"chocolate" news and stories

The Christmas decorations are down and the New Year's Champagne bottles hauled to the recycling bin: it must be time to start planning for Valentine's Day! This year, why settle for a heart-shaped box of chocolates when you can literally bathe your sweetheart in milk chocolate?

And by literally, we mean literally.

Throughout the month of February, the ultra-luxe Auberge du Soleil hotel in Napa Valley will be offering what you might call the crème de la crème de cacao of romantic spa treatments. The decadent, multi-stage, chocolate-themed treatment for two begins with "a delectable cacao and grape seed exfoliation" and ends with a full-body massage using chocolate-and-spice massage oil, according to our sister site Luxist.

In between the exfoliation and the massage is the real coup: the smitten couple steals away to a private outdoor garden where (we kid you not), they slip into a milk chocolate bath for two "while indulging in dessert and specially paired wine." ("Dessert"? Aren't they already swimming in the stuff?)

Have you been down the aisle of the supermarket where hot chocolate mixes live lately? We have, and were flabbergasted by the sheer number of brands, flavors and cacao origins that have popped up over the years. What else could we do? It was time for a hot chocolate taste test.

More than 50 brands began piling up on our desks -- we purchased every supermarket brand we could find in the tri-state area, along with best-selling brands in major stores like Williams-Sonoma and Crate and Barrel, to boutique shops that sell their cocoas online.

To be fair, all cocoas were tested to their exact instructions -- whether that be in a microwave or over the stove and made with water or milk. As an editor's note, when we tested mixes with milk, we used skim milk.

After the jump, our top eight cocoas in the following categories: Best spicy, white chocolate, flavored with milk, best instant with water, best instant with water and marshmallows, best chocolate mint, best classic and best expensive brand cocoas.

It sounds more like an adman's fantasy, something you'd hear in a TV commercial replete with lush tropical vegetation and a waterfall thrown in for good measure (cue the sexy voiceover): "From deep in the mountains of Peru comes some of the world's most rare and delicious chocolate."

But as it turns out, the story behind Fortunato No. 4, the chocolate being released this week by Marañón Chocolate (in a demonstration at New York's Institute for Culinary Education), is more than just an ad gimmick. It truly is rare, made from cacao beans that were long thought to be extinct.

Chocolate made from the Pure Nacional cacao tree was once renowned as a delicacy around the world, but in 1916, disease struck the trees in South America, wiping out nearly the entire population. It was thought the variety had vanished entirely, until three years ago when two Americans were sourcing fruit in Peru's remote Marañón Canyon, and they found what they first thought were ordinary cacao trees. Then they split open the football-shaped pods.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Chocolate! Jacques Torres, former pastry chef of Le Cirque, last night showcased dazzling desserts at an anniversary bash to celebrate the launch of his chocolate factories in Brooklyn, and then in Manhattan, more than a decade ago.

But the dazzle at Torres's Hudson Street factory wasn't limited to the macaroons, chocolates, and bombolinis with vanilla custard that party people were eating faster than chocolate reaches the boiling point. Some of the stars of the culinary scene were also there to wish Chef Torres well. They even brought their families. Good Morning America's Sara Moulton came with her daughter, and Top Chef's Gail Simmons brought her parents, just in from their home base of Toronto. (Just Desserts judge Dannielle Kyrillos was also there with her husband, J.P. Kyrillos, publisher of Travel +Leisure.)

Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue food writer and judge on Iron Chef America and The Next Iron Chef, and his wife, did a drive-by on their way to Lotus of Siam, one of the hardest Manhattan tables to snag.

Drew Nieporent (Nobu), who had recently returned from the 12th Annual Gastronomika conference in San Sebastian, Spain, where he ate around with the likes of Ferran Adrià and Daniel Boulud, was asking everyone (in between flashing BlackBerry pics of his trip) if they'd been to his new restaurant, Corton, located in the former Montrachet space. Yes, they had.

And where is the food crowd going for New Year's Eve? Vegas, of course. All the talk was about the Jay-Z and Coldplay shows at the new Cosmopolitan Hotel, where chef José Andrés just opened his China Poblano.

Chocolate lovers only have eyes for rich bars of the cacao-laden stuff. Chocri has taken that passion one step further by inviting the chocolate obsessed to create their own bars online. First, you decide the base: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate or a combination of those three, and then you choose from more than 100 toppings, ranging from chili to candied rose petals and even real gold-leaf flakes.

Ideal for stocking stuffers this holiday season, Chocri is sending two Slashfood readers a coupon code good for $25, good for two bars.

Learn how enter after the jump.