NOKA chocolate claims that they sell the most expensive chocolates in the world and at prices that range from a shocking $309- $2,080 per pound, no one would argue that point. The point that is debatable is whether their chocolates are worth that price. From their literature, you might suspect that the chocolatier of NOKA would be trailblazing through jungles to find the most perfect cacao beans to produce chocolates with the "rarest and purest" single-origin dark chocolate instead of melting chocolate into simple molds in a Plano, Texas strip mall.

Dallas Food has just completed a brilliant expose that reveals the outrageous markups on NOKA's products and the source of their chocolates, which they buy from a well-known and well-respected chocolate maker but conceal from their clients to protect their image as "chocolate makers" and their pricing, which includes a markup of up to 4,444%.

Vosges doesn't leave you on your own to come up with recipes that the chocolate chips can be included in, either. With each of the three types of chocolate chips, they list several recipes that will work perfectly with them. For example the Red Fire Martini and Love Goddess Cake work well with the Red Fire Chips and the Black Pearl Chips are the star in Full Moon Brownies.

Just over a year after buying California chocolate maker Scharffen Berger, Hershey's has decided to expand their premium portfolio to include Dagoba, an organic chocolate maker from Oregon. The purchase of the company for an undisclosed amount as announced this week.

Some fans of Dagoba might be concerned that there will be a decrease in the overall quality of the product following the acquisition, or a turn away from the goals of the company in supporting the organic farming of cacao, but Hershey's says that it will strongly support the company in the pursuit of its goals. As with Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt, which are also owned by Hershey, the larger company has no plans to rework the operations of Dagoba. From the perspective of the consumer, the most significant change will be an increase in the availability of organic chocolates, since Dagoba will now be able to take advantage of the Hershey's distribution network.

Godiva has long been a favorite of chocolate-lovers, especially among their core audience of women from 25 to 40, but with the rise of hip new chocolate companies, increasingly off-the-wall flavor combinations and the acceptance of these changes by consumers, the company needed to freshen up their image.

To this end, they are redecorating most of their North American stores and have redesigned their signature gold ballotin, packing it with some brand new, more modern, chocolate combinations.

The box itself is bigger and more luxurious looking, with thick gold paper and a better organization "designed to help customers identify the different...collections." The chocolates themselves have more unusual shapes and are painted with edible, colorful designs, just as many artisan chocolatiers do now. The new flavors include: pecan-caramel duet, a caramel-accented milk chocolate ganache, chocolate with sweet cherry, dark chocolate with raspberry caramel and a macadamia nut mosaic.

Mariebelle's new Iced Aztec Chocolate has been getting a lot of press lately, which is not surprising given that it is a product from the chocolatier famous for their wonderfully rich Aztec Hot Chocolate. Finding a way to make hot chocolate into a summertime drink takes some ingenuity - or does it?

Apparently not.

It turns out that the new drink still has to be prepared with boiling water to fully dissolve the chocolate before being combined with ice. This is somewhat disappointing because the very name suggests that "iced chocolate" might be able to start and finish cold, with no heating required. With no further explanation on their site, this seems to indicate that it is simply a repackaging of their standard product with some new instructions. At least they didn't raise the price with the repackaging ($22/ 20-oz), but don't feel the need to rush out and try this if you already have some of the hot chocolate mix in your cupboard.

Over at Luxist, they reported that La Maison du Chocolate has put together one of the world's most expensive Easter eggs. Priced at £50,000 (about $87,000), the 2-foot tall egg is made of chocolate that was imported from France and is entirely covered with 100 half-carat diamonds. On the inside, the egg has a peach, apricot and praline filling, and it is interesting to note that the egg - less the diamonds, of course - is completely edible. The egg is on display at La Maison du Chocolate in London.  

It is perhaps every baker's dream to take a tour of the KitchenAid factory, but to do so by invitation is something that most bakers can only dream of. When you are the author of more than one wildly successful cookbook, though, it looks like the company will extend an invitation without even having to be asked. Food blogger, author and chef, the ex-pat American in Paris, David Lebovitz was lucky enough to get just such and invitation. He visited the factory in Greenville, Ohio, took a private tour and put on a demonstration of a few things, including rocky road and ice cream for other visitors. Yes- they do offer tours to non-professionals.

They generously allowed David to take photos along the way, so every photo in his post is an exclusive look inside the factory. He checked out some of the very first stand mixers, the assembly lines and the newest colors, like "Meyer Lemon, Martha Green (named after...), Caviar (black with silver flecks), a cheerful Green Apple, Olive, and colorfully-red Bing Cherry." According to David, each mixer takes one day to assemble and each employee assembles around 90 mixers per day. One of the things that I like about KitchenAid is that, in addition to the high quality of their products, nearly everything they sell is made in the United States, not overseas.

He said that it was one of the most fun tours he's taken, with interesting information and a very helpful staff. Be sure to drop in the next time you're passing near Cincinnati:

The KitchenAid Experience
423 South Broadway
Greenville, Ohio
Tel: 1-888-886-8318