The 2024 SF Fall Holiday Chocolate Salon, sponsored by TasteTV, was held November 24 at the San Francisco County Fair Building Auditorium in Golden Gate Park. As always it was a good chance to meet a lot of chocolatiers, chocolate makers, and confectioners, find out what’s new, and sample a lot of excellent chocolate. I broke with tradition and didn’t arrive until the afternoon so I missed out on some treats because they were sold out but there was still plenty to see, try, and share here.
So one tradition out the window but maybe starting a new one: I did a Peppermint Challenge with the 2022 Holiday Salon. This time there were a number of new peppermint chocolate options so I’m doing it again at the end of this article.
SFBA vendors at the Salon
While the Fall Salon is usually a smaller affair than the Spring Salon, this one was almost as large local vendor wise with 20 SFBA vendors including 4 first time vendors. You can jump to any vendor directly from this list:
- 9th & Larkin — NEW!
- aL chocoLat Boutique
- Blue Canary Sweets — NEW!
- Brigadeiro Sprinkles
- Cacao Regina — NEW!
- The Chaga Company
- Coba Coffee + Chocolate
- CocoTutti Chocolates
- Eri’s Choco — NEW!
- flying noir
- The Good Chocolate
- Kindred Caramels
- Kokak Chocolates
- Michael’s Chocolates
- Rainy Day Chocolate
- Socola Chocolatier
- Sonoma Chocolatiers
- VB Fine Chocolates
- Volo Chocolate
- Z. Cioccolato
Blue Canary Sweets
The first first-time vendor we encountered was Blue Canary Sweets who had a good perch at the Salon — immediately to the right as people walked in — you couldn’t miss it.
Blue Canary primarily makes bars with different inclusions and they had a display of their current bars — along with some mini bars and cute chocolate robots. Since toy robots are one of Cacaopod’s interests that was an easy sell.
The adorable 2″ tall Tahitian Vanilla Caramel Robot had a 70% cacao dark chocolate shell highlighted with gold luster dust and filled with a salted vanilla caramel. The filling was a really stretchy liquid caramel which was fun.
The 70% was a little bitter so this might not be kid appropriate — except for all the kids at heart. Unlike his other robots, this one did not make it onto a shelf to be admired — it disappeared quickly.
We have tried some of Blue Canary Sweets’ bars before but this time I got to meet founder/header chocolatier Julia Anderson in person. This is the second chocolate business she has run — she’s the original owner of Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos — but Chocolate Salons are a new thing for her. She did the LA Salon the month before, the SF Fall Holiday Salon was her second one. I asked her what she thought. “It’s going great,” she enthused. “I love that I get to see so many other makers here.”
That was a theme we encountered throughout the day and we did see a lot of vendors walking the floor and chatting with other vendors.
Julia told me about what’s new since the last time I checked in with her: She has expanded her monthly chocolate subscription options — in addition to choosing which amount of bars you want monthly you choose which bars you want. And every quarter there is an extra treat such as bonbons, pâte de fruit, marshmallows, or a set of her new minibars included in the package. And maybe robots?
She described the minibars which are 1 oz. bars branded with her logo: “They’re a sampling of what I’m about: a plain 70% Peruvian cacao, the Golden Ticket — which is blond chocolate — and a milk chocolate almond, one of my all time favs.”
I think it’s a great idea to offer smaller bars to get people to sample your wares. With the price of cacao and other supplies going up, up, up, bars with a lower price point will lower people’s resistance — and maybe create some new repeat customers. I like Julia’s selection: The plain bar uses the cacao she uses for her dark bars, and the milk and blond bars give you a taste of her range.
All of the bars were well made with a good snap and smooth texture. The 70% Peruvian was savory and tasted like a higher percentage cacao bar. The Golden Ticket bar was shiny with gold luster dust and had cacao nibs mixed in. It was a hard white chocolate that took time to melt resulting in a sweet, very caramel tasting bar with a nice crunch from the nibs. The milk chocolate was also a little caramel tasting, milky, and the crunchy almonds were a good classic addition.
We picked up some of her full sized bars to try — including the very seasonal Candy Cane Crush which is reviewed in the Peppermint Challenge.
We shared the very attractive 70% Peruvian Dark Chocolate | Toasted Almonds & Candied Orange Peel bar with our regulars to good reviews.
The bar was full of chopped toasted almonds and bits of candied orange peel. With all those inclusions we had a hard time breaking it into neat squares but it was well made with a hard snap and smooth texture.
I thought it had good candied orange and nutty flavors. And the 70% cacao’s slight bitterness kept the candied orange peel from making the bar too sweet.
My tasters liked the bar. Some of their comments: “Chewing reveals little surprises,” “It’s not subtle,” and “I like that it doesn’t lose the chocolate flavor.”
Blue Canary Sweets doesn’t have a storefront but you can order online or buy their current line at their popups.
For a first-timer Blue Canary did really well in the competitions. In the Judges’ Awards competition, Blue Canary Sweets won Gold for New Product Award; Silver for Best Chocolate Bar and Best Dark Chocolates; Bronze for Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Milk Chocolates, and Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; and received Honorable Mentions for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and Best in Salon.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Blue Canary Sweets won Silver for Best New Product; Bronze for Best Chocolate Bar, Top Artisan Chocolatier, and Best in Salon; and received Honorable Mentions for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
flying noir
Next to Blue Canary Sweets was Salon veteran flying noir with their signature black berets and super imaginative bonbons. Founder and head chocolatier Karen Urbanek had news — flying noir has moved to Restaurant Tarocco in Berkeley. Karen told us about her new place, “It’s not a shop but I have a place where people can sit down. It has storage space and a prep space. It’s an 8×10 area in the restaurant which is open 11–2:30. I’m still getting used to it.”
Because the restaurant is only open for lunch weekdays Karen is thinking about offering evening classes or tastings there. And they have a Lebanese chef she is looking forward to collaborating with on new chocolates.
Cuz new is what flying noir does. Every Salon I look forward to seeing what unusual ingredients and combinations Karen has made chocolate magic with. This time she had 4 samples to share:
The pink szerh was a ganache made from Manabi 70% couverture from Conexión, a chocolate company in Ecuador that uses Arriba Nacional beans grow by small cacao farmers. Most of the flying noir pieces this time — including all the samples — were made with Conexión couvertures which use these cacao varietals considered by many to be the best in the world.
The szerh was flavored with Szechuan peppercorns and a Japanese rhubarb gin. It was a fruity piece with some spiciness and a sugary texture. The rhubarb wasn’t a distinct flavor — it just brought out the fruitiness of the chocolate.
The sinthe — absinthe and armagnac in Conexión’s Puerto Quito 55% couverture — was a repeat of a piece we’d had earlier in the year. While it’s only 55% cacao it’s a dark chocolate. The piece was herbal tasting, a little boozy, and crunchy from its coating of sugar crystals. Like all of the Conexión couvertures the chocolate was smooth and very tasty.
The orsano was a hazelnut gianduja praslin flavored with bourbon and chiles. This vegan piece used Conexión’s Puerto Quito 55% and Manabi 70% dark couvertures. It was very nutty from the toasted hazelnuts ground into the 55% ganache, then warm from the chiles.
The magica used Conexión’s darkest couverture —the 85% Vince. It was basically a single origin ganache dusted with cocoa powder. Karen told us she added honey to ameliorate the bitterness. Honey was the top note and the piece was sweet not bitter as it melted quickly.
Karen also gave us a couple of other samples to try. The zo was “such an experiment,” she said. I think all of her chocolates are like that — however this one had a unique texture.
She combined the Manabi 70% with ground hazelnuts, honey, and calamansi jam she reduced to make a firm chewy ganache with a fine textured crunch from the nuts. The concentrated jam made for the interesting chewy texture and gave the vegan piece a tart citrus overtone. The honey moderated the tartness and the hazelnuts were mostly texture while adding a subtle savoriness. Really good — another successful experiment.
I didn’t get the name of the other sample. It was a dark milk with caramel that used Connexión’s Pichinca 43% milk couverture. Karen added pimientos picante and seasoned salt to the caramel. This smooth savory piece had an initial caramel taste then smoky heat with a small salt crunch as it melted quickly.
Karen is encouraging people to come by her new location to enjoy lunch and pick up some of her chocolate. Maybe some of these pieces will be available. All I know for sure is that there will be something uniquely interesting and probably spirited —in addition to creative ingredient lists Karen likes to play with all sorts of alcohol infusions. At the Salon she said she had recently bought a $50 bottle of quince liqueur and was “starting to figure out what I’m going to do with it.”
You can buy flying noir chocolates at Restaurant Tarocco and at special events. You can also schedule a pickup. Contact Karen through the website to make arrangements.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, flying noir won Silver for Best Milk Chocolates and Best Dark Chocolates; Bronze for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; and received Honorable Mentions for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and New Product Award. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, flying noir received Honorable Mention for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
Michael’s Chocolates
Getting a late start meant that by the time I got to Michael’s Chocolates ’s booth they were already selling out of stuff. “It’s been a whirlwind,” Michael Benner, the Michael of Michael’s Chocolates, said. “A buyer bought out all the Lemon Burst bonbons that were supposed to come to this Salon.”
The last-minute request caught Michael by surprise but he made it happen.“They are a great customer. I didn’t have enough matching boxes but they said, ‘As long as we can get all the 2 flavor assortments we need, we don’t care if the packaging matches’.”
Michael managed to bring a few boxes of Lemon Burst bonbons to the Salon but they sold out quickly. Don’t worry — there is little chance Michael will stop making the very popular Good Food Award winner and they are usually always available on their website.
In what Michael described as a “very interesting year, but with more good times than bad,” he’s been working overtime to get everything done. And he still had time to make a new bar and tweak some favorites.
For the new Milk Chocolate S’mores Bar Michael used mini marshmallows— “like in Lucky Charms,” he explained. “They are actually dehydrated marshmallows and have a distinctive crunch.
“Customers are asking more and more for milk chocolate but I don’t want to do straight up milk because it’s too sweet,” he said. “So I use a higher cacao percentage Guittard’s milk chocolate plus some 72%.”
That’s important with something like a S’mores bar because “when you add graham crackers, it can become sweeter than sweet. I want to do kids’ things that are a little less sweet.”
Of course these kids in grownups’ attire had to try this bar. We really liked the combination of the caramel tasting milk chocolate and graham crackers. Plus we liked the soft crunch from the crackers and marshmallows in the smooth not too sweet chocolate. Definitely the right call to tone down the sweetness. Only one suggestion: More marshmallows!
Michael should be okay with that suggestion because one of the changes he told us he made this year was doubling the amount of inclusions on the Sour Cherry Pecan Tablet. I have loved this bar since I first tried it but more cherries and pecans? Yes please!
The Holiday Collection Bonbons looked and sounded familiar: Pistachio Cardamom, Cognac Espresso, 72% Dark, Peppermint, Classic Raspberry, and Amarena Cherry. Some of the flavors are available year round, others are seasonal — but that doesn’t mean the flavors always taste the same. This time around Michael told us he tweaked the Amarena Cherry and Pistachio Cardamom.
He said for the Pistachio Cardamom he did a slow roast of the nuts to retain the sweetness of the pistachio. It made a difference — I could really taste the pistachio, it was the highest note, then good chocolate and finally cardamom at the end. Now that he’s got the pistachio flavor working so well, I hope Michael does his own spin on the viral Dubai Bar.
We also got one of his Dark Chocolate Peppermint bars for our peppermint challenge.
You can buy the full line of Michael’s Chocolates at their factory store in Oakland. You can also buy some of their most popular items online. And some items are available at local shops — like Michael’s collaborations with Dandelion Chocolate you can buy at Dandelion locations — and there’s usually a mix of new and familiar treats at special events.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Michael’s Chocolates won Gold for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Dark Chocolates, and Best in Salon; Silver for Best Milk Chocolates; Bronze for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Chocolate Bar, Best Caramels or Truffles, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and New Product Award.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Michael’s Chocolates won Silver for Best Chocolate Bar, Best New Product, and Best in Salon; Bronze for Best Caramel or Truffles and Top Artisan Chocolatier; and received Honorable Mention for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
Kokak Chocolates
Around the corner from Michael’s was Kokak Chocolates who were also doing a brisk business selling their dipped dried mango pieces and orange peels, bars, barks, and bonbons. Owner and head chocolatier Carol Gancia had some exciting news to share about their best selling Umami bar — a Japanese department store found it on Instagram and ordered 1500 bars. The power of social media!
In other news they have added bark options to their bars flavors. Carol said they make for less intimidating snacks than bars so people are more likely to buy them. Plus she has expanded her Filipino inspired bonbon options which could be sampled in the Filipino themed Noche Buena Collection available at the Salon.
New flavors in the collection include ube (yum!) and adobo. They also had cute little adobo hearts — flat cubby solid hearts of milk chocolate flavored with a Filipino adobo spice mix. Carol described it as sweet and savory, and warned us, “This is a very peppery version,” so of course we wanted to try it.
The 1/4″ thick hearts were a little crunchy and ran a flavor sensation gauntlet as they melted: Fruity to tangy to peppery to salty back to peppery with a peppery and savory aftertaste. The cracked black peppercorn gave it some heat along with that distinctive fresh black pepper taste. If you like black pepper, this is a fun chocolate.
Carol also invited us to visit their cafe/storefront. In addition to the chocolate porridge — champorado — that they always carry she said they had ube and jackfruit sticky pudding too. So in addition to new chocolate flavors she is always working on ideas for the pastries and snacks they carry. Carol said she has “so many recipes but not enough time” so we can look forward to more new creations in the new year. I totally understand the “lots of ideas not lots of time” concept and I have put a visit to Kokak on my list of things to do in 2025.
You can buy Kokak Chocolates at their Castro district store/café, online, and at special events.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Kokak Chocolates won Silver for Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Milk Chocolates, Best Dark Chocolates, and Best Caramels or Truffles; Bronze for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; and received Honorable Mentions for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and New Product Award.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Kokak Chocolates won Bronze for Best Chocolate Bar and Top Artisan Chocolatier; and received Honorable Mention for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations.
Rainy Day Chocolate
Rounding another corner brought us to Rainy Day Chocolate and their excellent toffees and other chocolate treats. Chris Sund, co-owner & chocolatier, started answering my question before I even spoke: “We are aiming for a Spring 2025 opening.”
It’s been a while since they started building out their own space up in Forestville but they haven’t opened yet so every Salon he has to face my question: When are you opening your chocolate factory store?
They just opened a GoFundMe to help with the final pieces. There are several donation levels that get you different goodies including the big one — a trip with them to their cacao supplier in Guatemala. Please support them if you can — if for no other reason than to save them the embarrassment of my perennial question.
While they continue to work on their new space, Chris told us they have been busy making chocolate, selling at special events — in fact Jen, Rainy Day’s co-owner/
Chris is excited about sharing the trip with other chocolate enthusiasts in the future. The farm is near Lake Atitlán, which Chris compared to Lake Tahoe but with better weather — and no easy access. “It’s an adventure,” he told us. The first time, “to get there we hitchhiked up a dirt road on the side of a volcano.”
Chris and Jen are happy with this supplier – “It’s a woman owned cacao farm that is fermenting the beans properly” – and the beans themselves – “Chocolatey with nut butter notes at the end.”
Chris was also happy with their winery client who they had just completed an order of 3500 truffles infused with their wines as 2-piece packs they were giving to all their wine club members. He gave us a sample of the dark chocolate bonbons which had a good balance between the port and dark chocolate. They were smooth, not boozy, with a good mouthfeel and a little coconut tasting toward the end.
We also picked up some Rainy Day dark chocolate marshmallows. We like these because they are big and not too sweet. They use a balanced chocolatey chocolate to covered the light fluffy chewy marshmallows that are several bites worth. Satisfying, almost addictive.
I finally gave in and got Zoe’s Holiday Bark which is included in the Peppermint Challenge below. I have hesitated before because it’s exuberantly candy cane themed but since I enjoy Rainy Day’s other confections I decided to give it a go.
Rainy Day Chocolate is available online, at special events, and soon — with our help —in their own place up in Sonoma County.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Rainy Day Chocolate won Silver for Best Traditional Chocolates; and Bronze for Best Milk Chocolates, Best Organic or Fair Trade Products, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and New Product Award. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Rainy Day Chocolate won Silver for Best Milk Chocolate.
Socola Chocolatier
Next stop: Socola Chocolatier . Their news was their airport location which opened in August is doing well and Socola co-founder — and Wendy’s sister — Susan was at the Salon signing her book, The Manicurist’s Daughter, which is based on her one-woman show. We picked up a copy along with some Socola treats.
Socola’s fall 4 bonbon sampler included their Cognac Pave — a simple square of dark chocolate ganache dusted with cocoa powder and infused with cognac. I could smell the cognac before tasting the super smooth chocolate. The delicious combo lingered. Recommended.
The Guava bonbon had a layer of pâte de fruit over a dark chocolate ganache layer in a thin shell of dark chocolate. Chocolate was the first flavor as it melted, then there was a burst of guava. Another super smooth delicious chocolate.
The Kheer is a repeat piece which we are always happy to see. A riff on the Indian rice pudding dessert, it’s a dark chocolate ganache in a dark shell infused with coconut cream and cardamom and packed with chopped cashews, almonds, pistachios, and raisins. The firm ganache was smooth with small bits of soft crunch nuts. Coconut and nut flavors were prominent, then cardamom and dark chocolate joined in. Socola also makes a white chocolate Kheer bar.
The Pumpkin Caramel was a very spice forward caramel in a dark chocolate shell. It didn’t have a caramel texture — the texture was almost like pumpkin pie filling. The chocolate flavor came after the initial spiciness and balanced well with the spices.
Wendy recommended we get the dark chocolate orangettes — candied orange peel fully enrobed in 72% chocolate. They smelled very chocolatey until I broke one in half then it smelled very orange-y. This was a good orange chocolate with an almost bitter orange flavor and an easy chew.
We also got Socola’s new Spiced Pecan Brittle which was a pretty brittle packed with nuts. It was crunchy and not too hard with a buttery distinctively pecan taste on top of a good holiday spice mix with some ginger heat.
Socola chocolates are available at their factory store, their new SFO location, online, and at special events.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Socola Chocolatier won Gold for Best Traditional Chocolates and Best Caramels or Truffles; Silver for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations, Best Chocolate Bar, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and Best in Salon; and Bronze for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Milk Chocolates, and Best Dark Chocolates.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Socola Chocolatier won Gold for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and Best New Product; Silver for Best Milk Chocolate, Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations, Best Caramel or Truffles, and Best Chocolate Bar; and Bronze for Best Dark Chocolate and Best in Salon.
The Chaga Company
The Chaga Company booth is always where the party is at these events. Gavin Escolar, Chaga Co.’s founder and DJ, is the guy who puts the fun in fungi with his music and effervescent personality.
This time Gavin had a new set of chocolate to promote: His & Her Cacao — little chocolate cubes infused with mushrooms and other extracts reputed to have health benefits — including sexual ones.
The His Cacao cubes contained chaga —of course — plus reishi, turkeytail, and lions main mushrooms, and goji, ginseng, coffee extracts — and horny goat weed?! I had to google that one. Yes, it’s a real thing.
My first impression of the His chocolate cubes was that they were more bitter than the regular Chaga Company chocolate cubes. At first I thought it was the coffee infusion because after the initial bitter taste the chocolate had coffee high notes. After some research I think it’s the horny goat weed which is described as a bitter earthy herb.
In addition to the coffee overtone some fruitiness appeared as the cube of smooth chocolate melted which I think was from the goji berries. The cube ended with a savory chocolate taste that’s more like their regular Chaga chocolate cubes.
The Her Cacao cubes included the same ingredients except instead of horny goat weed it had some lovely blue lotus flower petals sprinkled over them.
These pretty cubes were not as bitter as the His cubes. They had the coffee chocolate flavor with a slight Chinese medicine taste — from the ginseng I assume. Cacaopod and I both preferred the Her cubes’ taste. My only caveat — the petals don’t melt and they aren’t crunchy or chewy so I would brush them off unless you really want to eat them.
The Chaga Company has an online store and Gavin sells at a lot of special events. Follow their Instagram to see where Gavin might be next — or just follow the party music at the next event you attend in the Bay Area to the Chaga Company booth.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, The Chaga Company won Bronze for Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; and received Honorable Mention for New Product Award. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, The Chaga Company won Bronze for Best in Salon.
Volo Chocolate
Next to Gavin was Salon regular Volo Chocolate with their line of Mexican style bars and other treats. This time they had 3 new bars: Tangerine and Candied Ginger in 73% Dark, Peppermint and Cacao Nibs in 62% Dark Milk — which I cover in the challenge below — and Raspberry and Pistachio Brittle in their 70% Cream Chocolate.
I was excited to see a pistachio inclusion — pistachios are really having a moment now thanks to the viral Dubai Bar.
Co-founder and chef Susan Mall is a pistachio fan too — especially if they are roasted. “Roasted is the best flavor,” she said even though they lose some of their healthful qualities when roasted.
“Take a vitamin instead if you want all the health benefits and eat the toasted nuts. We’ve gotta enjoy our life — walk, don’t drink too much or eat too much red meat — everything in moderation but make it enjoyable.”
On that joyful note I spied the little pillow boxes of Bricka with the words “Peanut Butter” on them. Another favorite flavor! What’s Bricka?
“Bricka is our version of Butterfingers,” Susan explained. “We roast and grind peanuts to butter, then crystalize with sugars to create the filling.”
So I got the new bars in their pretty wrappers decorated with images of quilts and some Bricka to try.
Cacaopod and I tried the Bricka first because of course — it’s peanut butter and chocolate. They used a good 73% chocolate and the peanut butter and chocolate flavors were really good together along with a little salt. I’d describe it as a more refined, better quality Butterfinger — it was delicious and had an excellent small crisp crunch. These could be addictive.
The Raspberry and Pistachio Brittle in 70% Cream Chocolate bar used their Haitian chocolate which is a good savory chocolate base for inclusions — the bar tasted of chocolate first then raspberry then pistachio with the finely chopped nuts giving it a small crunch. Their signature salt came at the end.
The Tangerine and Candied Ginger in 73% Dark bar had pieces of candied tangerine peel and ginger scattered over the back. Having it back side down as it melted gave an immediate hit of sour tangerine, then salted chocolate. Ginger added a crunchy sugar crystal texture and was a mild afternote.
Volo Chocolate bars, caramels, and other chocolate treats are available online, at special events, farmers markets, and local markets. They also offer subscriptions.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Volo Chocolate won Gold for Best Chocolate Bar, Best Milk Chocolates, and Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; Bronze for Best Dark Chocolates and New Product Award; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Traditional Chocolates and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Volo Chocolate won Gold for Best Chocolate Bar; Silver for Best Dark Chocolate, Best Milk Chocolate, Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best New Product, and Best in Salon; and received Honorable Mention for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations.
9th & Larkin
We had seen 9th & Larkin at the Craft Chocolate Experience (CCE) in April so I was surprised when co-owner and head chocolatier Lan Phan said this was their 1st time at a Salon. We have been following them since Cacaopod met Lan and her husband/
I was hoping to score a bar of their Honduran single origin which had sold out at the CCE before I got there but Lan said they couldn’t get the Honduran beans. Another buyer had bought them all. She said maybe beginning in 2025 they can get the beans again but it is a worry now with the bigger chocolate makers moving in on the smaller makers’ territory and buying up whole lots of beans since there are supply issues with traditional cacao growers arising from climate change and plant diseases.
Despite that there was still plenty to choose from at their booth at the Salon. Lan had their other single origin bars with cacao from places like Costa Rica, Tanzania, and Vietnam plus some flavored bars, a tasting set, and holiday treats.
As we chatted, Lan echoed a couple of the recurring themes of the Salon — their booth was bustling when we stopped by and she laughingly said, “Busy is good,” as she handed out samples. She also had smaller less expensive chocolate treats in addition to their pretty square single origin and infusion bars. With cacao prices still rising, having some lower priced — but still high quality — chocolate seems like a sound plan that more vendors were following.
We got the eye catching 9th & Larkin stocking stuffer. It was a small pillow box printed with a black and white repeating pattern that looked like medallion wallpaper and wrapped with a lilac colored info label. A very classy stocking stuffer.
Inside were a couple of mendiants — with maple flavored marshmallows and vanilla infused cacao nibs on top substituting for the traditional dried fruits and nuts. These are pretty special stocking stuffers.
The 72% Dominican Republic cacao in the mediants smelled very raisiny and had a hard snap. The chocolate itself was not particularly sweet — the marshmallows were the sweetness. The nibs gave it a crunchy appeal. This is a fun adult stocking stuffer — a set of different origins with complementary toppings chosen by Lan would be an interesting sampler.
We also got a flavored bar, the Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania 65% Cacao with Warm Spices. Kokoa Kamili beans are super popular — if you are into single origins you’ve probably had Kokoa Kamili and know why — it’s super fruity and chocolatey. If you’re mulling some single origin options and worry about wasting your money on something too esoteric, picking Kokoa Kamili is a good bet.
9th & Larkin ups the specialness of this cacao with a nice mix of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and mace. This is not a hot spicy mix — it’s more in a league with pumpkin pie spice mix but it’s more subtle than that. With a bean as nice as this it makes sense not to power over it with strong inclusions. This was more of a refined French approach to flavoring chocolate.
The first taste was fruity chocolate — berry and raisin with a slight citrus tang. As the chocolate melted the spices appeared and made the bar even more delicious. Not overdone — the spices are balanced so none dominated. Another great bar from 9th & Larkin.
You can buy 9th & Larkin bars on their website, at special events, and at some local retailers like Market Hall Foods.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, 9th & Larkin won Gold for Best Chocolate Bar; Bronze for New Product Award; and received Honorable Mentions for Top Artisan Chocolatier and Best Dark Chocolates. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, 9th & Larkin won Silver for Best Dark Chocolate, Best New Product, and Best in Salon; and Bronze for Best Caramel or Truffles, Best Chocolate Bar, Best Organic or Fair Trade Products, and Top Artisan Chocolatier.
VB Fine Chocolates
At the VB Fine Chocolates booth owner and head chocolatier Victoria Bracha was busy as ever describing her chocolates, handing out samples, and making sales. We’d met Victoria at the Spring Salon and wanted to catch up.
Like a lot of other vendors her year has been mixed: “People like the flavors and presentation,” Victoria said. “But not enough are buying.”
She uses a Belgian couverture, lots of fresh ingredients, and no preservatives in her bonbons and 70% bars so it’s not a problem with quality. I think everyone has been feeling the pinch of higher prices and chocolate is one area people are cutting back on. Time to offer bonbon 2-piece packs!
Still Victoria is not planning on quitting and these Salons are a good opportunity to connect with customers both repeat and new — plus share ideas with other vendors for increasing sales and cutting costs. Hopefully the Salon sampling and discussions will lead to more buying and a better bottom line.
Victoria told me her Rose Petal bonbon is her most popular chocolate. It’s usually a rose shaped piece but she also had a super brightly painted half dome version this time. Either way it’s a dark chocolate shell filled with St. Germain elderflower liqueur and rose petal cream. I like that she cuts the rose flavor with the liqueur — but it’s still a rose flavored piece so it’s too floral for me. Luckily for me she has lots of other flavors including some new ones.
All of the new pieces were shiny metallic painted half domes — reminiscent of glass Christmas ornaments which was perfect for a winter holiday gift. They practically glowed.
The 4 pieces in the holiday box ranged from a simple white ganache piece to a literal truffle truffle.
The silver White Ganache piece was simply a white chocolate ganache in a dark chocolate shell. It was a smooth, light, not too sweet ganache that melted quickly.
The gold Dried Apricot & St. Germain had a big piece of apricot and a fruity/floral liqueur filling in the dark chocolate shell. The liqueur made it taste a little rose-y and the piece had good apricot and chocolate flavors.
The shiny red Dried Tart Cherry with Cherry Ganache had a large dried cherry in dark chocolate ganache. Like the other pieces it was well made with a thin dark shell. I don’t know what was added to the cherry ganache but it gave a little buzzy sensation and had a boozy taste. Good combo of cherry and chocolate.
The metallic green Salted Caramel with Italian Truffle Ganache was a chocolate caramel infused with savory truffle oil. I thought it was clever to make a chocolate truffle using its namesake but it was too mushroomy for me.
The new piece I liked best wasn’t in the collection. The Lemon bonbon had lemon flavored ganache in a dark shell. It had a Iight lemon meringue flavor and sugar crystals inside the shell on top of the ganache gave it a slight crunch.
You can buy VB Fine Chocolates’ bonbons and other treats online and at special events.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, VB Fine Chocolates won Bronze for Best Milk Chocolates and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Organic or Fair Trade Products, and New Product Award.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, VB Fine Chocolates won Silver for Best Chocolate Bar and Best in Salon; and Bronze for Best Dark Chocolate, Best Caramel or Truffles, Top Artisan Chocolatier, and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
Kindred Caramels
Next door was Salon veteran Kindred Caramels with a wide array of their flavored smooth soft chewy caramels. Jeri Vasquez Kindred’s creator and head confectioner keeps a busy schedule of special event appearances. She might be the most frequently sighted SFBA vendor at local events.
She told me about the new Enchant! Festival in San Jose: “It’s 25 days[!] and they built us an amazing booth,” she said — not just a covered table like most events. They built a wooden structure with a roof and lights. This new event sounds like it’s on a whole other level: “It has a whole light maze, ice skating, local vendors — but no chocolatiers.”
Let’s hope they fix that shortcoming by the next one. At 25 days it might be a bit of an endurance test — maybe a few chocolatiers could tag team it.
We picked up some caramels including my new favorite, Mango Tanji. Jeri understands the appeal of this flavor: “I like the zestiness of the Mango Taiji,” she said. We also got the seasonal flavor Peppermint & Chocolate Caramel which I include in the challenge below.
Kindred Caramels are available in stores around SFBA (check their website for locations), online, and at special events.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Kindred Caramels won Bronze for Best Caramels or Truffles; and received Honorable Mention for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Kindred Caramels won Silver for Best New Product and Bronze for Best Caramel or Truffles.
CocoTutti
We circled back to the beginning of the Salon to visit Elyce Zahn and CocoTutti whose booth was in its usual spot next to the entrance. In addition to their chocolate tablets, CocoQuintets (filled bars), bonbons, toffee, and other treats Elyce had 5 new flavors for us to try. Some were available for the holiday season and others were slated to debut in 2025.
The Maple bonbon was a dark chocolate ganache in a hard dark chocolate shell. It had a strong maple aroma and a small boozy burn. It tasted like maple and rum first then added pecan to the mix. The chocolate shell took longer to melt so a delicious dark chocolate taste appeared later with a little maple sweetness at end. Sooo good.
The Speckulaas was a super smooth dark ganache in a dark shell with that distinctive winter spice taste. An excellent interpretation of the flavor.
The Lemon Olive Oil bonbon was the latest tweak on a piece we’ve liked before. This time the flavored white ganache rested on a dark chocolate shelf and was covered with a white chocolate shell. The ganache was so light it just melted and coated the inside of my mouth with an immediate super lemony flavor.
It wasn’t tart except for a little bite from tiny pieces of zest in the ganache. The dark chocolate flavor appeared last because it took longer to melt than the white chocolate. A fun ride.
The other 2 flavors were the ones for 2025. The Coffee by a Fire was an update on a bar I’ve tasted before. A liquid caramel in dark chocolate, its thick dark chocolate shell was delicious and the smoked caramel was very espresso tasting.
The S’more was a dark shell with a cute square of graham cereal stuck to the bottom. Inside was a foamy marshmallow in dark chocolate caramel/ganache? I wish the cereal had been crisper but it was a fun bonbon with good flavors.
Elyce said it had been a good/bad year: “We keep growing so we need money but we don’t always have money.”
A familiar refrain for successful small businesses. Her current solution is to expand to more and different kinds of events and get CocoTutti chocolates into museum stores and other non-food focused businesses.
“We’re really increasing the number of events we do,” Elyce said, but that runs into money issues too. “We did the LA Salon last month and without insulated packs people wouldn’t buy chocolate. [There was an unexpected heat wave that week.] At a bunch of events this summer, we got slammed with the heat,” she said. “But museums are air conditioned. So we are trying to get into museum gift shops.”
They are also exhibiting at trade shows to attract new buyers but booths are much smaller and more expensive than at local special events. For example at the Specialty Food Association’s Fancy Food Show she told us their exhibit space would be only 4 feet long. “I have to figure out a new display of our bars and tablets” to fit such a tiny area.
She also has to consider if the cost is worth it. She told us the Indian Gaming Tradeshow and Convention in April is charging $4000-4,500 for a 10×10 space and another trade show is charging $1800. Still if she gets enough business out of it, it will be worth it. At one event this summer they were charged $3000-$4000 for a booth — “and we only made $829 and some product melted!”
Still Elyce feels she is lucky relatively speaking in the local chocolate scene. “The whole market has slid,” she said telling us not to worry about her. There were more dire situations. “Joel is giving R&J Toffee 2 months and then he is closing. And Mindy at Jade Chocolates is struggling and could use some support.”
It is so like Elyce to be more concerned about others so if you can please order some chocolate from Jade — and CocoTutti too — support our local chocolatiers!
You can buy CocoTutti chocolates online, locally in some stores (check the website), and at events around the area and beyond. You can also arrange to pick up chocolate orders at their kitchen.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, CocoTutti won Silver for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; Bronze for Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Chocolate Bar, Best Milk Chocolates, and New Product Award; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Dark Chocolates, Best Caramels or Truffles, Best Organic or Fair Trade Products, and Best in Salon.
aL ChocoLat Boutique
At the aL chocoLat Boutique booth top artisan chocolatier Lena Walther was handing out samples and chatting with attendees and other vendors. Karen Urbanik from flying noir stopped by when we were there.
I loved seeing these convos throughout the day. I believe the more chocolate people get information and inspiration from each other, the stronger our community will be and the better the chocolate will be. It’s one of the purposes of the Salons and I saw it in action big time this year.
Lena had a long row of ganaches to sample included an assertive passion fruit and a caramel with warm sweetness from Urfa Biber chiles. Lena told us her grandfather was from the Urfa region of Turkey where the chiles are grown.
She had some flavors we were already familiar with — such as café au lait, dulce de leche, and Damascus Baklava — which was packed with pistachio and crunchy feuilletine. When I said I liked how the pistachio stands out and it’s not as sweet as I expected, Lena explained that it was inspired by Syrian Lebanese baklava which doesn’t use honey.
She gave us an entire café au lait bonbon which she had tweaked since the last collection. She changed the shell from dark to white. Inside it had the same 2 layers as before — light coffee color on top of white. The coffee ganache had a coffee candy flavor but was less sweet than the candy and the bottom layer tasted like sweet cream. The piece had a milky coffee taste overall but it was a little sweet for me — I think I prefer the dark shell version.
I got super excited when I saw a green painted bar on the table — if anyone at the Salon would have a Dubai Bar I figured Lena would (her mom is Lebanese). The super trendy chocolate for 2024 was inspired by Knafeh, a Lebanese dessert that includes pistachios and crunchy toasted phyllo. Since the chocolatier who invented the bar wasn’t shipping internationally until 2025, chocolatiers around the world have been making their own versions to meet the demand.
Lena said this was her own recipe made with pistachio paste and orange blossom water. She also had a Knafeh inspired bonbon in her Christmas limited edition made with pistachio and cream cheese.
I was so happy to get one of the bars and I’ve reviewed it with other SFBA Dubai Bar riffs I’ve found. The staffer who helped me with my purchase also explained aL chocoLat’s logo: The interior circular design is the Armenian symbol for eternity and the outside circle is an Arabic symbol for the same. He also told us the al in the name is Arabic for “the.” Next time I gotta ask about the unusual capitalization of the name.
You can buy the Dubai Pistachio / Baklava Bar, their current bonbons, and other chocolate treats on the aL chocoLat Boutique site and at special events. Visit their website for more info.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, aL chocoLat Boutique won Gold for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations; Silver for Top Artisan Chocolatier, Best Dark Chocolates, and New Product Award; and Bronze for Best Milk Chocolates, Best Caramels or Truffles, Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product, and Best in Salon.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, aL chocoLat Boutique won Gold for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations, Top Artisan Chocolatier, and Best in Salon; Silver for Best Milk Chocolate, and Best Caramel or Truffles; Bronze for Best Dark Chocolate; and received an Honorable Mention for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
Cacao Regina
The makers behind Cacao Regina have been making chocolate for about 15 years but only recently set up their label and moved into their own factory. “We started last year,” said Kane Dijkman, Cacao Regina’s co-owner and co-chocolate maker. “We used to come to the Salon” but as attendees. This was their first time as a vendor.
Cacao Regina had their line of bars at the Salon, ranging from a 49% milk with gianduja through several single origins up to a 100% bar. To introduce us to their chocolate Kane had us start with a sample of the 49% bar. It had a very smooth texture and I could really taste the gianduja in the chocolate.
I was surprised by how smooth the chocolate was. Usually when I encounter a new chocolate maker’s chocolate the grittiness is a tell. As they get more experienced their chocolate gets smoother. I can totally believe Cacao Regina makers have been doing this for over a decade — absolutely no grit.
Kane explained that their chocolate is twice filtered and for this inclusion bar they used an expeller press on the hazelnuts to separate the nut meat and oil. Then they ground the hazelnuts with the cacao nibs until smooth. I think it made for a superior gianduja flavor.
Kane also had us try the opposite end of the scale — their 100% bar. Just one ingredient — cacao beans — it was another super smooth chocolate and had a bitter coffee flavor. Not my thing but Kane said, “We have a certain customer base in Marin. This is all they want — for health reasons and cacao ceremonies. My dad loves the stuff.”
The rest of their line includes a 56% plain milk bar that uses Kokoa Kamili beans and A2/A2 milk, and three 70% single origin bars made with cacao from Peru, Ecuador, and Tanzania.
The bars are beautiful from the logo to the packaging to the chocolate mold. And the cacao they have chosen is top notch too — the Ecuadoran cacao is a Nacional varietal which is considered the best cacao in the world. The Peruvian cacao is from Ucayali River Cacao which is also used by SFBA chocolate makers like Endorfin and White Label. And the Tanzanian is from the ever popular Kokoa Kamili fermentary.
With all of the things that matter most to an audience of chocolate aficionados worked out — ingredients, sources, quality, branding, packaging — Kane said they are now focused on manufacturing in the brand new factory they built in San Rafael near the Richmond Bridge.
Cacao Regina bars are available online, at some Marin farmers markets, SFBA shops like Chocolate Covered, and at special events. Check their website for locations.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Cacao Regina won Silver for Best Chocolate Bar, Best Milk Chocolates, Best Dark Chocolates, and New Product Award; Bronze for Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; and received Honorable Mention for Best Traditional Chocolates. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Cacao Regina won Silver for Best Dark Chocolate, Best Chocolate Bar, and Top Artisan Chocolatier.
Eri’s Choco
Next to Cacao Regina was another first-time vendor Eri’s Choco which was also probably the youngest chocolate business we’ve ever met at a Salon. Erica Messer, the Eri in Eri’s Choco, told us she has been in business for 2 months and the Salon was her first show.
She had her product and branding all worked out in that timeframe?! I was impressed — her distinctive brand pattern covered all of her packaging and even her apron and table scarf. How did she do it?
“I just work fast,” Erica laughed. “I sometimes wonder why is everyone so slow?”
Eri’s Choco’s one product is called Chocolate Ecstasy and is a raw cacao spread fortified with MCT oil and sweetened with date syrup. It contains a few other ingredients for flavor and/or health benefits: coconut oil, agave, and Himalayan salt. It is vegan and organic.
“I wanted to make food that is healthier,” Erica explained, so she started making healthier chocolate for herself. She refined her idea — for example she started with maple syrup as the sweetener then turned to dates — and now: “I eat it everyday. I put some on the rim of my coffee cup or have it with ice cream or fruit.”
I hadn’t heard of MCT oil before. Erica explained that MCT stands for medium chain triglycerides and they are used for regulating appetite and have other heath benefits like lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol and raising HDL (good) cholesterol. She said Bulletproof Coffee started it — their recipe of coffee, butter, and MCT oil is said to regulate appetite, prevent caffeine crashes, and provide mental clarity and physical energy. So she took that idea and applied it to chocolate.
The consistency of our jar of Chocolate Ecstasy when we first opened it was a thin spread/thick liquid like sauce or gravy. (Once opened it requires refrigeration which thickened it up considerably.)
On its own it’s a little grainy and not super chocolatey tasting — I think it’s best mixed with something else. I liked it on fruit and with butter on bread — it tasted more chocolatey in contrast. However when I substituted it for jam in a PBJ sandwich the peanut butter overwhelmed it. Part of the fun with this spread will be finding the right combinations.
You can buy Eri’s Chocolate Ecstasy Chocolate Sauce online, at some local farmers markets, and at special events. Check their website for updates.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Eri’s Choco won Bronze for Best Milk Chocolates, and received Honorable Mentions for Best Chocolate Bar and New Product Award.
Brigadeiro Sprinkles
One of our fav vendors Zeila Schappelle of Brigadeiro Sprinkles was one of the last ones I visited and I was worried that she might be sold out of her holiday panettone which we enjoyed previously. She had made 2 sizes this year and was sold out of all the smaller ones. She had one full size one left which she told me she had saved for me. Awww…
Brigadeiro Sprinkles’ holiday panettone are made with chocolate chips instead of dried fruit and include a brigadeiro filling. Zeila calls them Chocotone. This year’s Chocotone was Salted Caramel and beyond the new flavor there were a couple of other changes. The Chocotone was wrapped in a cacao themed print and “This time I layered the filling in,” Zeila said. Sold.
The brightly colored wrapper was eye catching and Zeila told us she had the “design made for us in Brazil. And it can be a pillow case afterwards!”
I might not get around to re-purposing it that way but it’s so pretty I have it topping a small table. I plan to have it a long time — it’s certainly lasting a longer time than my Salted Caramel Chocotone which didn’t last into the new year. It was too delicious.
It was also kinda messy. The salted caramel icing was a hard shell that cracked where it wanted when I cut into it and of course the soft brigadeiro filling did not stay within my cutlines. You can see my results below. My Chocotone needed a food stylist.
None of that mattered once I sampled it. I liked the distribution of the brigadeiro filling that was swirled throughout the moist panettone. Basically every forkful included both the soft chocolate chip panettone and the salted caramel filling which wasn’t salty and had a hint of condensed milk in the buttery caramel.
The hard shell on top was also salted caramel and had more of that typical brigadeiro condensed milk flavor. It was sprinkled with crispy pearls — I loved the crunchy pearls and their contrast with the softer interior.
You can buy Brigadeiro Sprinkles’ brigadeiros, baked goods, and other confections online and at special events — but Chocotones only come once a year.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Brigadeiro Sprinkles won Gold for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; and Bronze for Best Traditional Chocolates. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Brigadeiro Sprinkles received Honorable Mentions for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
Sonoma Chocolatiers
Salon regular Sonoma Chocolatiers had their award winning 3-Seed Chili Toffee, caramels, and an assortment of their bonbons with some new flavors at the Salon. We chatted with owner/head chocolatier Dave Gambill while tasting some bonbons and buying some for the road. He told us that it had been a good day at the Salon: “From 11-3, it was wall to wall people.”
That was good news after hearing grumbling from some other vendors that last year’s Fall Salon hadn’t been as good as in previous years. (I missed it because I was in a show at the exact same time as the Fall Salon.) From my observations it seemed like this time around was good — lots of attendees plus vendors selling out of items.
Dave told me the past year had been a mix — he’s experimenting with making chocolate from beans which he was excited about, but at the same time sales have not been great and he hadn’t paid himself that year. Ouch.
I hope the Fall Salon garnered him some new customers because he had some interesting flavors at the Salon and he sources local ingredients as much as possible. For example, for the Lemon Thyme Brie which uses Mount Tam triple cream brie and lemon thyme for the ganache Dave had to scour Sonoma County to find the last 5 lemon thyme plants of the season to make this batch.
The brie gave the ganache a nice fluffy texture. The shell and ganache had a good dark chocolate taste, and the smooth ganache was so light it disappeared quickly. It didn’t have a cheese flavor but was a little tangy and slightly nutty. Cacaopod said it didn’t have a brie flavor but it had the characteristics of brie — the texture and tanginess. One other note: It didn’t have a citrus taste — it wasn’t lemon and thyme, it was the herb lemon thyme. At the end it was a subtly savory chocolate.
The Strawberry Tarragon had a bright tasting — almost tart — caramel ganache. The dark chocolate shell was thicker than most to hold the almost liquid insides. A good tasting combo.
The London Fog was a pretty piece with a fog of white cocoa butter swirled over the top of the dark chocolate dome. It was well made with a thin shell and smooth ganache. It tasted like vanilla and citrus with a slight tea aftertaste in a very good dark chocolate.
The Toasted Pecan had an eye catching candied pecan on top of a dark chocolate square. The dark caramel ganache inside was full of chopped nuts. It had a citrusy overtone in the good chocolate with a nice crunch from the nuts.
Their ever popular Salted Caramel had a new twist — the salt on top was black. The caramel inside was so dark it looked like dark chocolate ganache. The piece had a satisfying chew and a balanced flavor of buttery caramel, dark chocolate, and salt.
The Orange Caramel was topped with a twist of candied orange peel. The piece tasted very orange immediately. The orange infused caramel was smooth and made an excellent pairing with the dark chocolate shell. An orange chocolate aftertaste lingered.
Sonoma Chocolatiers’ chocolates are available at their store, online, at special events, and at Oliver’s Market, a Sonoma County supermarket chain.
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Sonoma Chocolatiers won Silver for Best Milk Chocolates; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Dark Chocolates, Best Organic or Fair Trade Products, and New Product Award. In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Sonoma Chocolatiers won Silver for Best New Product; and Bronze for Best Dark Chocolate and Best Caramel or Truffles.
More local chocolate
The other SFBA chocolate vendors at the show were COBA with their white chocolate tiles infused with coffee and teas, The Good Chocolate with their sugarless chocolate bars and snacks, and Z. Cioccolato with their extravagant fudges. While I didn’t get a chance to speak with them, their booths were bustling at the Salon and they did very well in the competitions.
COBA
In the Judges’ Awards competition, COBA won Silver for Best Chocolate Bar and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; Bronze for Best Traditional Chocolates, Best Milk Chocolates, and New Product Award; and received Honorable Mentions for Best Dark Chocolates and Best Organic or Fair Trade Products.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, COBA won Gold for Best New Product; Silver for Best Chocolate Bar, Top Artisan Chocolatier, and Best in Salon; Bronze for Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; and received Honorable Mention for Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations.
You can buy COBA chocolates online and at special events.
The Good Chocolate
In the Judges’ Awards competition, The Good Chocolate won Silver for Best Organic or Fair Trade Products; Bronze for Best Milk Chocolates; and received Honorable Mention for Best Dark Chocolates.
You can find The Good Chocolate bars online, at special events, and at some local grocery stores, such as Hudson Greens & Goods. The Good Chocolate makes other chocolate treats which are only available at special events — for example their chocolate covered strawberries at the Craft Chocolate Experience last year. Also their Coco Jungles — chocolate dipped coconut snacks — are available online as part of a bundle only but are usually available separately at special events like the Salons.
Z. Cioccolato
In the Judges’ Awards competition, Z. Cioccolato won Gold for Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product.
In the Attendees’ Choice Awards competition, Z. Cioccolato won Gold for Best Dark Chocolate and Best New Product; Silver for Best Milk Chocolate, Top Artisan Chocolatier, and Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product; and Bronze for Best in Salon.
In addition to their North Beach store, you can order Z. Cioccolato fudge online.
Peppermint challenge
While I continue to lobby for peppermint becoming a summer flavor because it is so refreshing, I acknowledge that for most people — and that includes chocolatiers — it’s a winter treat. A lot of Salon vendors brought something minty to the event so I picked up some to try and recommend.
This year’s entries in my peppermint challenge include Blue Canary Sweets’ Candy Cane Crush, Michael’s Chocolates’ Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bar, Volo Chocolate’s Dark Milk Chocolate 62% Peppermint & Cacao Nibs, Rainy Day Chocolate’s Zoe’s Holiday Bark and Kindred Caramels’ Peppermint & Chocolate Caramels.
Candy Cane Crush
The first peppermint bar Cacaopod and I tried was Blue Canary Sweets’ Candy Cane Crush. It was a thick bar with visible pieces of candy cane and a hard snap. It was very chocolatey smelling with a slight peppermint aroma.
I could see big pieces of broken candy canes in the back side of the dark chocolate bar. This was the darkest bar in the group at 70%. The chocolate had a smooth texture and as it melted, the candy cane pieces sweetened the slightly bitter chocolate.
Some of the candy cane pieces were too big to dissolve by the time the chocolate melted so the experience ends as straight up peppermint candy. The concept reminds me of bubblegum ice cream — after the ice cream melts in your mouth you have balls of bubblegum to chew — in this bar it’s candy canes.
I think this bar is for people who love peppermint candy. The size of the candy cane bits means that even if you chew the bar peppermint is the dominant flavor and — especially if you let the bar melt — it’s the longest lasting aftertaste.
Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bar
Michael’s Chocolates’ Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bar also used candy canes and dark chocolate — except in this bar the canes were crushed and the chocolate was not as dark. Michael used his own 62% couverture which is a nicely balanced dark chocolate that’s not bitter and has a rich chocolatey flavor.
Crushing the candy canes meant the flavor was more evenly distributed through the chocolate. The bar had an immediate refreshing peppermint taste then the chocolatey chocolate with a mint chocolate aftertaste. The crushed peppermint bits gave the bar a fine crunch. This is a great combo of dark chocolate and mint.
Dark Milk Chocolate 62% Peppermint & Cocoa Nibs
Before I talk about Volo Chocolate’s Dark Milk Chocolate 62% Peppermint & Cocoa Nibs bar I have to point out the typo on the wrapper. They had posted about it on Instagram before the Salon comparing it to the famous upside down airplane stamp. It’s been corrected now but I was able to get one of these Collector’s Item Alert! bars at the Salon. As a graphic designer I have had my share of these moments so I could feel their pain.
In case you didn’t notice they misspelled “Cocoa” — they omitted the second “O” making it “Coca” — the plant cocaine is derived from and totally illegal in the US. An entirely different beast from cocoa and kind of a next level misspelling. I’m saving this wrapper.
The bar itself is really nice —a 62% dark milk chocolate made with caramelized milk and brown butter. It was smooth and very caramel tasting. It was a little salty with a subtle peppermint flavor. The crunchy nibs were a nice ending.
Zoe’s Holiday Bark
I had some trepidations about Rainy Day Chocolate’s Zoe’s Holiday Bark — It uses white chocolate! There are marshmallows all over it! And crushed candy canes! It’s gonna be too sweet!
I was wrong. While it was sweet it wasn’t too much — there were a couple of things mitigating the sweetness. Number one was how pepperminty it was — it had a dose of peppermint oil in addition to crushed candy canes so it was a refreshing peppermint not cloying.
Another aspect was it used dark chocolate under the white chocolate so it was very chocolatey. It’s not a white chocolate bark, it just looks like one.
So I liked the flavors but what I really liked was the texture. The candy canes were pulverized — almost down to sugar crystal size — and the mini marshmallows added a soft fluffy texture. The more unusual texture was the dark chocolate had a bubbly texture — like an Aero bar. The bubbly texture along with the fluffy marshmallows made the bark break easily and the chewing comfortable. This is a super fun chocolate treat — and not for kids only.
Peppermint & Chocolate Caramels
Kindred Caramels’ Peppermint & Chocolate Caramels were their signature soft buttery caramels wrapped around pieces of semi-sweet chocolate and bits of peppermint sticks. They looked a little like miniature pains au chocolat with the buttery caramel substituting for a buttery croissant wrapped around little batons of chocolate.
They smelled like butter and chocolate too — and depending on the amount of inclusions in a piece the taste ranged from mostly buttery to more chocolatey to a good splash of peppermint in the caramel. The inclusions were never overpowering but assertive enough — which is the balance that Kindred strives to achieve. A nice grownup treat that kids would enjoy too.
Everybody’s talking chocolate
With cacao prices up dramatically and poised to increase even more depending on what the current administration does trade-wise, there was an undercurrent of concern and trepidation under the buoyant mood brought on by all the endorphins released by sampling so much chocolate. Chocolatiers and chocolate makers alike are feeling the strains and many were talking about it at the Salon.
There was also positive talk about future plans so while there is some concern that not every local chocolate business will make it through the coming times there was still a lot of hope and confidence in the community. And with the vendors getting together and sharing ideas for the future maybe we will see some interesting collaborations in the coming years.
These Salons are getting so big that it is taking me months to finish sampling chocolate and writing about the event. And I didn’t even cover any non-SFBA vendors who were at the Fall Salon. I consider this a good problem and I hope that now that we have such a robust local chocolate community it can find ways to continue to grow and thrive even in trying times.
To see the full list of Fall Holiday Salon winners, visit the Fall Holiday Chocoalte Salon site. And keep supporting your local chocolate artisans!
