Here are some photo's from our Portland chocolate show last weekend. Check our Facebook page for more.
If you are in the Portland area on Jan 22, stop by the Portland Convention Center for a great chocolate filled event. Rob from Fresco will be speaking on Chocolate Making - How Roasting and Conching Affect Chocolate Flavor. Check the event site for more info. http://chocolatefest.org/
We're wrapping a batch of single origin Dominican Republic chocolate today (recipe 212) while a new batch (recipe 213) in the tempering machine waiting for its turn. The new 213 is the same as 212 except the cocoa was roasted longer - wow, what a difference in flavor! 213 should be in stores later this month.
Try "drinking" a Jamaican, Ghana or Dominican Republic chocolate bar. Chocolate Necessities on Cornwall Ave, in Bellingham, WA created this incredibly decadent tasting trio. Taste the unique differences between these three single origin chocolates in a drinking chocolate sampler.
We're please to have Cacao in Portland, Oregon now carrying Fresco Chocolate.
We're excited to be participating in the Northwest Chocolate Festival on Oct 23 in Seattle, WA, USA. Fresco Chocolate is exhibiting in the "bean-to-bar" room as well as presenting a seminar on "roasting and conching" for chocolate flavor development (See the Festival web page titled Saturday Tastes for more information). We're presenting this topic at 2 pm on Saturday in the "Orcas Room".
Fresco is also debuting four new chocolate recipes (209, 210, 211 and 212). If you're near the Seattle Center on Saturday , Oct 23, stop in for a taste. The Festival is located in the Northwest Rooms, adjacent to the Key Arena.
For questions or comments you can leave a message on this blog, on our Fresco Facebook Page, or send us an email. We hope to see you Saturday.
The Fresco Chocolate website has been updated. Take a look at: www.frescochocolate.com
We're also now on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynden-WA/Fresco-Chocolate/158248407530673
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We're setting up shop in a new location and hope to be making more chocolate very soon. Thanks to everyone for all the emails and support. Look for another tasting event once we're up and running again.
During development of chocolate recipe 205, samples were extracted at different stages of manufacturing. Some family and friends were nearby at the time and helped out as test tasters. Even the less popular samples disappeared quickly, this posting is a place for any of these helpful "friends of chocolate" to jot down impressions.
This batch was a Jamaican cacao, 70% and it was developed to test flavor changes as conch time and temperature is varied. The test samples went something like this:
205A, completely unconched; primitive, assertive, astringent, tannin. This chocolate had an attitude!
205B, 4 hr conch. Less of an attitude but still very moody. Multiple flavors coming and going.
205C, same as 205B with added cocoa butter. A slower start, smoother texture, like it's predecessors the flavors are bold and sometimes harsh.
205D, 10 hr conch. Clearly a mellower version of earlier cousins. Worth reviewing. This recipe becomes prototype batch 205.
205E, 11 hr, higher temperature conch. Mellowed from prior iterations
205F, 14 hr, high temperature conch. Flavor notes of vanilla and dried plum are detectable. A much more refined version than earlier samples. This recipe becomes prototype batch 206.
We've just received a shipment of organic, fair trade cacao from Ghana. A sample batch roasted very nicely and has a rich chocolaty character. If you would like to be notified when finished bars are available please leave a comment here or send us an email at: info@frescochocolate.com and include "Ghana" in the subject.
To leave your comments about our chocolate or read what others have posted, scroll down this page and select fresco chocolate batch 202, 203 or 204.
Thanks to all who attended our first chocolate tasting event on January 24. It was an enjoyable evening with good friends, great food, and of course, chocolate. Here are a few photos from the event:
Fresco Chocolate and Pastazza Restaurant in Bellingham, WA, are pleased to host our first 2009 evening of Hors d'oeuvres & Chocolate Tasting. More information is available from this flier:
http://frescochocolate.com/Documents/fresco-pastazza-event.pdf
If you are interested in attending please contact Fresco at (360) 739-2510 or email us at info@frescochocolate.com. A limited number of seats are still available.
For additional information about Pastazza, visit their website at: http://www.pastazza.com/
We're a start-up chocolate making company. We import cocoa beans and transform them into finished chocolate using equipment we have designed and built ourselves. This has become a passionate endeavor since we first started looking into chocolate making in 2003.
When we started researching chocolate we quickly discovered that manufacturing equipment exists for large capacity chocolate factories but not for small businesses. There were no commercial solutions available for a home or small business person to make chocolate from cocoa beans. So we decided to go for it! We researched chocolate, its origins, the history of manufacturing, its chemistry and learned all we could. Throughout this adventure we discovered that making really good chocolate involves a combination of processes, equipment, ingredients, recipes and patience. We scaled our equipment size and design to enable small businesses to manufacture chocolate in a small space and without the industrial infrastructure required by larger manufacturing equipment. Our goal was to enable any small business to manufacture chocolate without a large capital investment. We're getting close to that goal.
Today, we're in a really fun place in this journey. Our equipment works! Now, we need to prove that we can use it to make exceptional chocolate. We're developing "prototype" batches of chocolate and looking for consumer feedback. There's more about this on our website (www.frescochocolate.com).
We come from a variety of backgrounds: Business Development, Design Engineering and Electronics Manufacturing. We share a common passion for uncommon chocolate and will keep making and refining chocolate and our equipment until we get it right.
This Blog is setup with posts for each chocolate batch we make. Feel free leave comments and tell us what you think about the chocolate - good or bad. If you have other comments or prefer email you can contact us at: info@frescochocolate.com
recipe - 80% cocoa, dark roast, subtle conche, single origin cacao from Jamaica. Ingredients: cocoa nibs, cane sugar, cocoa butter
profile - A chocolaty and earthy start; tobacco and toasted grain middle, slightly tannin, velvety feel, long finish.
Post a comment telling us what you like (or not) about this chocolate.
recipe - 65% cocoa, medium roast, subtle conche, single origin Venezuela Carenero Superior cacao. Ingredients: cocoa nibs, cane sugar, cocoa butter.
profile - Intense cocoa start with strong fruity notes and a long, smooth finish.
Post a comment telling us what you like (or not) about this chocolate.
