Sugar Savvy

As warmer temperatures waft over most of the world’s population, my hot chocolate contributions to Sugar Savvy come to an end. For the next several months, I’m guessing that most of you will gladly leave the pot of scalding milk behind for chocolate bars gently melted in the sun. Of course, I don’t […]

It’s Saturday night, and I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the past 48 hours. It’s time to find something to distract me from work entirely. This recipe should do the trick:
Cacao-Spiked Hot Chocolate
Heat one cup of milk in a small pan over medium-low heat until simmering. Turn off heat. Add two ounces […]

Nutella is one of the mysteries of Chocolate connoisseurship. It’s primary ingredient is not chocolate but sugar. Its fat comes from vegetable oil and nuts, not cacao. Still, Nutella’s blend of flavors is mysteriously perfect, and the Italian hazelnut-chocolate spread is universally beloved. And as easily as it can be […]

Chuck Siegel of San Francisco’s three-year old Charles Chocolates is a busy man. He’s running a new boutique (opened just in time for Valentine’s Day), he’s experimenting with flavor infusions from Teance Fine Teas and locally-made wines, and he’s supplying first-class treats to Qantas Airways. He’s also one of the nicest guys on […]

I’m on the road this month, trying to make sense of the food culture on New Zealand’s North Island. Traveling can be hard on cooks–you can’t turn the stove on, you can only find dull knives, and you don’t have access to the carefully curated collection of ingredients in your own kitchen cabinet. On the […]

Everyone runs out of time. There are those moments when you have to have something on the table, and all you have is a mess in the kitchen. That’s exactly what happened to me last week when I looked at my calendar and realized that the latest installment of my hot chocolate column was due. […]

I can only think of one thing that would be better than my own method for preparing Scharffen Berger hot chocolate–John Scharffenberger’s personal recipe. Here’s an excerpt from the new book The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg.
John’s Classic Drinking Chocolate
2-1/2 cups whole milk
4 ounces 99% unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup granulated […]

Sam Madell is a chocolate purist. At her Australian chocolate company Tava, she produces a 100%-cacao bar using beans she and her partner Langdon Stevenson purchase directly from growers and collectives on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. Over a lengthy email conversation, Sam and I discovered that we have something in common: we’re both, […]

An alluring spokeswoman for the Max Brenner chocolate company in Australia recently implored me to join her for an orchid hot chocolate, swearing by the floral beverage’s aphrodisiac properties.  Since orchids are the source of countless fascinations and fixations (and even phobias, I’m told), this seemed like a stirring topic for Sugar Savvy’s hot chocolate column.  […]

If the wintering of the northern hemisphere isn’t enough to put me in a bad mood, the frigid clouds that have blown in over what’s supposed to be spring here in southern Australia will do the job. Luckily, an out-of-town guest has kept me in good spirits, and my mood was especially lifted when we […]