Lake Champlain Chocolates Blog

On Tuesday, October 20th at 7pm, our very own Jim Lampman- founder and president of Lake Champlain Chocolates- is a featured speaker as part of Champlain College’s BYOBiz Speaking from Experience Entrepreneurship Series.

Jim is a serial entrepreneur who has developed several Burlington businesses, including the acclaimed Ice House Restaurant on the waterfront in Burlington.  Lake Champlain Chocolates began its successful journey in 1983. We pride ourselves in creating quality artisanal chocolates and other specialty products. Join Jim as he talks about his entrepreneurial experiences and shares his unique story about building a business in a highly competitive marketplace. We hope to see you at Champlain College!  (We hear there might be some chocolate tasting too!)

It’s 10:36 am.  The only evidence of the Double Chocolate Muffins I set on the kitchen counter here at Lake Champlain Chocolates when I got to work this morning are crumbs.  I think they were a hit.

1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
2 large eggs
1 c milk
1/2 c olive oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 c flour (shout out to King Arthur’s Unbleached All-Purpose Flour!)
1/2 c Lake Champlain Chocolates Unsweetened Organic Fair Trade Cocoa Powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c Lake Champlain Chocolates 54% Dark Chocolate Chips

1/2 c sugar
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c Lake Champlain Chocolates 54% Dark Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 375º with rack in center.  Line or generously grease muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, blend sugars, eggs, milk, olive oil and vanilla on medium speed until well-combined.

Add flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.  Mix by hand until well-moistened and smooth. 

Gently fold in 3/4 c chocolate chips. 

Meanwhile, make the crumb topping: Mix 1/2 c sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp cocoa, 2 tbsp olive oil in a small bowl with a fork until mixture resembles a course meal.  Gently fold in remaining chocolate chips.

Fill lined or greased muffin tins with batter and sprinkle with crumb topping.  Bake 20-25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through cooking time.  Makes 12 muffins.

Our legendary Chocolates of Vermont are perhaps our most signature line, created early on in Lake Champlain Chocolates’ history.  The moulds were designed especially for us, each of the four pieces depicting a Vermont landscape – to represent the four seasons.  With extraordinary Vermont ingredients laced into these fine creations, they’ve become a top-seller over the past two decades.

You’ll notice something a little different about them these days though.  Sure, our packaging changes from time to time, but this year the whole line got a facelift. 

Wrappers that used to be gold now vary, offering an assortment of rich earthy hues that look lovely in the new clear bags of Chocolates of Vermont.  We now have an Assorted Twelve-piece Bag, an eight-piece Honey Caramel Bag and an eight-piece Maple Crunch Bag. 

Our year-round box of Chocolates of Vermont now depicts an artistically rendered black dog in a red truck.  The box is smaller and uses less packaging than our previous boxes, in an effort to continue our commitment to eco-friendly business practices. 

Not only packaging, but the chocolate is improved as well.  We’ve upgraded the Green Mountain, adding more delicious roasted almonds and dried currants to the sweet milk chocolate.

In case you’re not too familiar with this exceptional line, I’ve borrowed text from our new eight-piece assorted box

Honey Caramel After shedding their snowy winter coat, Vermont’s hillsides and meadows celebrate the coming of spring with an outburst of wildflowers.  Bees are drawn to the banquet, and we pair the harvested honey with creamy caramel and dark chocolate.

Evergreen Mint On crisp winter mornings you can feel the air crackle around you, heightening each sensation.  We captured that feeling in a sweet peppermint crunch wrapped in dark chocolate, and imprinted with the beauty of the moon rising serenely over the Green Mountains.

Green Mountain When you look out on some of the world’s most picturesque mountains every day, you can’t help but be inspired.  Some artists express themselves on a canvas; we use rich milk chocolate, roasted almonds, and dried fruit.  Creativity never tasted quite this good.

Maple Crunch In March, when the Vermont nights are cold and the days are warm, maple trees yield thousands of gallons of sweet sap, which is patiently distilled into the world’s finest maple syrup.  We flavor buttercrunch with this liquid gold, and contrast its sweetness with dark chocolate.

Let us know what you think of the new design!

There is no question that Burlington is a very bicycle-friendly city.  How friendly are the bikers, though?

Very.  Bikers in Burlington have donated 2,000 bikes in the past nine years to people who need them to sustain their livelihoods in countries like Ghana, Uganda, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua in collaboration with the organization Pedals For Progress.

Since 1991, Pedals For Progress has coordinated donation sites and drop off times – like the Lake Champlain Chocolates warehouse at 444 Pine Street on Saturday from 9am to 1pm - for folks to drop off their old bikes. 

Whether they’re bikes that they’re not using, bikes their kids have grown out of or bikes replaced by newer models, they all can be donated.  Since their establishment, Pedals For Progress has transported over 121,000 bikes from the Northeast to developing countries and people who could really use them.

It’s a wonderful way to recycle, but the benefits from this program are far greater than saving us a trip to the dump. 

Each bike will go to someone who could really benefit from it – a man who can now commute to a job to put food on his family’s table.  A rural doctor can see more patients and get to them a lot quicker in emergencies.

I’ll be one of the donors this year, happily dropping off my trusty old bike that has been with me since before I could drive.  Since a new-to-me road bike is on its way for fall bike trips around Vermont, and I think it’s a good time to pass on my Ol’ Reliable to someone who would get more use out of it.

So if you have a bicycle that may be ready for a new home, stop by our warehouse on Saturday morning.  The sight of hundreds of bikes generously donated is remarkable, but the feeling that you take away after giving your old bike to someone who really needs it, is just unbelievable.

Vermont sings in autumn with apple festivals, hayrides to pumpkin patches and porches adorned with colorful mums.  Lake Champlain Chocolates sings in the cooler temperatures by lowering our shipping rates.

With the cooler weather, it’s much easier to send our chocolate out into the world – the fears of our carefully handcrafted chocolates melting in big trucks or on front porches begin to fall away, just like orange leaves from maple trees.

What does this mean?  It means that we are happy to ship chocolate out the old-fashioned way – in big, brown UPS trucks.  We do, however, require orders to go at least two-day air to Florida, Hawaii and Alaska.  (A truck would have a hard time getting to Hawaii and it’s pretty much always hot in Florida, and do you know how big Alaska is?!)

Shipping rates now start at $7.50 as opposed to the summer’s $25.00 minimum.  Chocolate is a tricky thing to transport – since we use all natural ingredients, like pure cocoa butter which melts at about seventy degrees, its difficult to keep it safe once it leaves our climate-controlled chocolate safe-haven.

So go ahead and place that holiday order, or surprise someone with their favorite chocolate on their birthday.  Remember Halloween is coming up!  Why not give your favorite Trick-or-Treater a Pumpkin Face or White Chocolate Ghost this year?

And since it is getting a little colder, how about adding a can or two of our seven different types of Hot Chocolate to your order?  There’s nothing better than cozying up with a mug of hot chocolate in the fall temps - and a few marshmallows on top will bring out the little Trick-or-Treater in you.  Whether or not you go jump in a pile of leaves is entirely your decision.

By Blythe

It's a classic late-summer quandary that I'm sure most of us have been presented with at some point.  What to do will all the zucchini that piles up from local gardens? 

Much like tomatoes and apples, zucchini has a way of being abundant to the point of becoming an embarrassment of riches.  Last week a large produce box appeared in the office kitchen here, filled with cucumbers, yellow squash, and yup, zucchini.  A coworker obviously brought in this harvest from his or her garden, and anonymously left it for the benefit of the rest of us! 

I had been reading different blog posts on Tastespotting.com that day and happened to come across Fare to Remember's "Being Sneaky with Zucchini" post. 

It was here that I learned there's even a day commemorating this yearly zucchini conundrum.  To celebrate 'Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day', Fare to Remember posted a delicious-sounding Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe. Inspired by this, I went to the kitchen and picked out the largest fruit I could find. 

Yes, I was feeling ambitious. 

Even so, it took me a few days to get all the ingredients together (don't ask!).  Despite my disappointment in not finding mint chocolate chips in any of the local stores, I finally had everything ready. 

I whipped up this cake on one of the less sultry days we had here in Vermont last week.  It came out beautifully.  The cake was moist and had a delicious chocolate brownie flavor with the slight hint of zucchini bread.  I used extra chocolate chips on top and even sprinkled on some white chocolate baking chips to make up for the lack of mint. 

It really is a sneaky recipe - the shredded zucchini is camouflaged almost completely by the dark chocolate cake. 

I won't lie - much like the lone cucumber still sitting on the counter in our kitchen - the entire cake was not all taken (it was Friday after all and I think there were fewer people working that day).  But this recipe is a tasty, worthwhile way to use this abundant fruit synonymous with summer.   

If you come to our factory store you might wonder why there is a giant tea cup sitting outside our building.  And if you really start to pay attention. you'll notice all sorts of sculptures up and down Pine Street here in Burlington. Wondering what’s going on?  It’s the annual South End Art Hop! Hosted by SEABA – that’s the South End Arts and Business Association – and sponsored by local companies such as Lake Champlain Chocolates, the Art Hop is an event that celebrates art – all types of art.  Like the giant tea cup sculpture outside our office.

In its 17th year, the Art Hop is Vermont's largest Visual Arts Festival.  And let me tell you, Vermont has A LOT of festivals but this is one you really don't want to miss.  Always the weekend after Labor Day, the Art Hop (as stated on the website) is "a singular expression of who we are as a community and a thousand statements about what we value about living and working in Vermont."

This isn't your typical oil-on-canvas art.  Burlington is home to some of the most creative artists around – everything from painting, sculpture, glass-blowing, art from repurposed materials, electrical installations, food and beer prep, and you guessed it – chocolate – will be on display for the weekend.

Friday night our retail store at 750 Pine Street will be open until 8 pm where you can not only shop, but indulge in hot chocolate, ice cream and shakes, and take a look at what we have to exhibit.

Emily Jones, retail manager and chocolate sculptress will demonstrate one of the most unique events that the Art Hop showcases – how to sculpt art out of chocolate.  Her creativity never ceases to amaze.  For the Art Hop last year it was chocolate fashion or “Haute Chocolat”, showcasing clothes made entirely out of chocolate.

Emily will be demonstrating how to make her chocolate sculpture on Saturday at 1:00 pm.  Space is limited, so arrive early if you’re interested in watching her use an old-fashioned candy table and put together chocolate sculptures right before your eyes.

This year’s theme?  You’ll have to stop by and see.

I’ll leave you with a teaser though…

Switchback Dooley’s Belated Porter (5.8%) with Lake Champlain Chocolates 54% Dark Chocolate Square  

 For locals, Switchback’s Unfiltered Ale is what you order.  Walk into a Burlington bar or restaurant, you’ll see 90% of the beer drinkers with a murky, amber colored potion in front of them.

I’ll admit, sometimes I go for a Belgian White Ale (I love how it’s served with an orange slice) or will order a house beer if I’m at a microbrewery, but almost always, I go for the Switchback. 

The Switchback Brewery reminds me slightly of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – mysterious, very few people work there, yet they create incredible beer, readily available on tap at restaurants and bars around Vermont.  

Our fourth and final beer paring at Brewfest combined Switchback’s Dooley’s Belated Porter, a 5.8% alcohol by volume porter, with our Signature Dark Chocolate.  The flavor profile for our dark chocolate includes brown fruit (think cherries, dates, raisins), vanilla, baked brownie and brown spice. 

Porters, like stouts, have chocolate undertones, which in this pairing, brought out those subtle flavors in the chocolate, like brown fruit and baked brownie.  Mmm… 

American Flatbread's Zero Gravity Extra Stout with Lake Champlain Chocolates' Organic Mango Truffle

American Flatbread epitomizes Vermont’s general food ethics – use local ingredients, keep it simple - yet inventive – and always delicious.  And of course, brew good beer to go with it. 

A trip to the Burlington restaurant will offer you literally hundreds of beer options to go with your hearth-fired flatbread.  Their own microbrews are brewed in-house and include intriguing varieties such as Boognosh Brown Ale and Grisette.

For Brewfest, we paired our Organic Mango Truffle with American Flatbreads Zero Gravity Extra Stout.  Like really, really dark beer?  This one is for you.  The word “opaque” doesn’t even begin to describe this darkly roasted malt beer. 

It pairs well with the light tropical fruity flavor of our dark chocolate Organic Mango Truffle.  The flavor of the mango emerges even more and flirts with the chocolate flavor that is oftentimes found in stouts.

Wolaver’s Organic Brown Ale (5.7% ABV) with Lake Champlain Chocolates Organic Dark Chocolate Spicy Aztec

Wolaver’s is one of my favorite local microbrews.  Ok, I think I would call all Vermont microbrews “one of my favorites”, but I’m really impressed with Wolaver’s commitment to sustainable and organic brewing methods. 

All of their boilers are powered by biodiesel, they too, boast using primarily Vermont ingredients in their beer, and all of their spent grain is repurposed to feed local livestock. 

If that’s not enough to impress you, give one of their brews a try.

The Organic Brown Ale is 5.7 % alcohol by volume.  The beer is mild, a deep amber in color and very smooth, with a slight malty flavor.  Cherries and black currants also lend some flavor to this well-balanced ale.

At the Lake Champlain Chocolates Brewfest Tent, we paired our 55% cocoa content Organic Aztec Squares with Wolaver’s Organic Brown Ale. 

Our Aztec squares add cinnamon and cayenne pepper to an organic dark chocolate.  Keeping with a South-American flavor profile, we’ve added in pepitas, or Mexican pumpkin seeds.  The Aztec squares will give your mouth a little kick, complimenting the dark chocolate and creating a wonderfully unique tasting experience.

Tasters found that the Brown Ale really brought out the spices in the chocolate and the sweet fruit flavors in the beer complimented the spice nicely. 

Check out last Friday’s Burlington Free Press to hear more about the event!