Why Do We Use REAL Chocolate?
As an informed consumer, there is a lot of misleading rhetoric out there.
Are ‘chocolate flavored’ and ‘chocolate’ the same?
Is artificial chocolate just as good as real chocolate?
The answer is no.
Real chocolate is like no other substance on earth. For years scientists have tried to duplicate its characteristics without success. They have come very close, but the very best is still a pale comparison. The main difference between real chocolate and a ‘chocolate flavored’ substance is its most basic ingredient, cocoa butter. When you pick up a candy bar in the grocery store, look at the ingredients label on the package. If it does not contain cocoa butter, it is not real chocolate.
Chocolate is more expensive than its artificial counterpart and much more difficult to work with. It is temperamental at times. It can be affected by high humidity as well as warm temperatures, so it must be stored and handled in controlled environments. Chocolate must be melted to a specific temperature, cooled to a specific temperature and then warmed to a specific temperature, and it must be agitated in a specific way during this entire process before it will harden into a substance that you recognize. It takes much more work and expertise to bring you the tasty confection that you want and expect. So why do we use real chocolate? Because there is simply no other substitute. If you want to offer the very best, it is necessary to start with the best ingredients.
Chocolate has been found to lower blood pressure and it is a potent antioxidant according to the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Not only does it taste good but it is good for you~ Cocoa butter melts completely at 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Body temperature is 98.7. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican god that gave us chocolate, knew exactly what he was doing.
Chocolate has become the most distinct and popular flavor in the entire world. It has been with American soldiers in every war since 1940. Chocolate has mended fences, fixed broken hearts, closed sales, welcomed guests, turned acquaintances into friends and satisfied that unspoken craving. When you establish your business and reputation on something as important as chocolate, shouldn’t you only use the very best? We think that you should.

By Gary Dinstuhl ,Guittard Chocolates

It’s been a busy summer here at The Chocolate Fetish.  Our kitchen has been hard at work developing some new products while our retail staff has been busy providing awesome customer service to all the different people that Asheville summer events bring our way.  We literally rolled out the red carpet to celebrate Bele Chere this year and a few of us even found a moment to check out The Southern Highland Craft Guild and Elvis Costello while they were at the Asheville Civic Center in July.

The Chocolate Fetish rolls out the red carpet.

This summer we have renewed our focus on giving exemplary customer service with new training and incentive programs for our staff.  Our goal is to not only give everyone a wonderful experience when they visit our store but also to go above and beyond for every customer.  Thankfully we’ve been hearing lots of positive feedback from satisfied customers all over the country!  We love hearing your feedback so if you have a positive experience with one of our employees please tell us about it!  There is nothing like going through the daily business mail and finding hand addressed letters with thoughtful notes and even pictures telling us what a good job we’re doing (we like hearing good news electronically too)!  We may not be changing the world through chocolate but if we can  brighten peoples days on a regular basis then I think we are doing our job.

As promised new flavors have been debuting from our kitchen.  We recently unveiled a new America’s Best Milk Coconut Truffle.  Our coconut loving customers have been asking for more so we introduced this classic milk chocolate truffle laced throughout with freshly toasted coconut.  Its a great classic flavor that is quickly becoming a favorite.   We have also been developing a peanut butter truffle.  Some of you may have been lucky enough to participate in our peanut butter truffle tasting.  We really appreciate hearing what you, our customers enjoy and desire and your feedback helps us achieve better results.  We are still working on perfecting the peanut butter truffle, its proving challenging to get the right balance of peanut butter to chocolate.  If you missed out on the first round of tasting I encourage you to stop by the shop often in the next couple weeks for another chance.  Peanut Butter and Coconut are not the only new flavors that we are working on!

Edible chocolate sculptures celebrate summer!

In our ongoing pursuit to create beautiful edible art all this month we are displaying an edible beach scene.  Featuring hand painted shells and fish created by our talented and creative team of chocolatiers the display has been getting rave reviews so far.  I enjoy listening to people as they check it out in the store and try to figure out if its all edible or not.  Many people wonder in particular about the sand on the bottom of the display, yes!  It is edible, it is a blend of sugar and cocoa powder.  Just to keep things interesting their is one shell in the display that is not made out of chocolate.  You’ll have to come down and see if you can find it for yourself.

August has brought with it once again The Best of WNC readers poll from the Mountain Xpress.  We have been voted the best chocolate shop in WNC or 12 years and we sure appreciate your help in making it to number 13.  The deadline for voting is August 24th so get your votes in and tell your friends!  This year we are also going for a win in the Uniquely Asheville category for Best Reason to Live in Asheville.  We might not beat the mountains (a long time favorite in this category), but its worth a shot right?  After all the mountains wouldn’t be as nice to enjoy if you didn’t get to savor a piece of chocolate along with the view.

Please vote for us as The Best Chocolate Shop in WNC. Vote at http://www.mountainx.com/bestof/vote/login

With the official beginning of summer things have really started to heat up here in Asheville and at The Chocolate Fetish (don’t worry we’re keeping your chocolate nice and cool).  As usual this time of year downtown has been filled with visitors from out of town, lots of talented buskers, high energy drum circles, and a general sense of summer enjoyment and excitement.  We’re gearing up for the end of the month with the Southern Highlands Craft Guild Show and Belle Chere just around the corner.

If you’ve never been to a Southern Highlands Craft guild Show and you appreciate fine art & crafts this is the place to go!  I’ve always been a fan of The Southern Highlands show because it showcases nothing but top quality work from the best artists in the South and you get to meet the artists and watch demonstrations.  I like working in our shop during the show because lots of the artists come in to get their chocolate fix and because we see a lot of people that have a real appreciation for artisan things like our artisan Chocolates.   When Southern Highlands comes to town we always feature some of our more artistic Chocolates.  We continue to have a wide selection of hand painted Chocolate High Heels and Cowboy Boots on display as well as Smash Cakes and Chocolate Showpieces.  We will also be featuring our hand painted with luster dust Chocolate artist palettes available in milk or dark chocolate.  The show (http://www.southernhighlandguild.org/)  will be happening at the Civic Center July 21 to July 24, and if you make it downtown make sure and come by to get a little Chocolate!

As usual our kitchen is a buzz with activity.  The season for chocolate covered strawberries has come to a close but we are continuing to create delicious treats using fresh fruits.  Blueberry and/or Blackberry bites (made with local berries)  will be available on Fridays and Saturdays as they are available.  Apparently the extra rain has caused some of the black berries to be less than perfect so we’re crossing our fingers and hoping the later crops come in better.  These little morsels of goodness are so delicious!  Fresh juicy fruits offer the perfect tart/sweet accent to our always indulgent dark or creamy smooth white chocolate.  We’re also creating some new sure to be delicious creations specifically for Bele Chere.  At this point it’s all top secret but this much I can say…  if you are an Ashevillian that usually avoids Bele Chere because of the crowds it just might be worth a  trip to try some of our special Bele Chere treats (and it’s not that crazy early Friday and on Sunday). Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter to hear about what seasonal fruit delight we will have every weekend through the summer.

The testing continues as our chocolatiers continue to develop some new truffle flavors.  We are extremely particular about our truffles.  We never take a recipe out of a book or just throw something together on a whim.  Each recipe is the result of numerous test batches to achieve just the right flavor balance.  It takes lots of work (and a lot of tasting, yum!) to create a flavor that unfolds on your palette and really creates a moment of ecstasy.  Chocolate is much like fine wine with different varieties and processes creating different flavor profiles from smoky to fruity or oaky and beyond .  To create the perfect truffle one must consider these flavor nuances as well as whatever you are using for flavor be it spices, herbs, fruits, or liquors.  Keep an eye out early this fall as I’m sure by then we will be ready to share the fruits of our labors.

There is so much that goes into creating a piece of art, and it doesn’t include just good solid techniques.  At times like this morning it requires a willingness to persevere even when it’s not going quite right.  The pieces just weren’t going together well, and my partner and I weren’t working together well.  Chef Leroux kept walking by and telling us it wasn’t flowing.  Neither of us could figure out why when he visited our piece he could hold up an element and it looked beautiful but as soon as he was gone we couldn’t recreate it. 

This is the moment when one has to know to walk away and come back fresh when one’s mind won’t wallow in thoughts of we’re never going to finish and this is the worst piece in the class.  We stuck with it and eventually the pieces began to flow together.  We were finally able to get the base all together and thankfully my partner took on the hairsplitting task of carrying the piece across the room to the spray booth. 

After spraying with a good base coat of colored cocoa butter we attached the finishing elements including the leaves and flower.  The leaves were pretty straightforward but attaching the flower was another hairsplitting experience.  When attaching sculptural elements with chocolate it is not as simple as just gluing them on.  One has to find a balance between holding the piece long enough for the chocolate to set up but delicately enough that it doesn’t melt in your hands.  You also have to take care that you use enough chocolate glue for it to stick together but not so much that it creates messy globs all over your sculpture. 

By mid afternoon we had finished! Four long days of learning and work had finally come together into a beautiful chocolate showpiece. And much to my delight we had actually done a mighty fine job. Even the Chef admitted that earlier he was concerned we might not do well but we had really pulled it together into a nice piece. After an emotionally trying morning wondering how we would ever finish hearing this kind of praise was relieving. Sure it was easy for me to look back and and see where the mistakes were and write a list of everything that could be better. However it was also easy to look at it and think about all the great things I had learned, some of which I learned by having this forum to make mistakes in. I could also look at it and see all the great things that had been accomplished; we had a made a beautiful piece, executed a lot of new techniques, and made lots of great design choices.

There were a total of ten different sculptures made, each beautiful and while based on the same designs rach was a little different, reflecting the people who made them. There is much a person learns at an intensive course that goes beyond how to manipulate chocolate.  This week taught me patience, it taught me how to work in collaboration with someone else, it taught me that its ok if it isn’t perfect and it taught me lots of times less is more.  Stephan Leroux has written books about sculpture and I’m sure they are filled with great technique but no amount of reading could compare to hands on one on one with a master.

The French Pastry School is known for being the top of its class.  You don’t get to the top without demanding excellence, and this class is definitely doing that.

We started the day working with pastiage, a material that I as a chocolatier have never worked with.  Pastiage is a combination of confectioners sugar, starch and geletin.  It’s not particularly tasty but it’s nice to work with and allows easy molding of things that would be impossible with chocolate.  Working quickly so it would not become to dry we made various swirls that reference wrought iron metal work.

I find it interesting to see how different chocolatiers use everyday objects and home made tools, a lot of tools for chocolate sculpture come right from the hardware store.  Chef Leroux had his own collection including some homemade silicon molds used to mold leaves.  We used a heat gun to mold acetate sheets to the leaf vein pattern on the homemade silicon molds.  After sandwiching the semi molten acetate between the two sides of the silicon mold, appling pressure and letting it cool we were left with acetate leaves that we could mold chocolate on.  This is a really cool technique that creates a very detailed leaf.

The rest of the day we spent continuing to fine tune our base pieces, molding chocolate leaves, and creating various spheres and swirls we’ll need for our final pieces.  Chef Leroux is staying a few steps ahead of us as he builds one of each of the sculptures, so we’ll have an example for reference.  It is constantly amazing to witness the skill of a master.  Each action is so precise, and executed with such grace and accuracy.  I can hope that with years of practice I might come close to Chef Leroux’s level, and close would be quite an accomplishment.