My Chocolate Fantasy

Chris Alleny asked:


Almost everyone loves chocolate, from the Meso-American peoples who cultivated it thousands of years ago to the modern day chocoholic. There’s a wide variety of choices out there, from low end chocolate flavored bars referred to as “confections” to the priciest dark chocolate truffle, which contains a real black truffle. In between, you’ll find every kind of bonbon, fudge, candy bar, and other chocolate treats. Some companies have become extremely famous for their chocolate. Here are a few.

Mars and the Hershey Company are the biggest manufacturers in the world, producing popular, inexpensive candies that are enjoyed by large numbers of people. Other important chocolate makers in this price range include Nestle, Cadbury, and Lindt.

They all make some of the most popular candies there are, but there have been recent concerns over quality decreases and the sourcing of these companies’ chocolate, as some African chocolate producers make use of child and slave labor.

Hershey is the biggest company in North America that makes chocolate. Headquartered in the town of the same name in Pennsylvania, this company makes the area smell of cocoa. The town is also home to a theme park – Hershey’s Chocolate World. The company was founded in the 1890s by Milton S. Hershey, and is most famous for Hershey’s Kisses, the Hershey Bar, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Mars is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, and owned by the Mars family. That makes it one of the largest privately owned companies in the US. It’s know for the Milky Way, Mars, and Snickers bars, as well as M&Ms and Twix.

Other chocolatiers make their candy for a market willing to pay a higher price for chocolate made from better ingredients. Such chocolatiers as Godiva, Leonidas, and others produce high end chocolates for people who want a truly high quality confection.

There are other chocolate makers that produce even more expensive chocolates, made from beans sourced from single plantations, using no fillers, and using only the best fruits, nuts, and other ingredients. However, they’re often not as well known by the average person as the larger distributors.

One chocolate maker that most people think is fictional is Willy Wonka. In this fantasy movie this candy maker had a content to see who would take over as the new owner of a fantastic candy factory. They gave away gold tickets in chocolate bars and the winners came to the factory to be secretly evaluated. This movie was so popular it was remade recently with actor Johnny Depp. Although not a real chocolate factory it was popular and had a chocolate moat in the movie.

Chocolate has a big influence on many of us. While we might not think a lot about it on a daily basis, we’d be disappointed if we weren’t able to get this wonderful confection any more. Next time you have a piece of chocolate, whether it’s an inexpensive Hershey’s bar or a fine, hand-crafted truffle, think about the famous chocolate makers who are responsible for it being there.

yitianjue asked:


Candies doesn’t have to be the teeth-rottening, oily content that we are told from a little age. In fact, there are few candies out there that can actually be good for our health. This can be hard to trust, especially since the large bulk of wholesale candy is packed with sugar and other unhealthy additives. That is why only a small percentage of the wholesale candy market is advantageous, but still that part can have detrimental outcomes if ill-treated. The bottom line is, there are some candies that can be eaten in moderation and have positive effects on your body. Most candy, no matter how little you eat of it, only has a bad effect, although the wonderful feelings you get from eating it makes up for that.

One type of wholesale candy that is famous for carrying positive health gains is chocolate. The darker a chocolate is, the more cocoa is in it, and that is noted to be a good reservoir of antioxidants. The candy manufacturer Mars came out with a snack line of chocolate that concentrated around the healthy heart profits of cocoa, and the products were also armed with other vitamins and minerals. Plenty of companies have taken vantage of the knowledge virtually chocolate, but only a few of them have concentrated on it intensely. While all chocolate has health profits, the best reservoir of them is dark chocolate, and other kinds of chocolate do not have virtually the same measure of antioxidants as dark chocolate.

There are numerous nutritional bars and snacks on the market that have candy-like flavors, only are not candy at all. A good case is chocolate and s’more flavored power bars, as well as other products of a similar type. While the products themselves are not candy, they use the enticement of candy flavoring to grow the appeal and taste of their bars. For anybody who is trying to cut back on their candy ingestion, taking this path is a wonderful idea, since it meets all cravings and makes you sharper

Henry Verden asked:


Artist/cartoonist John Q. Tullius said “Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies.” Long ago, chocolate became the go-to indulgence for a large portion of humanity. We eat it when we’re happy, when we’re sad, when we’re celebrating, and for no good reason at all. Americans consume 11.7 pounds per person annually. Most chocolate is consumed as candy bars and similar mass-produced treats, but for a growing number, the hunt for high-quality confections made in small quantities by hand using the best ingredients has become a mission.

Even though chocolate has evolved into a year-round treat, holidays continue to be hot spots for sales. So, as Mother’s Day, Easter, and other occasions approach, chocolates with a special something are even more in demand.

Maurie’s Fine Chocolates and Candy

For some of the best in classic handmade chocolates, you can’t do better than Maurie’s Fine Chocolates and Candy in Madison, Wisconsin. Owner Cherie Diamond opened her shop in 1991, taking over the business after her father Maurie died. He had been making chocolates since 1941 in his shop in Illinois. Closely guarded family recipes are the secret to some of the best things you will ever put in your mouth.

While Maurie’s hand-dipped chocolates and elegantly shaped truffles are sinfully good, Maurie’s is unique in that they offer an impressive selection of gift boxes and a mind-boggling selection of molded chocolates. Every season includes holiday specific boxes and containers as well as a standard selection.

A quick scan of www.mauriesfinechocolates.com shows molds of dark chocolate sailboats, milk chocolate alligators, white and milk chocolate Guernsey cows, computers, swans, and a chess-board with all the pieces. That barely scratches the surface. Each holiday brings its own unique shapes. If you’re looking for a special present for the chocolate lover in your life, Maurie’s is your one-stop shop.

Ambrosius – Chocolatier

For those who want something a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary, you won’t find any place better than Gail Ambrosius – Chocolatier, also in Madison. Gail Ambrosius thinks that bittersweet chocolate is the best chocolate, so that’s all she uses. What she wraps that chocolate around is what has made her famous. If anyone can be said to have taken chocolate making out of the ordinary and into the realm of fine art, it’s Gail.

Gail studied with the renowned French Chocolatiers, Valrhona and the Cluizel family. Returning to the USA, she opened her shop on Madison’s east side, applying what she had learned with a vengeance.

Gail recommends eating her chocolates within two weeks since they are made with only the highest-quality ingredients and include no waxes or preservatives. They look like other upscale treats but that’s where any similarity ends. These chocolates are an educational experience for your palate. Unexpected and unlikely flavor combinations dance to an extraordinary finish in your mouth, creating the most interesting, unusual, and delicious morsels I’ve tasted in a long time. My favorite was Cinnamon/Cayenne dusted with cocoa powder. I expected a good deal of dissonance but the Cinnamon and Cayenne proved a mellow and satisfying combination. The distinctive finish from the cocoa powder provided an extra bonus.

Her offerings include Maharajah Curry with Saffron and White Chocolate shavings, Om (a fruit from Madagascar) with green tea and jasmine blossoms, Cognac topped with baby Candied Ginger, and Rose Garden tea topped with fresh petals.

Gail is always looking for new flavor ideas and encourages the submission of suggestions. Gail Ambrosius stands firmly on the cutting edge of chocolate creations. Her candies are the kind that make life complete.

Candinas Chocolates

Two chocolatiers we visited prove that fine chocolates don’t just come from large cities. Candinas Chocolates hails from Verona, Wisconsin. Markus Candinas apprenticed with Swiss chocolate makers for six years, learned his craft well, returned to Wisconsin, and opened his factory in 1994. Candinas Chocolates are made without preservatives, using only the finest ingredients. This means they have a fairly short shelf life. In fact, the only place they are sold is at the retail boutique at their factory, a new location on Madison’s Capitol Square, or online.

What they lack in durability, they more than make up for in taste. These chocolates can only be described as a sensual experience. The exquisite chocolate flavors are rich, complex, and make your tongue want to jump for joy. Consumer Reports agrees. They rated Candinas Chocolates as the best traditional chocolates in the country. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, Candinas Chocolates are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

The Chocolate Caper

Oregon, Wisconsin is the home of The Chocolate Caper. Their game is Swiss pralines. Many confectioners claim to make pralines but those made by The Chocolate Caper are a whole different animal. Owners Ellen and Claude Marendaz make their pralines in small daily batches, cutting them by hand. Only the best goes into Chocolate Caper’s goodies, including chocolate from California, almond butter from Missouri, and hazelnut butter from Oregon. What they do with those ingredients is a thing of beauty.

Claude came from Switzerland with his recipes and a passion for his craft. His pralines come with two distinct layers, a top layer of pure chocolate and, on the bottom, chocolate mixed with almond butter, hazelnut butter, or toffee. The combination creates a flavor as unique as it is delicious. I was surprised by the snap when I first bit into one of Claude’s pralines and delighted by a flood of flavor that embraced my taste buds in a warm chocolate hug. The almond and hazelnut pralines are infused with a subtle nut flavor that is by no means intrusive and will please even those who are not nut fans.

You don’t have to buy a pig in a poke at The Chocolate Caper. If you stop by the store, you can sample before you buy. For something totally different, but no less decadent, don’t forget to get some glaceed Australian Apricots dipped in bittersweet chocolate, peanut butter cups made with natural peanut butter, chocolate-dipped raspberry or Marian blackberry gels, turtles, or beautiful, imported Swiss truffles.

Baraboo Candy Company

For pure fun and silliness, you can’t beat the offerings from the Baraboo Candy Company. Since 1981, they have produced award winning, high-quality chocolates daily in small batches with the best ingredients. Whether you stop at their factory, buy online, or get a treat at a store, you’ll have no trouble recognizing their specialties.

Cow Pies are their flagship treat. Imagine a turtle on a grand scale. Caramel is loaded with pecans and the whole thing is covered in chocolate. Moo Chews are fresh caramel dipped in chocolate, and Udder Fingers (my favorite name) are toffee covered in chocolate and liberally sprinkled with chopped nuts. It doesn’t end there. Baraboo Candy Company also makes a Cow Lick sucker, a walleye made out of solid chocolate named Wally Walleye, Chewy-Gooey Pretzel Sticks, Green Bay Puddles, and an excellent selection of traditional chocolates. There’s nothing fancy here, just good traditional chocolates; kind of the chocolate equivalent of comfort food and, best of all, they’re available almost everywhere.

Other local Wisconsin chocolate sources

A couple of additional local Wisconsin chocolate sources include:

Amy’s Candy Kitchen, Cedarburg, www.amyscandykitchen.com. Confections made with the best Belgian chocolates. Caramel and award-winning caramel apples are their specialty.

End of the Trail Candy Shop, Waupun, www.EndoftheTrail.com. One of the best traditional chocolate shops run by the third generation of chocolate makers. Stop by their place, have a gourmet coffee, some ice cream, and watch them turn out chocolate masterpieces.

All these chocolate makers barely scratch the surface of what’s available out there. New chocolate makers are springing up all the time in towns both big and small. Someone once said that the best chocolate is the one you haven’t tasted yet. Fortunately, chocolatiers make sure the best is always lurking just down the road.

If You Go:

Candinas Chocolates, 2435 Old PB, Verona, WI 53593, (800) 845-1554, www.candinas.com

The Chocolate Caper, 105 S. Main St., Oregon, WI 53575, (608) 835-9294, www.chocolatecaper.com

Maurie’s Fine Chocolates and Candy, 1637 Monroe St., Madison, WI 53711, (608) 255-9092, www.mauriesfinechocolates.com

Gail Ambrosius – Chocolatier, 2086 Atwood Avenue, Madison, WI 53704, (608) 249-3500, www.gailambrosius.com

Baraboo Candy Company, 10891 Co-op Lane, Baraboo, WI 53913, (800) 967-1690, www.baraboocandy.com

Roseanna Leaton asked:


Do you have a consuming desire for chocolate and spend many hours simply yearning for the taste and texture of chocolate? Do you keep eating it until every last chocolaty morsel has gone and then sit back afterwards and wish you hadn’t given in to that chocolate eating urge? Are you a chocolate person who really enjoys every bite, or are you one of the many who don’t even enjoy it that much? Because it’s amazing how many people say afterwards that it was ok, it was nice enough, but it really wasn’t THAT special.

So many people who crave chocolate wonder why they crave it so much. Many of us spend what seems to be the majority of our waking hours day-dreaming about white or milk chocolate, dark chocolate or varying combinations of candy bars. Some of us actually remember dreaming about chocolate confections or chocolate cakes! And yet, looking at chocolate cravings objectively, you know that you simply don’t need chocolate and chocolate doesn’t need you. How, one wonders, can you remain this objective? How can you step back and dissociate from the emotional connotations with chocolate and see this habit just as it is, as a habit?

The desire to eat it is not an addiction, it’s a habit and habitual thought patterns can be easily broken, so long as you become aware of certain ways in which the human mind works. Walter Mischel, a professor at Stanford University reported on some experiments a couple of decades ago in which he noted certain characteristics in young children when confronted with something that they might very well crave.

These young children were asked to try out a simple task. They were to enter a room where they would see a nice piece of candy. They could eat it immediately and that would be all they would get, but if they were to delay gratification for a certain period of time they could have double the quantity. So what was observed? Some children ate the candy immediately; they could not stop themselves. (Just as many adults just cannot stop themselves eating gooey and delicious chocolate at every opportunity.) Others tried different tactics in their attempt to resist. Some children just stared at the candy, almost as if they were competing in a “stare off” competition, but this tactic didn’t help for long; soon, they reached for that candy…

The successful candidates were observed to use strategies of distraction – they turned their backs, or started occupying themselves in doing something else until the time was up and they were rewarded with two candies instead of one. As with anything in life, if you want to achieve something, the way to success is easier if you imitate the strategies of others who have already succeeded in that task. These young children chose (either by random selection or some inner knowledge) a strategy which made it easier for them to succeed.

What we can learn from this is that the only way on which to stop the chocolate cravings is to dissociate yourself and distract yourself. The more you think about chocolate the more you will eat it. You may say that you already know this, that you just couldn’t stop yourself from thinking about eating chocolate. Walter Mischel made a further observation which is the key here. When they showed the children who had previously used a technique like the “stare off” a better way of thinking and coping, they did so quite easily and succeeded in delaying their gratification.

Walter Mischel’s observations proved that good mental thought strategies in relation to cravings can be taught, learned and acted upon. The only problem thus far for those who have suffered from chocolate cravings is that they simply did not know how to think differently, or how they could create different habitual thought processes.

You too can learn new strategies. Hypnosis allows access to your inner mind and so suggestions can be made to instill in you more appropriate instinctive patterns of thought and behavior with regards to chocolate. With the use of hypnosis downloads you can stop your chocolate cravings just as easily as those young children learned new and empowering mental processes.

Stopping chocolate cravings is all in your mind, and hypnosis downloads will allow you to create the change which you deserve. You will find it easy to release those cravings and lose weight as a result.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis downloads for stopping cravings and weight loss hypnosis.

http://www.RoseannaLeaton.com

Danny Fox asked:


You would think that a slice of chocolate pecan pie is so decadently scrumptious it must be bad for your health. Not really. You probably think there can be no other reason to eat this delicious dessert except for its wonderful taste. That’s where you’re wrong. Eating a chocolate pecan pie has health benefits you don’t realize.

Take the first ingredient in the pecan pie as an example. Obviously, the pecan is a nut. Nuts are good sources of protein, unsaturated fats (oleic acid), and more than 19 vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin B1, calcium, potassium, zinc, and magnesium. Research suggests that 1 to 2 ounces a day of nuts, like pecans, can reduce the risk of heart disease, especially if taken with a low cholesterol diet. Sterols found in pecans are reported to lower cholesterol levels. Pecans rank among the highest foods with anti-oxidant capacity. It is actually the nut which contains the highest amount of antioxidants. Pecans are rich in Vitamin E, flavonoids, and ellagic acid, anti-oxidants linked with anti-cancer effects and prevent disease-causing oxidation in the body. These phytochemicals appear to protect against colon, stomach, and rectal cancers. That slice of chocolate pecan pie may not be that bad after all. And for those people on a diet, pecans are included in the 35% of calories that you need to get from fat. Pecans have low carbohydrate content and unsaturated fat that can help you keep the weight off longer. It is even a good source of fiber. One slice of a chocolate pecan pie can give you your day’s equivalent of nut unsaturated fat and fiber.

The chocolates in the chocolate pecan pie have their benefits too. Cocoa or dark chocolate has antioxidants, like flavonoids, which have anti-cancer effects. Some studies also claim that chocolates produce a slight decrease in blood pressure. Remember the times you ate chocolates to feel good after a fight with your boyfriend or mother? Chocolates contain the stimulants theobromine, caffeine, tyramine, and phenylethylamine. The Tryptophan in cocoa lessens anxiety.

Chocolates are also said to release endorphins, which reduce the sensation of pain. The claim that it is an aphrodisiac is not yet validated, but probably comes from the effects it produces such as reduction in anxiety and an energy boost.

Every pecan pie needs its eggs. Eggs are a good source of protein. Not only do they contain choline for the brain and nervous system, they also have lutein which prevents age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. And contrary to most opinions, eating an egg a day does not significantly affect your cholesterol levels. Each chocolate pecan pie also contains only 3 eggs. If you eat only a slice from the 8 that the pecan pie is divided into, you only get less than an egg with that slice. You do the math.

The combination of these ingredients in a chocolate pecan pie is not only good for the senses, but also for your health. Just remember, though, that as in everything in life, moderation is the key. Eating a slice of chocolate pecan pie is good if done once a day a couple of times a month. It becomes unhealthy if taken more than that.

So the next time you take a bite out of that chocolate pecan pie, remember what it can also do for your health. Visit Tanner’s Pecans and Candies for the best pecan pies and desserts.