Chocolate

Three Babes Bakeshop Popping Up At Dandelion Chocolate Next Week

Good news, pie fans: The ladies of Three Babes Bakeshop will be heading into the kitchen at the Mission's newish chocolate factory, Dandelion, next week. Instead of focusing on chocolate, they'll be making fruit-focused desserts adorned with nibs, chocolate shavings, and more -- but chocolate fans d ... More >>

B. Patisserie: New French Bakery in Pacific Heights Traffics in Everything Nice

Blue Bottle's New Edith Heath Bar: Behind the Pastry

Two Festivals This Weekend Celebrate World's Best Foods: Cheese and Chocolate

In a scenario where we were asked at gunpoint to choose whether we'd give up cheese or chocolate for the rest of our life (you know, threatened by hardened criminals who are discerning about such matters), we'd be hard-pressed to come up with a decision. Thankfully we can celebrate both this weekend ... More >>

Behind the Pastry: Blue Bottle's New Edith Heath Bars

Blue Bottle is known for its coffee, but its pastry program -- headed up by Miette alum (and wife of owner James Freeman) Caitlin Freeman -- is starting to get a following in its own right. The team makes beautiful, art-inspired desserts at SFMOMA and thoughtful, rustic cookies and cakes for its caf ... More >>

Dandelion Chocolate: Now Open!

Chocoholics and Cathy cartoons rejoice! As of today, The Dandelion Chocolate factory and cafe is officially open for business! Now you can finally watch your chocolate being made and eat it too. The Valencia street location is Dandelion's new, fully functioning chocolate factory complete with a bean ... More >>

New Discoveries at Ghiradelli Chocolate Festival

Remember in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory when finders of the golden tickets are first allowed into the candy factory and overwhelmed with chocolate-inspired awe? Walking into the 17th Annual Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival this past weekend, September 8th and 9th, felt a little bit like that. ... More >>

Unholy Train-Ghirardelli Alliance Sets Out to Ruin Chocolate, Too

Having already tainted pop radio, S.F. Giants games, wine, and nearly every rock club in San Francisco, Train is now out to impress the icky stamp of its exhausted cliches and limp-dicked rhymes on another seemingly un-ruinable thing: chocolate. The band will appear on the Today Show tomorrow to an ... More >>

Pao de Queijo: Kika's Treats' Savory Brazilian Cheese Bread

Kika's Treats: The Brazilian Cheese Bread That Comes But Once A Year

Cristina "Kika" Arantes instructs me to hold my nose as I repeat after her: "pao de queijo." The nasel tone of the Portuguese word for Brazilian cheese bread may be difficult for Americans to master, but the love for this Brazilian snack is easy to acquire. It looks like a small bread roll, but brea ... More >>

Della Fattoria's Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Shames All Others

Petaluma bakery Della Fattoria has the chocolate chip cookie for people who don't care about chocolate chip cookies. The secret to winning over non-believers is a round and wafer-thin shape and the liberal and judicious use of brown sugar in the batter. The chocolate chips are about half as big as ... More >>

Meet La Graziosa, The Graceful Cookie

Vallejo-based baker La Graziosa, the graceful cookie, began 17 years ago on a family biscotti recipe that has spawned unique varieties like mocha chocolate chip and orange cranberry pistachio, but it's the company's soft cookies that have captivated the Cook E. Monster. There are 11 cookie varietie ... More >>

Beer & Spirits Chocolates: Taste Testing Sweets with a Kick

​We recently reviewed Coco Delice's beer and booze-infused truffles, and now two more of our favorite chocolate artisans have turned up with beer and spirits in their sweets. Vice Chocolates' 2012 Lush collection features a beer, a whiskey, and two wine-based truffles. Socola, meanwhile, has add ... More >>

Your Artisanal Easter Candy Taste Test

​ Easter is coming. We'll admit to enjoying the sweet, syrupy goo of Cadbury Creme Eggs and the back-in-the-day memories a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg might stir, but today we're focusing on special Easter offerings from artisanal producers. There's a lot of deliciousness there, some of which you ... More >>

Baker & Banker Bakery's Bake-at-Home Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

​Baker & Banker Bakery, neighbor to Lori Baker and Jeff Banker's restaurant, packs a lot of potency into a small retail space. Recognizing the addictive power of its cookies, B&BB now offers frozen dough to go in two varieties: ginger and brown-butter chocolate chip. For $10, you can bake ... More >>

Kicks Cookies and Ice Cream: So Good, You Might Reconsider White Chocolate

Tamara PalmerKicks' white chocolate and apricot cookie.​Your Cook E. Monster is not what you would call a big fan of white chocolate. In fact, if it were legally possible to petition to stop calling that particular substance chocolate, we'd be campaigning right now. But Kicks Cookies and Ice Crea ... More >>

Roamin' Cannoli Makes Sophomore Outing Today at Off The Grid

Foodspotting/Mel N.​ If you're having lunch at Off The Grid's Civic Center event today (11 a.m.-2 p.m.), save some room for dessert. It'll be your second chance to get a cannolo from new street vendor Roamin' Cannoli before she changes locations because of the regular rotation of vendors. Owne ... More >>

New Cannabis Edibles Focusing on Flavor, Not Just the Buzz

Molly DeCoudreaux/Seventh HouseToasted quinoa chocolate treats from San Francisco's Seventh House. Yeah, they're literally toasted.​Medical marijuana has provided solace for Californians with chronic pain, nausea, lost appetite, and other problems due to injury and disease. But not everyone wa ... More >>

Tonight: Deciphering Chocolate

nic221/Flickr​Friday Night at the de Young: Chocolate of the Americas Where: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive (in Golden Gate Park), 750-3600 When: Fri., Feb. 25, 6-8:45 p.m. Cost: Free The rundown: We heard you're fronting like a chocolate pro, all "nib" this" and "single-so ... More >>

Upscale Cocoa Crawl through San Francisco

Jonathan KauffmanPoco Dolce's Kathy Wiley.​The Chocolatiers of San Francisco: Taste, Talk, and Tour Where: Starts at 1198 Illinois (at Humboldt) When: Sat., Jan. 22, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cost: $50 The rundown: Saturday morning is your chance to lift the veil on three local chocolate masters ... More >>

Sipping Chocolate the Highlight of Pure Dark Pop-Up on Union

Tamara Palmer​SFoodie's Jonathan Kauffman first broke news of Pure Dark, a chocolate shop popping up on Union Street through February. Launched by candy manufacturer Mars to showcase its artisan chocolate line (and attract wholesale clients), the shop features comfy places to sit and sip its b ... More >>

Saratoga Chocolates Liquidates to Make Room for Ike's

Saratoga Chocolates​Saratoga Chocolates will shutter its San Francisco retail location this week, with a final liquidation sale today and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Expect to find all remaining confections priced half off ― even store fixtures are being hawked. There should be some grea ... More >>

Vice is Flavoring Chocolates with Roasted Garlic. Does It Work?

Tamara Palmer​In our copious chocolate samplings, we've only encountered one other candy maker who combined garlic with dark chocolate, but without the confidence to offer up the results for sale (probably a good thing). Now, Vice Chocolates offers a dark chocolate bonbon with garlic ganache. ... More >>

Cereal for Dessert at Schweet Boks

Tamara PalmerS'Mores cereal cup ($3.49).​"Cereal eatery" Schweet Boks in the Sunset has been open for nearly two weeks. The tiny space is reminiscent of a frozen yogurt shop, and it does offer low-fat yogurt parfaits, smoothies, oatmeal, and cereals with a wide variety of healthy and not-so-he ... More >>

In Praise of Local Ice Cream Sandwiches

Tamara PalmerNamu's ice cream sandwich contains a lashing of Korean chili paste in the chocolate.​If you haven't noticed, it's been pretty darned hot outside this week, and glorious ice cream sandwich season is definitely here. We've been scarfing down many flavor-forward versions of this conf ... More >>

Where Can I Buy Locally Made Chocolate In a Post-Scharffen Berger World?

Who cares if Scharffen Berger left town when we have E. Guittard?​A question came in from D.F. this week:I used to buy Scharffen Berger chocolate, but now that Hershey bought out the company and left Berkeley, I don't know where to buy local chocolate. I've been buying bags of Guittard chips at th ... More >>

Meet the Krunch Bar for the New Age: Chocolate with Puffed Quinoa

​While flax seeds continue to find their way into chocolate bars in an attempt to make them healthy, a local fair-trade company has already moved on. San Francisco-based Alter-Eco has created Midnight Crunch, a dark chocolate bar studded with whole quinoa, a complete protein. Fortunately, puff ... More >>

Sweet Beat: East Bay Chocolatier Seeks to Boost Both Oakland and Jamaica

M. LaddOakland Chococlate Co. sources beans from Jamaican farmers.​Utilizing space at Tanya Holland's Brown Sugar Kitchen, Oakland City Senior Council Member Nancy Nadel started out doing what she describes as bean to bar to bonbon. Today, Nadel calls herself cacaofevier and chocolatier (not t ... More >>

Snacktion: Chocolate Tortilla Chips

T. Palmer​Name: Chocolate Tortilla Chips Brand: FoodShouldTasteGood Origin: Massachusetts Found at: Falletti Foods (308 Broderick at Fell) Cost: $3.29 Ingredients: Stone ground corn, high oleic sunflower oil and/or safflower oil, semi-sweet chocolate powder, evaporated cane juice, corn bran, Dutch ... More >>

Snacktion: My Goodness Bar from Chocolate Visions

T. Palmer​Name: My Goodness BarBrand: Chocolate VisionsOrigin: Scotts ValleyFound at: Fog City News (455 Market at Montgomery)Cost: $6.95Ingredients: Bittersweet chocolate, honey roasted peanuts, salt, modified food starch, coconut. Calories per serving: Not listedThe word: Lloyd and Lindy Martin' ... More >>

Free Screening of 'Babette's Feast' at Charles Chocolates

​If you were destitute and lived a life of servitude before winning the lottery, you probably wouldn't spend your earnings on a huge meal for your employers. But so it goes in the 1987 film Babette's Feast, in which a lonely cook beats the ultimate gaming odds and uses her proceeds t ... More >>

'Spirited Away' Kicks Off Charles Chocolates' Summer Movie Series

Charles Chocolates begins its annual summer movie series this Friday, June 12 with a screening of 2001 anime charmer Spirited Away and some better-than-multiplex snacks. Sushi by Ichi (full menu here) and Charles' black sesame caramel corn will be available for purchase.Each screening promi ... More >>

Recchiuti's Taste Project Flirts With Savory and Sweet Flavors

Michael Recchiuti dreams up the Taste Project "This has everything to do with stuff I'd like to do, but could never do on an industrial level," said chocolatier Michael Recchiuti as a panini fungi of shiitake chocolate malt ice cream on grilled brioche was served. Recchiuti had stayed up well into ... More >>

Vegan Eats: Cacao Dulce's Chopita Rocks

Cacao nibs, the crushed innards of a roasted cocoa bean, have found an increasing place on chocolate shelves over the past few years. Not unlike snacking on crushed coffee beans, they can pack a bitter wallop that's an acquired taste (not to mention a caffeine-fueled zing). But Oakland's Cacao Du ... More >>

Snacktion: Lotte's Soyer Chocolate Soy Protein Snack

Name: Soyer Chocolate Soy Protein Snack Brand: Lotte Origin: Japan Cost: $2.39 Found at: Sunset Super (2425 Irving) Ingredients: Sugar, skimmed soybean, whole milk powder, corn starch, cocoa butter, cacao mass, palm oil, lactose, salt, wheat flour, egg, shellac, calcium carbonate, vegetable ... More >>

Seasonal Treats at Trader Joe's

By Meredith Brody We weren't consciously aware of longing for Trader Joe's Almond Snowman Cookies over the past year, so when our heart leapt up when we saw them on the shelves again we were slightly embarrassed. Last year we'd passed them by, thinking $4.99 a box was, well, too much, but eventual ... More >>

Snacktion: Trader Joe's Lumpy Bumpy Bar

Name: Lumpy Bumpy Bar Brand: Trader Joe's Origin: Southern California Found at: Trader Joe's (3 Masonic at Geary) Cost: $2.49 Ingredients: Sugar, peanuts, corn syrup, dark chocolate, caramel, water, invert sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla extract, egg albumen, kosher salt, potato starch, in ... More >>

Tcho Launches Beta Store

San Francisco has its very own chocolate factory with Tcho, a business launched in 2006 by former NASA software developer Timothy Childs and Wired founder Louis Rosetto. Coming from the technology world, Tcho puts all its personally sourced chocolate bars into beta testing, soliciting consumer fee ... More >>

Green Eats: Sating that Vegan Sweet Tooth

Our Cornucopia Runneth Over

There is plenty new at two of San Francisco's best takeout places

Sweet Dreams

In difficult times, a bite of cake, a sip of creamy hot chocolate, or a forkful of pie can elevate your mood

Best Pastries

Best Hot Chocolate

The Bland Leading the Bland

Arab fusion in a new hotel restaurant leaves something to be desired

I Scream

Nondairy ice cream that's worthy of Milwaukee's best

Best Vegan Chocolate Cake

Ananda Fuara

Best Éclairs

Moscow and Tbilisi Bakery Store

Best Damn Cup of Hot Chocolate

The Grove

Dog Bites

L'Etat, C'est Moi. Or Whatever; A Spoonful -- or So -- of Sugar

Dish