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Chocolate Babble
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Written by Steven
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Thursday, 28 August 2008 |
Why order chocolate online?There are a lot of great reasons to order chocolate online. It takes time to shop and shopping for good chocolate usually involves traveling since you cant buy good chocolate at every corner. Also, gasoline is expensive with no end to high prices in sight. Also, when you shop online for chocolate with Fat Turkey your guaranteed quality and satisfaction. Ordering chocolate online with our website is easy. Due to the perishable nature of chocolate we only ship chocolate to the United States.
 Another good reason to order chocolate online is the selection. Boutique chocolates are unique and creative and each chocolatier has their own creations and chocolate gifts that you can't find in any other store. That is what makes our chocolate of the month a great gift. Many times, the chocolates that we send out aren't available on our website. It is difficult to keep up with our creative process and reflect the changes on our website. At any time we have 10-15 products that haven't made it to our website.
We are currently working on a new line of Fair Trade Chocolates using some single origin chocolates from South America. You will be able to order our Fair Trade Chocolate Truffles in addition to our traditional European Chocolates online soon.
How do you ship chocolate ordered online?We have been shipping chocolates ordered online since we first opened our online chocolate store in 2001. We have only had a few problems during shipping which we are able to get replacements out for quickly. We recommend when ordering chocolates online to have them delivered to a work address rather than a home address. We usually only ship chocolates on Monday or Tuesday to prevent the orders from spending weekends at a shippers warehouse. Each order is packed with a reusable Gel-Pack if temperatures are high. We also use biodegradable packing peanuts made from corn starch for all chocolate that is ordered online.
How fast will chocolate I order online be delivered?
Usually your order will ship within 2-3 days of placing your order for chocolate online. This is because most of the time we don't have product on hand to fill online orders for chocolate. This means your chocolate will always be fresh and was probably produced after you placed the order. During the holidays you can order chocolate online and our shipping time is much shorter because we have prepared in advance for order fulfillment.
Shop for Chocolate Online
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New Products
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Written by Steven
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Sunday, 29 June 2008 |
 Extra dark chocolate has been difficult for us to work with for several reasons. Primarily, it is difficult for flavors to come through with the robust extra dark chocolate. Today we had some success with our newest truffle flavor. Our new Extra Dark Chocolate Truffles with Amaretto is my new favorite truffle. We started with our favorite European Extra Dark Chocolate, a reduction of Amaretto liqueur and fresh heavy cream. As usual we used only the best ingredients, no preservatives, and no added sugar.
I was a little worried that like other attempts at working with Extra Dark Chocolate, all of the flavor would be lost in the chocolate. I was very happy with how the ganache turned out. I made the ganache with Shelly who contacted us last week and volunteered to come help make chocolate so she could get some hands on and learn a little bit about what we do and what makes our chocolate so good. Since we had a guest today, I wanted to create a few new things and wanted her to be a part of the creation.
It was really flattering to have a fan of our chocolate volunteer their time to hang out and make chocolate with us. In addition to the new Extra Dark Chocolate Truffles with Amaretto we also made a new Earl Grey Tea caramel filled chocolate. It smelled a little funky to me as the tea was steeping in the heavy cream so I wasn't sure how this chocolate was going to turn out. Fortunately, it was really nice and a splash of Anisette liqueur really rounded out the flavor and added a little complexity to the caramel.
I only freaked out once today. I have gotten better about dealing with failures. As a chef, it was always easy for me to succeed and prepare really good food, but chocolate is different. It is so temperamental and finicky which makes chocolate challenging to work with. I have come to accept now that making chocolate is difficult and we aren't always going to succeed 100% of the time. It is also really great now that we have more really great help. Our new kitchen manager Chef Amy is a real pro. The only person I have ever worked in a kitchen with that I would choose to go to battle with. Chef Amy is awesome, fast, very knowledgeable and a blast to work with. We also hired Terry who came to us during her externship with the culinary school. We have become good friends with Terry and appreciate her wisdom, kindness, and spirit.
We are excited to offer more extra dark chocolate truffles. We will be releasing several more extra dark chocolate truffle flavors over the next months to complete our collection. Next week, we will be working on an Extra Dark Chocolate Habanero Truffle. Habanero has been one of best selling truffles since we started in 2005. Next, we want to come up with something completely different than any of the flavors that we currently do. I am hoping it will come to me in a dream or maybe I will find it in a good meal or a memory of my childhood growing up in Louisiana.
I would also like to say one thing about a Chef I have come to admire. I personally don't care for a lot of the TV personality Chefs but have come to admire Anthony Bourdain and his show No Reservations. Jennifer just finished one of his book Kitchen Confidential: Tales from the Culinary Underbelly. She says that he and I are a lot alike in the kitchen and in our personal lives as well. The first No Reservations show I saw was a visit to New Orleans. The episode was touching and inspiring to me. Since then, I have watched several other episodes and have been captivated by all of them. Some people might look at him as one of those guys that eats weird foods. If they were to look a little deeper, Anthony is learning about different cultures, religions, traditions, and people. He respects people and wants to understand the differences between people and their cuisines. Eating weird foods is a by product of his adventures but certainly not the focus. So props to Anthony Bourdain. I hope that if he ever visits Austin that he gives us a call.
Click here to shop for Extra Dark Chocolate Truffles...
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