolate coins made of cocoa, cane sugar, and medicine mixed together.

Debauve was later commissioned to create an entire collection called the Pistoles de Marie Antoinette. These were coins of 99% cocoa flavoured with almond oil, bitter coffee, vanilla, Orgeat cream and or orange blossom. A 72% cocoa version is still available today.

Sources:
Guinness World Records

Amedei, Porcelana
Fascinating facts about Percy Lebaron Spencer inventor of the Microwave Oven in 1945.

Space Food Sticks are snacks originally created for the Pillsbury Company in the late 1960s by the company’s chief food technologist Howard Bauman.

The history of the Pistoles de Marie Antoinette, Chocolat Devauve & Gallais