The Best Gifts for Chocolate Lovers
Chocolate-Themed Presents for the Holidays and Special Occasions
Nov 4, 2009
Chocolate is a lovely, pleasurable addiction. Looking for ideas beyond the traditional box of chocolates? For those who are looking for the best creative chocolate-themed gifts, here’s a selection for the chocolate connoisseur.
The Luxury of Single-Origin Chocolates
Chocolate is the new wine. For chocolate gourmets, eating chocolate is a rich cacophony of flavors, an experience made all the more delightful when these flavors are from a single area of the world. There are bars from Venezuela, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, all with different flavors. Chocolatiers like Mr. Cluizel and Gary Guittard create single origin chocolates, and for those in larger urban centers, chocolate tastings may be available.
Gourmet Drinking Chocolate Gifts
Drinking chocolate is often unexplored territory for those who adore solid chocolate. While cocoa is made of the remnants of chocolate liquor after the cocoa butter is removed, drinking chocolate is the real thing: chocolate shavings to add to hot milk. The result is a thick, rich drink that puts cocoa to shame.
MarieBelle Aztec Original Hot Chocolate uses Columbian cocoa and spices. La Maison du Chocolat creates chocolate drinking pearls in a little tube, perfect for a small present for a Christmas stocking or a birthday gift for a co-worker. For those who like to live on the wild side, The Wicked Hot Chocolate by Jacques Torres combines sweet spices with ground chilies.
Fair Trade Chocolates
Look for the fair trade logo on chocolates. This ensures that the farmers who are growing the cocoa beans get paid a fair wage for their labor. It’s also a mark of a high quality chocolate bar. Look for the fair trade logo on chocolate bars made by Cocoa Camino. These are a perfect size and cost for a hostess gift or for a Christmas stocking. The milk chocolate with hazelnuts is smooth and serene. Dagoba’s hot drinking chocolate is fair trade and organic, with a sweet taste. For kids and kids at heart, the fair trade Yachana Jungle Chocolate bars come in fun pineapple and raisin and coconut flavors.
A Book of Unique Chocolate Delights
Those who love to eat chocolate may also endeavor to cook with it as well, and what is better than a house full of chocolate cake, fudge, and brownies? These chocolate cookbooks are here to enable a chocolate addict’s every whim.
In Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate (Hyperion, 2006) Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger from Scharffen Berger fine chocolates create recipes for the cook and for the novice, all with high end cooking chocolate. This book features basic recipes like Smores and more complex recipes like fudge bars.
For the total cooking novice who is also a chocoholic, Chocolate On the Brain: Foolproof Recipes for Unrepentant Chocoholics (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) is authored by Nancy and Kevin Mills, a mother and son team who have devised a cookbook that suits the beginner. These chocolate creations are sweet and delicious, and the cookbook features quick and easy recipes.
Exploring the worlds of single origin chocolate, fair trade chocolate, and drinking chocolate is a delight not to be missed. A gift of a chocolate cookbook, accompanied by some gourmet chocolate, is also sure to please the more ambitious chocoholic, and it has the added possibility that the giver may be invited to share in a return gift of a chocolate cake.
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