Introducing the caramel pretzel crunch. Perfect blend of sweet, salty, chocolate, & crunch.
A masterpiece of our Dilworth chocolatier Mari.
I’ll warn you – they’re dangerously addictive.
Dilworth
RSS feed for this sectionFirst Timer Box
People often walk in to the store for the first time and ask whats good or what should I try? “Everything” really isn’t too helpful so we thought we’d put together the first timer box – a collection of the must tries. What do you think should be in it? http://ow.ly/i/jU97
Fall Flavors
Fall Flavors
As you likely know we typically have 18 different truffle flavors in the candy case. Usually 4 or 5 five of those we switch out for the season. Some you see every year – like pumpkin or the soon to arrive creme de menthe.
Others are new experiments created out of great ideas we’ve seen or requests from customers. This fall we have six seasonal flavors – many of which are completely new to our lineup. For those who want to try one of each we created the six piece fall box.
We’ll be telling you more about each over the next two weeks, but until then here they are:
Black Cherry, Black Garlic, Chai Tea, PB&J, Pumpkin, Tangerine & Coconut
Always wanted to work at a chocolate shop
Always wanted to work at a chocolate shop: the DCC is hiring: http://davidsonchocolate.com/employment.html
Fermentation
I had the idea to start writing about chocolate to share our passion and knowledge of the subject with you. I was hoping to learn a few things myself along the way. First lesson learned: don’t start a blog while you’re engaged. Wedding planning is a full-time and all-consuming state.
So alas, with a ring on the finger I return to the typewriter, our journey, and our loyal readers (talking about you Mom). We last left off talking about the bean: http://davidsonchocolate.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/the-cocao-bean/.
Once the bean has been harvested the next step is fermentation. Once the pods are harvested they are split open and the bean and the pulp are scooped out. From there they are fermented in wooden boxes or banana leaves. To me it’s absolutely amazing that such a complex process that can make or break the flavor of the chocolate happens in banana leaves. Pretty old school and I like it.
Hospice & Palliative Care – Nonprofit Benefit Day – July 27
As you have probably heard by now Davidson Chocolate Co. is donating 40% of store sales each Wednesday for the next four Wednesdays. Today’s nonprofit in Davidson is Hospice & Palliative Care Lake Norman and in Dilworth it is Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region. So I thought I’d take a minute and share a little of why Hospice?
For us, Hospice has always been the organization that was there when we had loved ones passing away, specifically my grandfather. To me, that’s one of the interesting things about the group. You’ve probably heard of it but may not really know what they do until you’ve relied on them. I think their website says it pretty well: “Hospice is a special kind of care designed to provide treatment and support for those with a terminal illness and a prognosis of six months or less if the illness takes its expected course. Hospice care seeks to enable patients to live a symptom and pain-free life so that their remaining time may be spent with dignity and quality at home or in a home-like setting.”
I have a rule that every time I start a sentence with “On NPR today” I give a dollar to NPR. (I do the same for every time I sit in the driveway listening and waiting to hear the end of a story.) So NPR, I owe you a dollar. Earlier this week on NPR I was listening to a story that was discussing palliative care - which means I finally know what it is. Palliative is the treatment of symptoms to minimize pain and maximize the comfort of the patient. Hospice excels in palliative care, but places equal importance on dealing with emotional and spiritual pain. As they say, hospice treats the person, not the disease. They also focus and care for the family of the patient.
Offering everything from routine home care to short-term inpatient care Hospice serves our community in so many ways. I’d urge you to learn more: http://www.hospiceatcharlotte.com/patients-info-hospice-care.cfm.
And, if you’re so inclined eat some chocolate, enjoy some ice cream, and support our local Hospice & Palliative care groups today!
Nonprofit Benefit Days – Summer 2011
| Davidson Chocolate Co. Nonprofit Benefit Days Return and Expand Eating chocolate for the Greater Good, summer 2011 |
| While Davidson Chocolate Co. is thankful for a business that brings happiness to people’s lives on a daily basis – one where a piece of chocolate or an ice cream cone can make a bad day good, we recognize there are needs in our community that can’t be solved with something sweet. To show gratitude for our community and to help support the organizations that work day in and day out to make Davidson and Charlotte a great place to live for all, this summer Davidson Chocolate Co. will designate four Wednesdays Nonprofit Benefit Days when 40% of sales will be donated to the day’s designated nonprofit. We are thrilled to build on the success of the 2010 series in Davidson while expanding it to the Dilworth store and Charlotte area nonprofits for 2011. |
| Participating non profits include:
Hospice & Palliative Care Lake Norman (July 27 – Davidson); Davidson Housing Coalition (August 3 – Davidson); Ada Jenkins Center (August 10 – Davidson); Lake Norman YMCA (August 17 – Davidson). Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region (July 27 – Dilworth); YWCA Central Carolinas (August 3 – Dilworth); Urban Ministries (August 10 – Dilworth); Harris YMCA (August 17 – Dilworth). 40% of day’s gross sales will be donated to the designated nonprofit (corporate/ bulk/custom/wedding orders are excluded). |
| Davidson Chocolate Co. is open 10:00 am – 7:00 pm and is located in Davidson at 610 Jetton St (704-896-7245) and in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte at 1235 East Blvd (704-817-9314). Detailed information on the event and participating nonprofits are available at http://www.davidsonchocolate.com/benefitdays. |
Administrative Professional’s Day
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 is Administrative Professional’s Day
It’s thank you day.
http://http://www.davidsonchocolate.com/administrativeprofessionalsday
Delivery Available
The Easter Bunnies
It’s Easter at Davidson Chocolate Co. which means the bunnies are hopping around.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRKy-CHDG4E]
The cocao bean
It seems the best place to start the chocolate journey is at the start of the chocolate: the cocao bean. The theobroma cocao or cocao tree produces pods full of cocoa beans.
Check out a picture of the cocoa tree.
The trees grow best in warm tropical regions 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south of the equator, with 70% of the world’s supply coming from Africa. The majority of cocao beans are grown on small plots of land or family farms; something in which we as family chocolatiers often take joy as we are melting and sculpting the final product. To put some numbers on it, there are 15 million acres planted worldwide and 90 percent is grown by families on plots less than twelve acres.[1]
During the growing process there are typically four important steps, harvesting, separating, fermenting, and drying that must occur before the bean is shipped to a manufacturer to become chocolate as we know it. The remote nature of the bean growing certainly adds an element of unpredictability to the process! We’ll cover more on these steps later and touch a little more on the bean and tree today.
There are three main varieties of cocoa grown commercially:
Criollo: The finest quality with great depth of flavor; only makes up about 10% of world production.
Forastero: A tougher variety less prone to disease but also lacking the flavor complexity of criollo; comprises about 70% of world production.
Trinatario: A hybrid of criollo and forastero with some of the strengths of both – makes up about 20% of world production.
Peter Greweling puts it well in his book Chocolates & Confections that you can look at it as 95% of the world’s beans are bulk beans and 5% of beans are flavor beans, which puts a little perspective on why chocolate (good chocolate at least) can be so expensive.
[1] Mort Rosenblum’s Chocolate, A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light.
THE CHOCOLATES
