In a Tizzy

Author: In a Tizzy

  • HoChos 9, 10, 11, and 12

    Whooooooooa… We’re half-way there…
    WhoooooOOOAA! Chocolate everywheere… 

    February 1st! I do not know where the month of January went, but I recall glimpses of events and timetables and a lot of chocolate towards the end. As a student, I find this point in the Hot Chocolate Festival challenging: Professors are beginning to remind their classes about upcoming assignments while doling out assessments, and the hot cocoa locations are farther away as I cross more and more off of my list.

    Who doesn’t like a bit of a challenge, though?

    HoCho #9: Red Cadillac, Koko Monk Chocolates (~$6.50)


    Located just before Burrard Street on 1st Ave, Koko Monk Chocolates prides themselves on flavours that come from the foods themselves – no artificial flavours or preservatives to make their chocolate confections, beverages, cookies, and macarons taste as delicious as they do. Last year, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed a curry hot chocolate from them.

    This year, however, I enjoyed a salted almond hot chocolate with peppercorn, made with almond milk – and this time, the almond milk was included in the drink! I did not have to specify my non-dairy preference – I do appreciate intentionally vegan items in the festival.

    The Red Cadillac was a rich, dark chocolate that sat heavily on the tongue. When stirring the drink, the hot chocolate dripped with a thick viscosity off of the spoon. Aligning with the values of Koko Monk, the salted-almond flavour came not only from the almond milk, but from crushed almonds added to the chocolate blend; they added a gritty texture that appeared every few sips.

    If you like dark, less-sweet hot chocolate (with a little bit of peppercorn for *pop* at the end), you would probably enjoy this drink!



    HoCho #10: Put da Lime in da Coconut, Chocolate Arts (~$6.00)


    Tucked away in a less-visited industrial neighbourhood near Granville Island, Chocolate Arts is a minimalistic, clean, and modern-looking chocolate confectionery and cafe. The simple white tables with simple red chairs were familiar from last year, and the friendly service behind the counter offered a warm welcome.

    Of the three unique options offered by Chocolate Arts this year, MM and I both vouched for Put da Lime in da Coconut – a dark chocolate to be poured over coconut ice cream with coconut macaroons served on the side.
    My cocoa was made with soy milk, and I quite enjoyed how filling it was – I find that cocoa is most filling when the ingredients are more genuine and less artificial. This chocolate was highlighted by lime notes that offered an interesting flavour combination that was made particularly delicious when combined with the coconut ice cream!
    Furthermore, who could pour chocolate over ice cream and not love to consume it? This festival flavour is great if you dig the taste of coconut and are looking to fill your belly!


    HoCho #11: Pep Me Up, Thomas Haas (~$6.50)

    Ah, Thomas Haas – if you follow them on Instagram, you know that they don’t just pride themselves on incredible confections, pastries, macarons, and hot chocolate – they also love the outdoors, biking, and the city they reside in!

    This stop has been a favourite of mine in past festivals, and I was not to be disappointed this year. Of the two available cocoas, MS and I indulged in the Pep Me Up – a 70% cocoa drink with peppermint and some chartreuse:

    a French liqueur made by the Carthusian Monks since 1737 according to the instructions set out in the secret manuscript given to them by François Annibal d’Estrées in 1605. It is composed of distilled alcohol aged with 130 herbs, plants and flowers. The liqueur is named after the Monks’ Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in the general region of Grenoble in France. (Wikipedia article here.)

    I enjoyed this drink made with almond milk, as I find the almond milk made the dark chocolate a little lighter on the palette, and it allowed the peppermint notes to become more prominent.

    While the struggle is often all-too real to find a seat in this place, I highly recommend it if you appreciate artful chocolate drinks and you want a little something sweet on the side.

    HoCho #12: Chartreuse Milkshake, Uva Wine Bar & Bittered Sling ($14.95)

    It’s Friday night, and it’s 10:00PM – it’s too late to get a Hot Chocolate Festival drink! 

    What? You mean there’s a location opened until 2:00 in the morning from which I may acquire a festival beverage? … And there are two alcoholic options?

    Uva Wine Bar offers three festival options this year, one of which follows a more “hot chocolate” template, and two that are “hot chocolate inspired” cocktails. My company and I, late on Friday, went for the second of two cocktail options – the Chartreuse Milkshake.

    This drink did not actually contain any dairy of which to speak, but it was shaken (not stirred), and had cacao bitters sprinkled atop its foamy surface. The flavours showcased in this drink were orange juice and lime juice with a hint of gin, making a sweet and tangy drink that was very easy to sip.

    Italian doughnuts accompanied the beverage – two large, served-hot, cinnamon-sugar coated doughnuts with some sweet substance drizzled across them and their serving plate. They hit the spot after a long shift that left my blood sugar low!

    Do you like orange juice? Does a sweet-sour combo sound appealing? Is alcohol something you’re into today? Try this stop on Seymour Street.

    See you after a few more hot chocolates!




  • HoChos 5, 6, 7, 8

    Continuing on, the hot chocolate locations become further away from campus, and busy downtown areas and quirky Main Street locations become main stops to find new cocoa flavours and cafe experiences.

    HoCho #5: Praliné Chocolat, Chocolaterie da la Nouvelle France (~$5.75)


    There are four festival beverages offered at Nouvelle this year, and my company and I sampled three of them. My choice was an almond-milk praline drinking chocolate – yes, that is what it sounds like. Chocolate that you drink. More than a chocolate-flavoured milk, this particular half-sized treat of mine was like drinking melted Nutella without the unhealthy components and the high level of dairy. 
    It was thick and smooth without being too heavy on the tongue, and filled me right up – even though it was just a half-sized serving! Luckily, the Main Street area of Vancouver is full of exciting stops, so going for a walk afterward was a good way to wrap up our stop.
    The location itself is tucked away and is very small upon entering – however, what space they do have is almost entirely made of wood and is full of a variety of chocolate powders and confections on display. Each of our beverages was also accompanied by one of three flavours of meringues: chocolate, rose, or maple (my choice).

     HoCho #6: Monkey Manna, East Van Roasters (~$5.00)



    A stop that I particularly enjoyed discovering at last year’s festival was East Van Roasters, and this year they are the recipients of the funds from the festival’s sales! For the first half of the festival, they offer a hot chocolate made with Peruvian drinking chocolate, milk of choice (almond for me!), pink peppercorn and vanilla blended throughout.

    My first sip took me back to last year’s festival with its airy texture and smooth taste – the drink, while comfortably filling, is quite light and does not sit heavy in the mouth. The vanilla was likely a key contributor to the smoothness of the flavour, but the peppercorn added a unique twist that took it from deliciously simple in its flavour to more dynamic, without being too complex.

    If you want a safe toe-dipping into the unique festival flavours, I recommend East Van Roasters for its easy drinking and creative concoctions.

    HoCho #7: Standard dark with almond milk + banana bread, Bella Gelatería (~$7.00)


    Bella Gelatería is usually one of my top recommendations for the festival for its unique blends of gelato, teas, and chocolates in their festival offerings; however, this year they pre-mixed their festival flavours with dairy milk for more efficient distribution, and could not offer an alternative that is dairy-free as I have enjoyed in the past. Their standard hot chocolate with 70% cocoa and almond milk was enjoyable, though I really wish I would have been able to sample some of their Earl Grey or Spiced Rum flavours without a dairy overload!

    If you are not an avoider of the dairy world, it is very likely that – as I have in the past – you will enjoy the amazing selection of gelato treats, To Die For banana bread, and chocolate drinks at B.G.

    HoCho #8: Pandan-a-Cocoa, Gem Chocolates (~$6.00)


    I love visiting Gem Chocolates! It was a pleasure to meet with the owner and founder last year and learn a little bit about his chocolate confectioner journey to greatness (so-called because I believe that is what he has achieved with his delightful shop).
    Green hot chocolate?! 
    Gem changes up the festival flavour each week, and the second week’s blend was flavoured with a grass called pandan and toasted coconut! Remembering me from last year, my drink was made with soy milk, and it turned green because of the pandan grass in it! To imagine what it is, think of lemongrass (it is somewhat similar). 

    The drink comes with a “tropical fruit palette”, which showcases the pandan grass as well as dried mango, chilli flakes, and coconut atop a chocolate disc. I am very excited to try the next two flavours that involve pecan pie (?!) and gingerbread and cinnamon… The salivation has already begun.





     I’ll be back with more soon!

  • 5th Annual Hot Chocolate Festival, 2015 (HoChos 1, 2, 3 & 4)

    HELLO!

    It has been a long time, my friends. A long time.

    The blog has suffered as I have struggled and rejoiced through this fourth year of university. While it is months from being over, the season is currently one of applications, interviews, and planning for the months ahead – it easily feels as though the fourth year of university is already coming to a close for me.

    Thankfully, I am forced to pause at this time once each day to enjoy something that always brings me calm and pleasure…

    Chocolate.

    The 5th Annual Hot Chocolate Festival is back in Vancouver! This year, the festival’s funds are going towards supporting East Van Roasters (link), and they are superb! They make delicious chocolate, beverages, their space is great, and they function on a foundation of helping women in Vancouver’s downtown east side.

    So… The hot chocolate.

    I missed the first actual two days of the festival because I was in Las Vegas (que sera sera), so I caught up as quickly as possible over the next few days.



    HoCho #1: Balsamic Desiderio, Terra Breads ($4.99)

    This hot chocolate was enjoyed in the company of AB the January Vegetarian, while he had the Stollen Kisses hot chocolate (discussed later). Mine was a fairly simple hot chocolate, but was mixed with a balsamic vinegar and decorated with a cocoa balsamic glaze. The sweetness of the chocolate with the tanginess of the balsamic was beautiful, and the cookie was incredibly chewy and delicious. I had mine with almond milk, and that did lighten the texture of the drink from what it would regularly be, I think. I would recommend this if you prefer your sweets to be balanced with a less-sweet flavour. (website)

     HoCho #2: The Lumberjack, 49th Parallel & Lucky’s Doughnuts

    AC’s ‘The Nanaimo Bar’ hot chocolate














    I have been to 49th Parallel in the past, but not for their hot chocolate before – I was (am) excited to see that their two locations near school were participating for the festival this year! Their three offerings included a regular dark hot chocolate with a doughnut of your choice, the Nainamo Bar: dark chocolate with butter icing sweetened milk with a small doughnut on the side, or my choice, The Lumberjack: spicy dark hot chocolate with two maple marshmallows and a chocolate-dipped log. 
    The hot chocolate was light due to the almond milk I requested, and that made the spicy notes stand out amidst the dark chocolate. I did not indulge in the marshmallows much, but could smell their sweet maple flavour. A chocolate-dipped log? It was obviously delicious (but more descriptively, it was flaky and a little bit chewy with sugar and finished nicely with the slowly-melting dark chocolate on the end). (49th website; doughnuts website)

    HoCho #3: Homemade Oreo Hot Chocolate, Butter Baked Goods (~$5.50)







    Butter Baked Goods aren’t about that store-bought way of life – they do things their way in their ovens. These “oreos” are made by BBG and for this cocoa, they crumbled them atop the hot chocolate. Made with soy milk, J and I shared a drink with a delicious miniature cookie on the side (the full-sized ones are about three of this wee bites). The cocoa had crumbs and chocolate chunks throughout the drink as the crumblings fell through the surface – it was creamy, had that magical Oreo-chocolate taste, and was enjoyed in the most adorable of locations! They make an abundance of delicious-looking baked goods, including banana bread, lemon loaves, cake, date squares, brownies, large home-made “Oreos”, and many, many more. It was like sitting down in a doll house, and the service was incredibly friendly. Highly recommended if you enjoy Oreos! (website)

    HoCho #4: Stollen Kisses, Terra Breads ($5.00)

    Back to Terra Breads we go! With 20 minutes before this location closed, our flexibility was minimal to obtain cocoa that day! We rushed from campus to TB and J and I shared the Stollen Kisses flavour, as I had already tried the Balsamic Desiderio.

    Our drink was made with almond milk (a trend, you may have noticed) and was flavoured with a less-dark chocolate and orange spices with almond syrup. It was a dynamic taste experience as the various flavours found their taste buds across the tongue, and was pleasant right until the end! My only concern was the temperature of the drink, which on both Terra Breads occasions was just-warm. However, the smell of the bakery and the tastes of their festival offerings were excellent, and the service is always friendly and warm. Recommended for brunch, lunch, or a sandwich dinner!


    See you next time!
    – K

  • Pumpkin Challenge: Days 30 and 31

    That wonderful moment when I get to say, “the penultimate day” has come and gone.
    Today is the ultimate day of the Pumpkin Challenge (I’m going to go with the 4th annual). 

    My final two days of the Pumpkin Challenge have yielded some of my favourite baking to date! Pumpkin does, almost by default, make things special and delicious; however, these items (with pumpkin in them) turned out really delicious and texture-friendly and lovely anyways! The pumpkin ended up being a bonus, rather than the factor that made them doable (much like the case of the miniature pumpkin tarts of a few days ago).

    Day 31: Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, vegan (Chocolate-Covered Katie)

    Day 31: Pumpkin Scones with chocolate chips, vegan (Feeding My Addiction)

    I have so enjoyed my pumpkin challenge this year! It was a challenge to keep things interesting and different throughout the challenge in terms of food (because I’m sure the blog posts were not always interesting and/or different).

    However, the satisfaction of having made so many new foods and trying so many new techniques has been exciting for me, and I think that I’ve made a few steps forward in my culinary skills!

    Until next year –


  • Pumpkin Challenge: Day 29

    The paleo diet – if a caveman (ahem, cave person) wouldn’t eat it, neither do you!

    If you could hunt for it and find it in the wild, then it’s yours to eat – nuts, seasonal fruits and veggies, meat, seeds, etc. Essentially, it is a “natural” diet, in that you aren’t dealing with agriculturally-produced foods (sorry, pasta).

    This is all information I’ve gathered from the Internet, so take it with a grain of salt (did cave people eat salt?) – but what I am trying to do here, is offer a prelude to today’s pumpkin item:

    Paleo Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes! (recipe) (also vegan!)

    These photos are pretty awful quality (I blame yellowish lighting and decor), but I believe that they capture the essence of what this recipe turned into: A bit of a squishy, but clean and yummy, treat.

    The best part about these was definitely using my mini food processor from Cuisinart! I have only used it twice, but the past two days have been made a whole lot more exciting as a result of it. I described the feeling of using it as a feeling of having a missing piece of my daily life – my mom seems to be okay with this description.

    I added some coconut ice cream to make it more “pie”-like, and I would say it worked! I also ate my samples before they had completely cooled, and this may have contributed to how squishy they were. Currently, they are chilling (literally) in my fridge, and I plan to have another go at them tomorrow.


  • Pumpkin Challenge: Day 28

    Tuesday has been a continuation of the trying to cross out my to-do-list items. Tuesday has been a somewhat back-to-back sort of day.

    Tuesday was a day to combine my consumption challenges into one item!

    A desire to eat something sweet joined forces with a desire to clean out my system and the need to have something pumpkiny, and Simple Green Smoothies answered my call with the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip smoothie.

    The combination of spinach and pumpkin may be deceptive, because the reality is – with the magic of fruit, cocoa powder and almond milk – this smoothie is great!

  • Pumpkin Challenge: Days 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27

    In my defence, the Internet was inaccessible where I stayed this weekend.

    Then Monday was a bit disorganized and required attention to bring order back to my life.
    I don’t have any excuse for how Thursday was left out of the mix.
    Now it is Tuesday, and I can provide an update for each pumpkin item that I did consume over the weekend! It was a yummy weekend for pumpkin things, and a self-care weekend for Katie.
    Thursday the 23rd: Mini Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins (vegan) from: Unknown (my Pinterest wall likely has the recipe somewhere…)
    The week had been long and I felt that chocolate was in order (as per usual). I felt a need for some therapeutic baking to get me through one more week day, and these little muffins hit the spot! I absolutely love miniature baking.

    Friday the 24th: Pumpkin Apple Muffins (vegan) from Minimalist Baker
    Holy moly, these muffins were yummy. I mistakenly “sliced” rather than “diced” the apples for the recipe, so the apple portion of the snack was fairly large, and made the muffins a little gooey while you ate them – but that’s okay! They were light and moist and naturally sweet, and I love oats in most any baked good.

    Saturday the 25th: Pumpkin Pie Steamed Almond Milk from G.I.’s Blue Parrot Cafe
    Since I spent the weekend with my family, I recognized that baking another item during the weekend would be unlikely to be eaten (since my family eats small quantities of everything), so I decided to go for a pumpkin item while I was out, instead. I went to the Blue Parrot Cafe for a nice light steamed almond milk with pumpkin pie flavour!

    Sunday the 26th: Pumpkin Waffles (vegan) from My Darling Vegan
    To celebrate my parents returning from their trip, I decided that some snack-sized waffles for brunch would be appropriate. I found this recipe from My Darling Vegan, and would happily go back! I think I put too much in the waffle-stick maker, because these didn’t fluff up as much as I had hoped, but they tasted delicious, and that’s really all that matters.

    Monday the 27th: Chickpea Pumpkin Fritters (baked) from lunchbox.com
    This recipe had sat on my Pumpkin Challenge board on Pinterest for some time, and I am glad that I finally made it yesterday! This were an easy meal/snack to make, and I have several left over that I can use for sides at lunch/dinner, or for a meal! I bet they would turn into soup, as well…

    This post has been a bit excessive in order to catch up on everything, but I hope you’re still with me – I only have 4 more pumpkin items to go, and I’m still not sick of it!

  • Pumpkin Challenge: Day 22

    Yesterday, as I pulled out my tools for making miniature pumpkin treats, I was met with a surprise:

    My roommate was already going to bake a pumpkin treat!

    Since I was having a moment of academic inspiration, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to keep studying while she took on the mixing and measuring and pumpkin-treat creating.

    The flat was very slowly beginning to smell like pumpkin as the oven did it’s thing, and then all at once, about 20 minutes into the baking process, the whole atmosphere smelled of pumpkin spices and fresh-baked goodness.

    The recipe used for this pumpkin bread was originally for banana bread, this strategy was something that I was going to try myself, but it turned out my roommate got to it before me!

    It was delicious, though, so I might just make my own anyways…

  • Pumpkin Challenge: Day 21

    Today marked a small but exciting event, and since breakfast is the most important/one of my favourite meals of the day, it felt appropriate to start the day off with breakfast being super.

    I do not often eat pancakes, but when I do, the day is either going to be tough, and thus requires a breakfast to counter the struggle ahead, or the day is great and deserves a breakfast that reflects it. This day was going to be an energy struggle, but marked a nice day, and so breakfast needed to be good.

    Thus – vegan pumpkin pancakes. (recipe from Minimalist Baker)