Which chocolate do you like?

[Mezzaluna]

Is Queen of Sheba the same as Reine de Saba that appears in Mastering the Art of French Cooking? (child et al)

[Bayou]

Mezzaluna, I'm not sure that they are the same, though they very well could be. Perhaps someone else familiar with that recipe can help out.

[Isa]

Here's what I found about the reine de Saba cake.

The reine de saba is a chocolate cake, traditionally round. The cake is made of a biscuit dough lighten up with the addition of beaten egg whites. To make a finer cake, it is possible to replace the flour with starch, finely grind almonds or both. The cake is serve cold with a crème anglaise.


Sisi

P.S. Bayou thanks for the info on the cake. I`ll check my old Joy Of Cooking for the recipe.

[shroomgirl]

I picked up sharffen burger NIBS>>>>any suggestions?
got ElRay, Valharona, Callebaut at Whole Foods in New Orleans....chunks of the high percentage stuff.....it will be fun to compare and contrast.

[momoreg]

OOhh, I saw them in a store last week, and they were way overpriced, but I'm so curious to know how flavorful they are on their own. I've had them IN the Scarffen Berger chocolate, but on their own, I'm guessing that you wouldn't want to add it to something that already has a bold flavor. Could they easily be mistaken for coffee bean, because of their texture?

The first idea that I thought of was straciatella gelato, or for that matter, vanilla sorbet with cocoa nibs.

[CompassRose]

Hey, I just dug this thread up from the depths, because I was brooding on this very thing this weekend.

Normally, I use Callebaut chunks (because that's what my local Fancy Food Store sells) and Ghirardelli chips (same reason... actually, I'm kinda ticked right now because apparently they've given up the Ghirardelli and are now stocking Tropic Source, which I am not fond of at all). Anyway, when I went there this weekend, they didn't have any reasonable sizes of Callebaut dark, and it was too busy for me to want to wait in line to have a chunk chopped, so I got Valrhona dark instead. (The other option was Lindt.)

And didn't like it. I found the flavour sort of ... hm, how to describe it? Thin, sharp, and not even terribly chocolatey. I find the Callebaut much richer, somehow.

So what I was wondering, on a related note, is this: I see some people use different brands in one recipe, say, one in the cake and one in the ganache. Why? And what brands? And am I a mutant for not particularly caring for the Big V?

[Suzanne]

Thanks for digging this one up! I've got some Scharffenberger nibs in my freezer, that I usually add to my version of choc. chip cookies. But thanks to Momoreg's post, I may add some to the iced almond milk I made Saturday (when I re-spin it).

[breadster]

C/rose- you are not alone!

i am also not a big V fan

i use CocoaBarry, Van Leer, Callebaut, Carma, and Felchin-

for different things and reasons and i hate El Rey.

[shroomgirl]

My gosh someone pulled up an old thread. interesting to see that in 2 years not alot changes.

[CompassRose]

breadster, can you share? Which one, for which things, and what reasons?

My thoughts were running, you see, on the qualities of the Valrhona. I wondered, even though I am not so keen on eating it, and not that impressed with it in the cake I put it into, whether there might in fact be something in which those qualities would be good...

you know, just as sometimes you want a dry, tannic wine (which actually is what the V reminded me of, in a distant kind of way) and sometimes a mellower, sweeter one.