Lake Champlain Chocolates Blog

This year marks the 400th anniversary of French explorer Samuel de Champlain's daring expedition to our region and to the Lake that now bears his name (and from which we get our name here at LCC!).  Known as the "Father of New France", Champlain was the first European to ever set foot in Vermont.  And so to help commemorate 2009 as the quadricentennial, special events - celebrating the Lake, the land, and its people - have been planned all year long throughout the state.  Right here in Burlington, the quad's International Waterfront Festival kicks off this Thursday, July 2nd and continues on thru the 14th - 13 total days of fun!  From concerts on the Lake - Tony Bennett anyone? - to theater performances, food festivals, kid's events, and so much more, there is truly something for everyone to enjoy.

As sponsors of the Burlington International Waterfront Festival, you'll find LCC scooping our delicious small batch ice cream at the following events:

July 3rd - Independence Day Celebration Fireworks, Battery Park, 9:30pm
July 4th, 5th, 9th & 11th - Various Performance, Champlain Valley Stage, City Hall Park
July 6th - Dan Zanes & Friends Concert, Waterfront Stage, 3pm
July 8th - Steve Earle & Aimee Mann Concert, Waterfront Stage, 7pm
July 10th - Les Cowboys Fringants & Le Vent du Nord Concert, Waterfront Stage, 7:30pm
July 11th - Ween & Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Waterfront Stage, 6:30pm

We hope to see you in Burlington!

The Summer Fancy Food Show is happening this weekend, June 28th-30th at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.  For those of you not familiar with the Fancy Food Show, it's the largest specialty food and beverage marketplace in North America.  With anywhere from 16,000-24,000 people in attendance checking out over 250,000 products from 81 different countries, it's kind of a big deal!  Everyone from retailers to restaurant owners to food distributors to the press will be there tasting & learning about different foods including confections, cheeses, coffee, spices, and much, much more.

If you're planning on attending the Fancy Food Show, be sure to visit Lake Champlain Chocolates at Booth #1650.  Not only will we be unveiling our new Chocolates of Vermont packaging, but we'll be sampling our new Five Star Bar as well!  What's the new flavor you ask?  Sorry, I won't give away the surprise just yet.  But I will give you one small hint...3 out of the 4 current Five Star Bars are made of milk chocolate, so we felt like we needed to even out the playing a field just a little bit.  Okay, I can't resist, how about two hints.  Some might also consider this new bar both healthy and indulgent.

Hope to see you at the Fancy Food Show!

Throughout the year, Lake Champlain Chocolates offers a myriad of chocolate tastings; an attempt to share our passion for chocolate with all of our fans. We offer chocolate tastings every Friday from 9 to 2 on the hour at our Pine Street location. And on occasion host special tasting events such as next Saturday 6/27.

I thought I’d take a few moments to share with you some of our tasting guidelines. For those of you outside of the Vermont area or for those who just can’t make it to a tasting, these instructions should help you conduct a chocolate tasting of your own. A good place to start would be with our Chocolate Journeys which contains 10 chocolate squares ranging from 34% milk chocolate to 80% dark. Start with the milk chocolate and slowly work your way up, savoring each bite.

Tasting Steps:

1. Appearance: Study the look and color of the chocolate. If tempered, it should have a smooth, high sheen look. If grey/white, then the chocolate has bloomed – the fats or sugars have migrated to the surface of the chocolate leaving a whiteish residue. This is due to a change in humidity or temperature.
2. Break: properly tempered chocolate should have a good, clean snap.
3. Aroma: Smell the broken piece. Identify the fragrances. Milk chocolate may have a milky, vanilla smell. Remember, that you cannot smell “sweet.” Dark chocolate may have more of a chocolate aroma. Unfermented beans smell like burnt rubber. Beans stored in humid areas can smell like grass or burlap. Beans dried over wood fires smell smoky.
4. Texture: How does the chocolate feel in your mouth? Quick melt or slow melt? Smooth or chalky?
5. Taste: What different “notes” do you taste in the different stages (Beginning, Middle, and Finish)?
6. Evaluate: What did you like or dislike about the product?
   

Four Basic Tastes:
Sweet: at the tip of your tongue
Sour: along the front sides of your tongue
Salt: along the back sides of your tongue
Bitter: at the back of the tongue

Sweet, sour, salt, and bitter can not be smelled.
Usually when someone says something smells sweet, they really mean vanilla.

Commonly used Terms in Chocolate Tasting:

• Fruity/citrus/berry
• Buttery/sweet(cashews)
• Moldy/musty/earthy
• Floral/spicy
• Brown fruit (raisings/prunes/dried cherries)
• Nutty/buttery (macadamia nuts)
• Lactic sour (sour cream/cream cheese)
• Caramel/caramelized/burnt/astringent (unripe fruit)
  

Difference in Chocolates:

Chocolate melts at body temperature, at the moment you put it in your moth.
Compound coatings do not melt at body temperature and lack high cocoa butter content.

Desirable Qualities in a Chocolate:

• Quick flavor release (vs. slow)
• Quick melt
• Well blended, even notes
• Aftertaste that dissipates after about a minute
• Bitter is not necessarily a negative attribute in a chocolate, especially in dark chocolate. It can be positive when talking about coffee, tea, fruits, and arugula.
• Sour can also be positive (tart apples, ginger, lemon)
  

Let us know how your chocolate tasting goes. Which one was your favorite?

Don’t buy Dad another tie this year. Buy him a chocolate tie instead!

This year Emily Walton, Lake Champlain Chocolates’ famed chocolate sculptor, is again whipping up our chocolate take on this traditional Father’s Day gift. I spoke with Emily to find out some of her sculpting secrets and to learn about the process.

“The process starts with our tie molds which come out but once a year. The molds are filled by our chocolatiers with either dark or milk chocolate, and then moved into the cold room held at a constant 50 degrees. What’s the difference between a cold room and refrigerator? Unlike a refrigerator, a cold room has zero humidity. Humidity is a natural enemy to chocolate storage and can easily affect the stability of the chocolate often times leading to bloom (the term for the white crystals that can form on the surface of chocolate). It takes about 30 minutes for the chocolate to set.  Once this is complete, the chocolates are removed from the mold and are ready for the last step, designing the pattern.  This is the hardest step of all! Coming up with new designs each year for tie patterns can be a struggle”.   Each tie is personally handcrafted by Emily using Milk, Dark and White chocolate highlights. A pastry bag filled with 90 degree chocolate is her paintbrush. I asked Emily if she needed to draw out the designs before she attempts to paint them. Impressively Emily responded “I just do it by eye”.

Emily’s one piece of advice “you need a steady hand.” 

Emily really nailed it this year!  There are many different ties to choose from, including sail boat ties, golf ties, fishing ties, tool ties, money ties, paw print ties, traditional #1 Dad ties, and numerous graphic patterns. Also, new for this year and Emily’s favorite is the grilling tie, featuring a couple of burgers on the grill with white chocolate smoke rising above.

Still don’t see one your Dad will like?  Post a comment here, and I’ll pass it along to Emily…who knows, maybe yours will be her new favorite!

Right now, Emily is showcasing/selling her creations at our Pine St, Church St and Waterbury locations.  Each tie is about 8 oz of chocolate and can be bought for $18.  And best of all, these ties won’t end up in the back of Dad’s closet!
 

In the last Blog post I shocked and amazed you with the mention that Lake Champlain Chocolates now makes Ice Cream. Since the post I’ve been inundated with questions about our ice cream so here are a few facts for you.

Our Lake Champlain Chocolates Ice Cream is a Super Premium all natural ice cream. That’s right. Not just premium but Super Premium the top tier of ice cream, meaning that you are getting the creamiest ice cream available. We craft it in small batches, sourcing all of our milk from right here in Vermont. Just like our chocolates, we only use the finest ingredients available. To say the least, this ice cream is delicious.

We first starting crafting our Ice Cream in 2001, 2 years later we decided we had perfected the recipe enough to start selling it in our retail stores. And now 8 years later we have really dialed it in, expanding flavors and distribution.

2009 spells good news for Ice Cream lovers as this year Lake Champlain Chocolates is offering our Ice Cream Pints at several retailers in the Burlington area. Right now customers can pick up pints at:

o    Shelburne Supermarket
o    City Market Coop
o    Healthy Living Natural Foods
o    Lake Champlain Chocolates Pine Street Retail Store

Pint flavors offered:
o    Vanilla
o    Belgian Chocolate
o    Vanilla Chocolate Chip
o    Vanilla Almond Buttercrunch
o    Chocolate Hazelnut

Wait, you need more flavors?

 At our 3 retail locations we offer 9 flavors:

o    Vanilla
o    Belgian Chocolate
o    Mocha Chocolate Chip
o    Vanilla Chocolate Chip
o    Coffee
o    Chocolate Banana
o    Maple Pecan
o    Vanilla Almond Buttercrunch
o    Chocolate Hazelnut

We also offer the Hands Down Best Malted Milk Shakes I’ve ever had in my life as well as other favorites such as Ice Cream Sundaes covered in our Tanzania Dark Chocolate Sauce.

What flavor will we come up with next? Why not give us a few suggestions?

p.s.
Catch Eric offering samples at Healthy Living today from 3-5:30 to give our Ice Cream a try.
 

After our long Vermont winter, summertime is finally just around the corner and what better way to celebrate than with Ice Cream and Jazz! That’s right the Burlington Discover Jazz Fest is fast approaching. This is one of Burlington’s great events and a lot of fun for the whole town. With free Jazz shows as you walk up and down Church Street and concerts at the waterfront, it’s no wonder why so many travel guides sing its praise.

For over 10 years, Lake Champlain Chocolates (LCC) has been a sponsor of the Discover Jazz Fest…just one of many ways we like to support our community. LCC will be making appearances throughout the festival selling Ice Cream at several events/locations. That’s right, Lake Champlain Chocolates not only crafts luxurious Chocolates but for those of you who did not know, we have also been perfecting our small batch Ice Cream for the past 8 years.  Ice cream was a natural progression for us and another great excuse to support our local dairy farmers.  We have developed some really excellent flavors, including Belgium Chocolate, Vanilla Bean (boring maybe, but still my favorite), Chocolate Banana, Coffee, Mocha Chip, Vanilla Chip, Maple Butter Pecan, Almond Butter Crunch, and Chocolate Hazelnut.  To sample some during Jazz Fest, catch us at the following events:

June 6 – City Hall Park, Big Joe Burrell Day
June 11 – Waterfront Park Funk Tent
June 13 – Waterfront Park World Tent

In Vermont, we may endure some long, cold winters but that just gives us an excuse to celebrate the warm seasons a little bit more. Come join us at this year’s Jazz Fest which runs from June 5th to the 14th. For more information, check out www.discoverjazz.com.

Today it seems like you can do just about anything on Facebook...share with your BFF's and distant acquaintances "the top 5 things you can't live without", join a virtual Mafia war and work your way up the criminal ranks, find out exactly how many 80's movies you can name, and which Godfather character you are....the list goes on and on.  Well now, just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any better, you can even plan your very own wedding without leaving the comforts of your favorite social networking site!  Wahoo!  Yup, it's a Bridezilla's dream come true.

Our good friends over at The Knot have an application on Facebook called Weddingbook - has anyone tried it yet?  It's great!  With it you can create a wedding profile and share all the details about your big day with your Facebook friends.  You can share as little or as much as you want...including engagement photos, who is in your bridal party, and links to your wedding website and where you're registered.  You can also have friends sign your guest book and (this one could be my favorite) add a wedding countdown clock.  And if you're still in the planning stages (by the way, does anyone know exactly when that ends?  Five minutes before you walk down the aisle?), you can also use Weddingbook to search for vendors in your area (hint hint...look for Lake Champlain Chocolates under "Favors" in Vermont!).

Our buddies over at WeddingWire.com have also created a Facebook application that allows you to search for local wedding vendors (and yup, you can find us on there too!  Make sure to keep your eye out for the special promotion).  In addition, you can also create your very own wedding blog within Facebook using their application.  WeddingWire has blog categories that will guide your entire wedding story, from the ring to the cake, from the dress to your wedding party.  They've made it pretty simple & fun to share your wedding details with loved ones.

Bridezilla is the affectionate term many people use for soon-to-be-brides who temporarily loose their minds and become way too obsessed with their own wedding.  Since becoming engaged in November, I have vowed to not let myself become one of "those".  While I haven't thrown any temper tantrums yet or made my bridal party cry (success!), I have realized how easy it is to get swept up in all the details.

Say, for instance with picking out my wedding favors.  Now working at Lake Champlain Chocolates, this one should have been a no-brainer. Since day one, I've known we were going with the Engraved Gold Ballotin Boxes (which, in my opinion, are our most elegant chocolate favor).  An easy one to cross off my to-do list, right?  Wrong!  Despite my greatest efforts to fight her off, Bridezilla seems to have made a guest appearance.  I've become completely fixated on picking out the perfect pair of truffles to go inside the boxes.  Seeing as our wedding is in the fall, hands down one will be the spiced pumpkin truffle (I highly recommend it...it's a favorite around here).  But I've been torn on what would compliment it best?  While many co-workers have kindly put in their own two cents, obviously that's not enough for this over-achieving bride!  Really, would I be doing proper due diligence if I did not create my very own unofficial LCC Wedding Chocolate Tasting Panel?  Of course not, don't be silly.  Hence the ultra-exclusive tasting group, consisting of myself and customer service guru/cubicle neighbor Jason, was born.  With the mission of creating the perfect wedding favor, every week we try a new chocolate truffle and discuss how well it will go with the spiced pumpkin.  So far we've covered Champagne, French Roast, Legendary Dark, and Cappuccino.  Up this week is the Raspberry, then we have just seven more mouth-watering ones to go.  Okay, so I know what you might be thinking right now...is this all really necessary?  Well, ummm all I have to say is that's a completely ridiculous question...I'm not even going to answer!

But seriously, my only point of this story is that you might not always like her and you might try to hide her...but sometimes channeling your inner Bridezilla can actually be a lot of fun.  When you're completely overwhelmed with wedding planning, she might just come up with a few brilliant ideas - like tasting chocolate - for you to focus on instead.

This Mother’s Day you may be asking yourself: “Should I get Mom flowers or chocolate again this year?” You probably got Mom flowers or chocolate for the past 20 years, ever since you graduated from your macaroni pasta and glitter Mother’s Day cards you made in grade school. So if you’re having doubts of whether to send the chocolates again this year I have one thing to say…

…Your Mom loves chocolate and flowers, why ruin a good thing?

To help you decide which chocolate gift to get for Mom this year, I’ve enlisted the aid of the most knowledgeable Lake Champlain Chocolates gift givers. I’ve taken an informal poll of which products our Lake Champlain Chocolates employees will be purchasing for their Mother’s (or loved ones). Just in case their Mother’s are fans of the LCC Blog, I will not be naming names.

Here are the Lake Champlain Chocolates that our employee’s Mother’s love:

Nonpareils – she loves them!

My mother only likes milk, so I’m going to do a bouquet of Milk Flower pops.  And maybe a Peanut Butter Cup or a bag of Milk caramel flowers.

For my Mother-in law, the 16 piece Truffle box.

Since my mom doesn’t have a huge sweet tooth I like to get her something she can bring to the office to share. I’m going to send her the 15 pc Selection Box. She likes the variety.

Raspberry Vienna’s, Lake Champlain Chocolates Ice cream, & Hot Chocolate.

My mother just loves our truffles!  I would buy her the 5 pc truffle box since the design is so beautiful but that would not be enough truffles for her.  I believe only the 16pc everyday box would be acceptable.

For something special for Mother’s Day, I’m going to give our Signature Chocolate Gift Basket (and a pint of LCC ice cream!). 

Got a better idea? Leave us a comment and tell us what you’ll be getting your Mom for Mother’s Day this year
 

Since 1970, the first Saturday in May means Green Up Day for Vermont.  Appropriately, Vermont was the first state in the country to designate a day dedicated to cleaning up the entire state. Green Up Day involves far more than just picking up trash along the roads, it means bringing people together of all ages and walks of life to take care of our state. 

Surrounded by natural beauty, Vermonters take a certain pride in the work they do and the way they live their lives.  And those of us who work at Lake Champlain Chocolates (LCC) are no exception.  Whether or not you are a “true Vermonter” (I think you have to have at least 5 generations preceding you), you cannot help but be proud and inspired by our magnificent state. 

LCC’s commitment to keeping our state clean and green can be seen (and tasted!) by taking note of all the local ingredients we use in our chocolates including maple syrup, honey, milk, butter, and heavy cream.  What may not be as obvious is what happens behind the scenes.  And this can be just as important as what goes into our chocolates.

LCC recently completed a new LEED Certified Distribution Center, just down the road from our factory and administrative offices. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a green building rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.  To achieve this rating, this new building had to meet a number of criteria including sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor air quality. 

Using an existing building that previously housed a bristle-brush maker, approximately 75% of the old building’s materials were re-used instead of being sent to the landfill.  Recycled materials were used to renovate the building and many materials were sourced within a 500 mile radius.  There are also bike racks, showers and changing rooms for the employees to encourage alternative modes of transportation to and from work.  The entire building has daylight/occupancy sensors using natural light with energy efficient skylights and windows to provide for a better working environment.  In some parts of the building with western exposure the lights almost rarely go on! 

Here are some quick energy facts about our building:
- 42% reduction in energy costs
- 69% savings in lighting electrical costs
- 40% savings in cooling electrical savings
- $35,000 annual savings in electrical & Natural gas costs
- 45% reduction in Peak Electrical Demand – this is very beneficial to Burlington Electrical Dept electrical system because controlling the peak helps keep rates stable for the city.
- Annual electrical saving is enough to provide 33 average Burlington homes with their annual electric needs.
- Installed energy-efficient measures will save nearly 3 million kilowatt hours of electricity over their lifetime.

Lake Champlain Chocolates is dedicated to maintaining and improving the Vermont way of life in every way that we can- from making the finest chocolates using all-natural, local  ingredients to providing a healthy, safe and comfortable work environment for our employees. 

In truth, everyday in Vermont is Green Up Day but this Saturday is also about bringing the community together. So whether you live in Vermont or not, be inspired....get involved....go Green Up!